- Albert Einstein.
- Stephen Hawking.
- Thomas A. Edison.
- Leonardo da
Vinci.
- Albert
Schweitzer.
- Mahatma Gandhi.
- Martin Luther
King.
- Nelson Mandela.
- Edgar Cayce.
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Image: Leonardo da Vinci
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On this page I would like you to present to you some of
my favorite personalities.
That does not mean that I do not admire others. There is
for example the philosopher of old Greece, Plato. But,
there are also all these scientists of the passed and the present who
contributed a lot to make this world that what it is today.
Concerning politicians, monks, and religions, on the other hand, I
prefer not to express my opinion on them, in order to not offend
sensitive hearts. The only man
of religion which deserves, in my eyes, to be mentioned, is Erasmus,
who was pacifist before this word was invented. Another
character who should especially not be forgotten is Archimedes, he
was a sort of Edison of his time. We know he especially
invented the lever, and to have found the specific weight of
elements, then how to determine it.
Sources:
WikiPédia
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein, who was born on March 14, 1879 in Ulm, Württemberg
in Germany, was a German physicist, stateless person into 1896, and
moved to Switzerland in 1899. He became Swiss-American
in 1940, when he escaped the German Nazism.
He published in 1905 the restricted theory of relativity, and in 1905
he published the theory of gravity known as general relativity.
He had largely contributed to the development of quantum mechanics
and cosmology. He received the Nobel Prize of physics in
1921 for his explanation of the photoelectric effect.
His work is in particular known for the equation E=mc ² which
quantifies the supplied energy in the matter.
Albert Einstein was the first child of the couple Hermann Einstein
and his wife Pauline Koch. The young Albert makes two
discoveries: the compass at five years and the scientific rigor
in a book, the Small Bible of the geometry, at thirteen years.
Even if he forsakes religion quickly, it should be noted that
Einstein remained faithful to the lesson of the Judaism, in
particular when it emigrates in years 1920 in the United States to
make the search for profit of the future State of Israel.
He makes his primary and secondary studies in Hochschule d' Aargau,
where he obtains his diploma on September 30, 1896. He
enters to the federal polytechnic School of Zurich (ETH) in 1896.
He binds his friendship with the mathematician Marcel Grossmann, who
will help him later when he is with the catches with the
not-Euclidean geometries. In 1902, he is engaged by the
Office of the patents of Bern, which enables him to live correctly
while working his theories steadily. The situation
darkens in Germany in the years 1920; they trail him in mud like Jew
and pacifist. Albert sees his life threatened.
In 1928, he is named president of the League of the Human rights.
In 1933, he learns that his house in Berlin was plundered by hordes
of Nazis. A little later Hitler arrives at power.
Einstein decides to go to exile.
Einstein dies on April 18, 1 955 of an aneurysms
rupture, his brain is hypertrophied on the left. We will
scatter his ashes in a secret held place, in accordance with his will
but, in spite of his last wills, his brain and his eyes are preserved
by the medical examiner who made his autopsy.
Stephen Hawking.
Stephen W. Hawking, who was born on January 8, 1942 in Oxford, is an
English physicist theorist and cosmologist. His
principal work is related to relative
physics, space time, and quantum theories. The world
fame of S. Hawking is due at the same time to the quality of its
research and its body handicap.
The Hawking young person is not particularly brilliant at the school,
but its taste for the physical sciences leads him to the university
of Oxford, a place of relative trouble from where he leaves with the
honors. The university of Cambridge is a very other
world: on a side, Hawking begins there its enthralling doctorate on
general relativity, other, his disease is declared. In
spite of this difficulty, the recent study of the singularities,
physical and astronomical concept, makes it possible to the
researcher to develop various theories, which will lead him to the
Big-bang and black holes. Initially, Roger Penrose build
the mathematical structure for him to answer the question of
singularity like origin of the Universe. Then, as from
the Seventies, Hawking looks further into his research on the local
infinite densities, and his studies on the black holes made progress
many other fields. Lastly, the theory of the whole,
aiming at unifying the four physical forces, is in the current
research center of Hawking. The goal is to show that the
Universe can be described by a stable mathematical model, determined
by the known physical laws, under the terms of the principle of
finished but not limited growth, model to which Hawking is given much
credit.
His heavy handicap could not only explain his great success of his
research; Hawking sought to popularize its work, and his book, “a
short history of time”, is one of greatest successes of
scientific literature. In 2001 appears his second work,
the universe in a nut shell which popularizes the last state of his
reflexions, by approaching the supergravity and the supersymmetry,
quantum theory and theory-MR., holography and the duality, the theory
of the supercordes and of the p-branes… He also
wonders on the possibility of traveling in
time and about the existence of multiple universes.
Thomas A. Edison.
Thomas Alva Edison, who was born on February 11, 1847 in Milan in
Ohio, was called “the magician of Menlo Park”, is one of
the most important inventors American of the United States.
Founder of General Electric, one of the first world industrial
empires, inventive pioneer of electricity, telephone, cinema and the
recording of the sound, registered 1'093
patents. With his birth, the use of electricity did not
exist, 84 years later, they light the whole world.
Thomas Alva Edison was sun of Samuel Edison, Canadian of Dutch
origin, touch-with-all, second-hand dealer, grocer, real-estate
agent, carpenter, etc and Nancy Elliot Edison, former Canadian
teacher of Scottish origin. He is youngest of a modest
family of seven children. In 1853, 7 years old, his
family settles in Huron Port in Michigan. His teacher,
the reverend Engle, considers him then quickly as hyperactive a
stupid because he is too curious, raises too many questions and does
not learn quickly. After 3 months of class, his offended
mother then decides to make him the school. He
supplements his basic training as a perfect autodidact by devouring
all the science books of his mother.
In 1931 Thomas Edison disappears at the 83 years age on October 18 in
the New Jersey, after having deposited 1'093 patents and employed
more than 35'000 people in his industrial empire which will have made
it possible all planet to adopt electricity. On his site
of West Orange in the New Jersey, close to New York, where he
continued its work endlessly, he had deposited his last patent only
one year before.
Léonardo da Vinci.
Léonard de Vinci, Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci, who was born
on April 15, 1452 in Vinci, was a painter, sculptor, goldsmith,
musician, architect, physicist, astronomer, scientist, geologist,
geometrician, anatomist, botanist, alchemist, inventive visionary,
mechanical engineer and soldier, clock and watch maker, town planner,
and man of science of multidisciplinary and ultra genius Italian
prolific.
Léonard is born of a illegitimate love relation between his
father, Ser Piero da Vinci, notary of the republic and member of rich
notable Italian family, and his mother, Catarina, a humble girl of
peasants, in the small Toscan village of Anchiano (to 2 km of the
village of Vinci, 80 km of Florence, 50 km of Pisa in Italy)
It should be noted that he was born on April 15 from the Julian
calendar, the year when Italy adopts the Gregorian calendar.
At that time modern conventions of name did not develop yet in
Europe. Only the great families make use of the name of
their “tribe” (ex: Lorenzo de' Medici, whose clan had, in
the beginning, to count some doctors). The man of the
people is designated by his first name with which we associated any
useful precision: the name of the father, the place of origin, a
nickname (Botticelli), the name of the Master for a craftsman (Andrea
del Verrocchio), and other. Consequently, the name of
the artist is Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci, which means Leonardo,
sun of Piero Master of Vinci.
It is in 1570 that Francesco Melzi, who preserved the heritage of
Léonardo da Vinci all his life, died, without publishing it.
On this date begins the dispersion and the loss of two
thirds of the 50'000 multidisciplinary original documents compiled in
old Tuscan, encrypted by Léonard de Vinci. Each
notebook, manuscript, page, sketch, drawing, text, note, etc are
regarded as a work of art to whole share. There would approximately
remain only 13'000 documents, including one major part is filed in
the Vatican.
Léonardo da Vinci, died to him on May 2, 1519 in Amboise,
after having made his will on April 23 in front of the notary of
Amboise. Sick since long months, Léonardo da
Vinci is carried by the disease at the Lucé Field at the age
67 years. Vasari, his first biographer, claims that he
died in the arms of François Ier but that is
disputed. His tomb is located at the Saint-Hubert vault,
in the enclosure of the castle of Amboise. Léonardo
da Vinci had an unmarried and abstemious life, had neither woman nor
child, bequeathed the whole of his considerable work to make them
publish. His manuscripts, notebooks, documents and
instruments were offered to his preferred disciple, Francesco Melzi.
Melzi was its pupil since the 10 years age.
Albert Schweitzer.
Albert Schweitzer, who was born on January 14, 1875 in Kaysersberg
(Haut-Rhin) in 1875, shortly after the annexation of Alsace by the
German empire, was a theologist, musician, philosopher and Alsatian
doctor, Goethe price prize winner in 1928 and Nobel Prize of peace in
1952.
He passes his childhood in Gunsbach where his father is Pastor.
He is initiated very early with music and plays of the parochial
organ as of the nine years age. He spends his years of
secondary studies to Mulhouse from 1885 to 1893 and obtains his
master degree in 1893 before coming to Paris to study philosophy and
the music. He continues then studies of theology and
philosophy at the University of Strasbourg, known at that time under
the name of Kaiser-Wilhelm-Universität. He passes
his doctorate at the religious Philosophy of Kant in 1899, in
Tubingue which was then stronghold of the liberal theologists, the
conservatives were preferring Heidelberg. With 30 years
age, answering a call of the Company of the evangelic missions of
Paris which was seeking voluntary doctors, he begins studies of
medicine and share in Gabon (in French equatorial Africa) in order to
serve others. He founds in Lambaréné a
bush hospital which makes him famous in the whole world.
He frequently went back to Europe, where he gave conferences and
played of the organ recitals, which brought him the necessary funds.
He was a personal friend of the Élisabeth queen
of Belgium. It was in 1953, that he received the Nobel
Prize of peace 1952, and it was there that a great number of Alsatian
discovered suddenly that they were his friends. Albert
Schweitzer died in Lambaréné into 1 965.
Mahatma Gandhi.
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, who was born October 2, 1869 in
Porbandar, Goujerat, was a great political and spiritual leader of
India, and leader of the movement for the independence of India.
He was a pioneer and a theorist of Satyagraha resistance to tyranny
through the civil disobedience of the mass. The whole
based on the ahimsa (total non-violence), which led India to
independence, and inspired by many movements of freedom and civic
rights around the world.
Gandhi is commonly known and called in India and in the world like
Mahatma Gandhi (of the Sanskrit, Mahatma: great heart) and like Bapu
(Father in much of languages of India). Gandhi stated to
feel unworthy of the name Mahatma in his autobiography.
Lawyer, having made his studies in England, Gandhi developed a method
of non-violent fight by organizing the fight of the Indian community
for his civic rights in South Africa. He employed there
in particular for the first time the method of civil disobedience.
On his return in India, Gandhi organized the poor farmers and workers
to protest against the crushing taxes and wide discrimination and
carried on the national scene the fight against the colonial laws
created by the British. Become the leading one of the
Indian national Congress, Gandhi led a national campaign for the
assistance to the poor, the Indian Women's Liberation, fraternity
between the communities of various religions or ethic groups, for an
end of the intouchability and discrimination of the castes, for the
economic self-sufficiency of the nation, but especially for Swaraj,
the independence of India of any foreign domination.
On January 30, 1948, on the way towards a meeting of prayer, Gandhi
is shot down close to Birla House, in New Delhi, by Nathuram Godse, a
radical Hindu who has bonds with the extremist Hindu group Mahasabha.
Godse held Gandhi responsible for the weakening of India
by paying its debt to Pakistan. Godse and its accomplice
Narayan Apte are considered and condemned to death, what has been
carried out on November 15, 1949.
Martin Luther King.
The reverend Martin Luther King Jr, who was born in Atlanta on
January 15, 1929, was Baptist pastor and a Afro-American militant for
civic rights. He organized and directed steps for the
voting rights, desegregation, the use of the minorities, and other
civic rights elementary for the American blacks (afros-American).
The majority of these rights were promoted by the American law “Civil
Rights Act” and “Voting Rights Act” under the
impulse of Lyndon B. Johnson. He is especially known for
its speech “I have a dream”, pronounced on August 28,
1963 in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington during the walk
for employment and freedom. He meets John F. Kennedy who
gave him a great support for the fight against racial discrimination.
His determination, his eloquence, his charisma were used
to fight the injustice whose population Afro-American was victim.
He is assassinated on April 4, 1968 with 6 p.m. 01 at age of 39 years
on the balcony fo the Lorraine Motel in Memphis in Tennessee, by
preparing a local walk intended to support the trade union of black
workmen of the hygiene of the city, which was then in strike.
The assassination is the cause of a vague main road riots in more
than 60 cities. Four days later, President Lyndon
Johnson states one day of mourning national for the chief of Civic
rights. It was the first Black for which a national
mourning was declared in the United States. The same
day, a crowd of 300'000 people attend the burial. After
his death, it is his right-arm, Ralph Abernathy, who takes the head
of Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) that Martin Luther
King directed.
Nelson Mandela.
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, born on July 18, 1918 in Mvezo in the old
Bantustan of Transkei in the east of the Cape Province (current
Cape-Eastern), is a former president of South Africa and one of the
leaders of the fight against apartheid. In 1993, he
receives with the South-African president of that time, Frederik
Willem de Klerk, the Nobel Prize of peace for their actions in favor
of the end of apartheid and the establishment of the democracy in the
country. He is, following this combat and with that
which he currently carries out against AIDS, a listened personality,
particularly in Africa.
According to the Xhosa habit, he is initiated at sixteen years age
and continues successfully his studies in Clarkebury Boarding
Institute. He obtains his school certificate in two
years (instead of three usually). In 1934, Mandela
registered with the College Wesleyan of Fort Beaufort.
Graduate, he joined the university of Strong Hare where he becomes
acquainted with Oliver Tambo, who becomes his friend and colleague.
At the end of his first year, member of the council
representative of the students, he is implied in the boycott of the
university payment. He then thrown out of the
university. Following a not desired arranged marriage,
he flees to Johannesburg where he passes his degree by correspondence
of the University of South Africa (UNISA) and starts then the studies
of right at the university of Witwatersrand. It is in
1942 that Nelson Mandela joined the African national Congress (ANC),
member of the International Socialist, in order to fight against the
political domination of the white minority. In 1944,
with Walter Sisulu and Oliver Tambo, he melts the most dynamic league
of youth of the ANC. With the general elections of 1948,
the victory of the national Party Afrikaner involves the installation
of its new policy which was called apartheid.
He was imprisoned in 1962 then condemned to five years of prison in
1963, and after a lawsuit where he disputed the justice of apartheid,
condemned to detention with perpetuity in 1964 because of his
clandestine political activities. Becoming one of the
most famous former political prisoners of the last years.
He was partly released on December 7, 1988 and put under house
arrest. On July 5, 1989, he meets in the Cape president
Pieter Botha. He was definitively released on February
11, 1990 on order of Frederik de Klerk who, for political reasons,
who put an end to the clandestinely of the
ANC, and requested him to maintain peace civil in South Africa.
The two men worked together to found the end of apartheid and an
transitional arrangement.
Following the first democratic elections of April 27, 1994, gained
largely by the ANC, Nelson Mandela is elected President of the
Republic of South Africa and lends oath in Pretoria on May 10, 1994
in front of all the international political gotha, of Al Gore with
Fidel Castro.
Edgar Cayce.
Edgar Cayce, who was born in a country family on March 18, 1877,
close to Beverly, eleven kilometers in the South of Hopkinsville in
the state of Kentucky, is sometimes regarded as the “sleeping
prophet” and one of the “greater mystics” of
America. During “readings”, entering in
trance, he answered questions related to an individual.
These “readings” evoked, at the beginning, physical
health. Then, the councils diversify and are related to
the former lives, interpretations of dreams, phenomena psychic,
mental health, meditation, prayer, spiritual development but also
trade, and Atlantis. He remains known for parts of his
work which regarded as most important, such as care (the large
majority of its “readings” were made for people who were
sick) or Christian theology (Cayce was was all its life member of
the “Disciples of Christ”, a Protestant church).
He could be at the origin of the idea that California will be one day
“submerged”. Although he lived before the
emergence of New Age, he had a great influence on certain ideas of
this movement.
According to the French author Louis Pauwels, who reports his
biography “Le Matin des magiciens” (1960, Gallimard
editions), that Cayce is a very simple man, of weak cultural
education, able in a state of sleep to prescribe the medical solution
of any disease. This gift would come owing to the fact
that at the 5 years age a disease projected it in the coma.
In this state he gave then to his doctor, with high voice, the cause
of his state and the type of cataplasm which should be applied to
him. Since, in a state of “trance”, he will
prescribe a treatment for the diseases that one will subject to him.
It is known as that he predicted the day and the hour of
his death, victim of an incurable disease which he did not want to
indicate.
Edgar Cayce died on January 3, 1945, in Virginia Beach, leaving more
than 10'000 readings. His principal merit is that he was
able to direct of people towards a cure, because able to say where
and how to cure.
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