1.
Raton, New Mexico
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Raton is a city and the county seat of Colfax County in northeastern New Mexico. The city is located just south of Raton Pass, ratón is the Spanish term for mouse. The Raton Range and Raton Peak are located north of the town. The Raton Range is a 75-mile-long ridge that extends east from the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, Raton Pass and the Raton Basin are also named for the Raton Range. Raton Pass had been used by Spanish explorers and Indians for centuries to cut through the rugged Rocky Mountains, the post office at this location was named Willow Springs from 1877 to 1879, Otero from 1879 to 1880, then renamed Raton in 1880. Raton was founded at the site of Willow Springs, a stop on the Santa Fe Trail, the original 320 acres for the Raton townsite were purchased from the Maxwell Land Grant in 1880. In 1879, the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway bought a local toll road, Raton quickly developed as a railroad, mining and ranching center for the northeast part of the New Mexico territory, as well as the county seat and principal trading center of the area. The city is mentioned in Jack Kerouacs novel On the Road, Raton is located at 36°53′49″N 104°26′24″W. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has an area of 8.0 square miles. Raton is one of the sites for viewing the K-T Boundary, also known as the K-Pg Boundary or Cretaceous-Paleogene Boundary. There is a sequence of rocks spanning the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary in Climax Canyon Park. Geographic Coordinates, 36°54′13. 99″N 104°27′0. 75″W The rocks have been studied for evidence of the iridium anomaly cited as evidence of a meteorite impact at the end of the Cretaceous. It is interpreted to have caused the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event which killed off non-avian dinosaurs, as well as other species of flora. The K-T Boundary is represented in the rock strata by a 1-cm thick tonstein clay layer which has found to contain anomalously high concentrations of iridium. As of the census of 2000, there were 7,282 people,3,035 households, the population density was 992.4 people per square mile. There were 3,472 housing units at a density of 473.2 per square mile. The racial makeup of the city was 78. 04% White,0. 23% African American,1. 59% Native American,0. 40% Asian,0. 01% Pacific Islander,16. 19% from other races, and 3. 53% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 56. 96% of the population,30. 6% of all households were made up of individuals and 14. 1% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older
2.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
3.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, often cited as one of the worlds most prestigious universities. Researchers worked on computers, radar, and inertial guidance during World War II, post-war defense research contributed to the rapid expansion of the faculty and campus under James Killian. The current 168-acre campus opened in 1916 and extends over 1 mile along the bank of the Charles River basin. The Institute is traditionally known for its research and education in the sciences and engineering, and more recently in biology, economics, linguistics. Air Force and 6 Fields Medalists have been affiliated with MIT, the school has a strong entrepreneurial culture, and the aggregated revenues of companies founded by MIT alumni would rank as the eleventh-largest economy in the world. In 1859, a proposal was submitted to the Massachusetts General Court to use newly filled lands in Back Bay, Boston for a Conservatory of Art and Science, but the proposal failed. A charter for the incorporation of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Rogers, a professor from the University of Virginia, wanted to establish an institution to address rapid scientific and technological advances. The Rogers Plan reflected the German research university model, emphasizing an independent faculty engaged in research, as well as instruction oriented around seminars, two days after the charter was issued, the first battle of the Civil War broke out. After a long delay through the war years, MITs first classes were held in the Mercantile Building in Boston in 1865, in 1863 under the same act, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts founded the Massachusetts Agricultural College, which developed as the University of Massachusetts Amherst. In 1866, the proceeds from sales went toward new buildings in the Back Bay. MIT was informally called Boston Tech, the institute adopted the European polytechnic university model and emphasized laboratory instruction from an early date. Despite chronic financial problems, the institute saw growth in the last two decades of the 19th century under President Francis Amasa Walker. Programs in electrical, chemical, marine, and sanitary engineering were introduced, new buildings were built, the curriculum drifted to a vocational emphasis, with less focus on theoretical science. The fledgling school still suffered from chronic financial shortages which diverted the attention of the MIT leadership, during these Boston Tech years, MIT faculty and alumni rebuffed Harvard University president Charles W. Eliots repeated attempts to merge MIT with Harvard Colleges Lawrence Scientific School. There would be at least six attempts to absorb MIT into Harvard, in its cramped Back Bay location, MIT could not afford to expand its overcrowded facilities, driving a desperate search for a new campus and funding. Eventually the MIT Corporation approved an agreement to merge with Harvard, over the vehement objections of MIT faculty, students. However, a 1917 decision by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court effectively put an end to the merger scheme, the neoclassical New Technology campus was designed by William W. Bosworth and had been funded largely by anonymous donations from a mysterious Mr. Smith, starting in 1912. In January 1920, the donor was revealed to be the industrialist George Eastman of Rochester, New York, who had invented methods of production and processing
4.
Stanford University
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Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California, adjacent to Palo Alto and between San Jose and San Francisco. Its 8, 180-acre campus is one of the largest in the United States, Stanford also has land and facilities elsewhere. The university was founded in 1885 by Leland and Jane Stanford in memory of their only child, Stanford was a former Governor of California and U. S. Senator, he made his fortune as a railroad tycoon. The school admitted its first students 125 years ago on October 1,1891, Stanford University struggled financially after Leland Stanfords death in 1893 and again after much of the campus was damaged by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Following World War II, Provost Frederick Terman supported faculty and graduates entrepreneurialism to build self-sufficient local industry in what would later be known as Silicon Valley. The university is one of the top fundraising institutions in the country. There are three schools that have both undergraduate and graduate students and another four professional schools. Students compete in 36 varsity sports, and the university is one of two institutions in the Division I FBS Pac-12 Conference. Stanford faculty and alumni have founded a number of companies that produce more than $2.7 trillion in annual revenue. It is the alma mater of 30 living billionaires,17 astronauts and it is also one of the leading producers of members of the United States Congress. Sixty Nobel laureates and seven Fields Medalists have been affiliated with Stanford as students, alumni, Stanford University was founded in 1885 by Leland and Jane Stanford, dedicated to Leland Stanford Jr, their only child. The institution opened in 1891 on Stanfords previous Palo Alto farm, despite being impacted by earthquakes in both 1906 and 1989, the campus was rebuilt each time. In 1919, The Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace was started by Herbert Hoover to preserve artifacts related to World War I, the Stanford Medical Center, completed in 1959, is a teaching hospital with over 800 beds. The SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, which was established in 1962, in 2008, 60% of this land remained undeveloped. Besides the central campus described below, the university also operates at more remote locations, some elsewhere on the main campus. Stanfords main campus includes a place within unincorporated Santa Clara County. The campus also includes land in unincorporated San Mateo County, as well as in the city limits of Menlo Park, Woodside. The academic central campus is adjacent to Palo Alto, bounded by El Camino Real, Stanford Avenue, Junipero Serra Boulevard, the United States Postal Service has assigned it two ZIP codes,94305 for campus mail and 94309 for P. O. box mail
5.
Duke University
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Duke University is an American private research university located in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the town of Trinity in 1838. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James Buchanan Duke established The Duke Endowment, at time the institution changed its name to honor his deceased father. Dukes campus spans over 8,600 acres on three campuses in Durham as well as a marine lab in Beaufort. The main campus—designed largely by architect Julian Abele—incorporates Gothic architecture with the 210-foot Duke Chapel at the campus center, the first-year-populated East Campus contains Georgian-style architecture, while the main Gothic-style West Campus 1.5 miles away is adjacent to the Medical Center. Duke is the seventh-wealthiest private university in America with $11.4 billion in cash, Dukes research expenditures in the 2015 fiscal year were $1.037 billion, the seventh largest in the nation. In 2014, Thomson Reuters named 32 of Dukes professors to its list of Highly Cited Researchers, Duke also ranks fifth among national universities to have produced Rhodes, Marshall, Truman, Goldwater, and Udall Scholars. Ten Nobel laureates and three Turing Award winners are affiliated with the university, Dukes sports teams compete in the Atlantic Coast Conference and the basketball team is renowned for having won five NCAA Mens Division I Basketball Championships, most recently in 2015. Duke is consistently included among the best universities in the world by numerous university rankings, according to a Forbes study, Duke is ranked 11th among universities that have produced billionaires. Duke started in 1838 as Browns Schoolhouse, a subscription school founded in Randolph County in the present-day town of Trinity. Organized by the Union Institute Society, a group of Methodists and Quakers, the academy was renamed Normal College in 1851 and then Trinity College in 1859 because of support from the Methodist Church. Carr donated land in 1892 for the original Durham campus, which is now known as East Campus, in 1924 Washington Dukes son, James B. Duke, established The Duke Endowment with a $40 million trust fund, income from the fund was to be distributed to hospitals, orphanages, the Methodist Church, and four colleges. Duke thought the change would come off as self-serving. Money from the endowment allowed the University to grow quickly, Dukes original campus, East Campus, was rebuilt from 1925 to 1927 with Georgian-style buildings. By 1930, the majority of the Collegiate Gothic-style buildings on the one mile west were completed. In 1878, Trinity awarded A. B. degrees to three sisters—Mary, Persis, and Theresa Giles—who had studied both with private tutors and in classes with men. With the relocation of the college in 1892, the Board of Trustees voted to allow women to be formally admitted to classes as day students
6.
University of California, Berkeley
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The University of California, Berkeley, is a public research university located in Berkeley, California. In 1960s, UC Berkeley was particularly noted for the Free Speech Movement as well as the Anti-Vietnam War Movement led by its students. S, Department of Energy, and is home to many world-renowned research institutes and organizations including Mathematical Sciences Research Institute and Space Sciences Laboratory. Faculty member J. R. Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb, Lawrence Livermore Lab also discovered or co-discovered six chemical elements. The Academic Ranking of World Universities also ranks the University of California, Berkeley, third in the world overall, in 1866, the private College of California purchased the land comprising the current Berkeley campus. Ten faculty members and almost 40 students made up the new University of California when it opened in Oakland in 1869, billings was a trustee of the College of California and suggested that the college be named in honor of the Anglo-Irish philosopher George Berkeley. In 1870, Henry Durant, the founder of the College of California, with the completion of North and South Halls in 1873, the university relocated to its Berkeley location with 167 male and 22 female students and held its first classes. In 1905, the University Farm was established near Sacramento, ultimately becoming the University of California, by the 1920s, the number of campus buildings had grown substantially, and included twenty structures designed by architect John Galen Howard. Robert Gordon Sproul served as president from 1930 to 1958, by 1942, the American Council on Education ranked UC Berkeley second only to Harvard University in the number of distinguished departments. During World War II, following Glenn Seaborgs then-secret discovery of plutonium, UC Berkeley physics professor J. Robert Oppenheimer was named scientific head of the Manhattan Project in 1942. Along with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley is now a partner in managing two other labs, Los Alamos National Laboratory and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, originally, military training was compulsory for male undergraduates, and Berkeley housed an armory for that purpose. In 1917, Berkeleys ROTC program was established, and its School of Military Aeronautics trained future pilots, including Jimmy Doolittle, both Robert McNamara and Frederick C. Weyand graduated from UC Berkeleys ROTC program, earning B. A. degrees in 1937 and 1938, in 1926, future fleet admiral Chester W. Nimitz established the first Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps unit at Berkeley. The Board of Regents ended compulsory military training at Berkeley in 1962, during the McCarthy era in 1949, the Board of Regents adopted an anti-communist loyalty oath. A number of faculty members objected and were dismissed, ten years passed before they were reinstated with back pay, in 1952, the University of California became an entity separate from the Berkeley campus. Each campus was given autonomy and its own Chancellor. Then-president Sproul assumed presidency of the entire University of California system, Berkeley gained a reputation for student activism in the 1960s with the Free Speech Movement of 1964 and opposition to the Vietnam War. In the highly publicized Peoples Park protest in 1969, students and the school conflicted over use of a plot of land, then governor of California Ronald Reagan called the Berkeley campus a haven for communist sympathizers, protesters, and sex deviants. Modern students at Berkeley are less active, with a greater percentage of moderates and conservatives
7.
Doctor of Philosophy
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A Doctor of Philosophy is a type of doctoral degree awarded by universities in many countries. Ph. D. s are awarded for a range of programs in the sciences, engineering. The Ph. D. is a degree in many fields. The completion of a Ph. D. is often a requirement for employment as a university professor, researcher, individuals with an earned doctorate can use the title of Doctor with their name and use the post-nominal letters Ph. D. The requirements to earn a Ph. D. degree vary considerably according to the country, institution, a person who attains a doctorate of philosophy is automatically awarded the academic title of doctor. A student attaining this level may be granted a Candidate of Philosophy degree at some institutions. A Ph. D. candidate must submit a project, thesis or dissertation often consisting of a body of academic research. In many countries, a candidate must defend this work before a panel of examiners appointed by the university. Universities award other types of doctorates besides the Ph. D. such as the Doctor of Musical Arts, a degree for music performers and the Doctor of Education, in 2016, ELIA launched The Florence Principles on the Doctorate in the Arts. The Florence Principles have been endorsed are supported also by AEC, CILECT, CUMULUS, the degree is abbreviated PhD, from the Latin Philosophiae Doctor, pronounced as three separate letters. In the universities of Medieval Europe, study was organized in four faculties, the faculty of arts. All of these faculties awarded intermediate degrees and final degrees, the doctorates in the higher faculties were quite different from the current Ph. D. degree in that they were awarded for advanced scholarship, not original research. No dissertation or original work was required, only lengthy residency requirements, besides these degrees, there was the licentiate. According to Keith Allan Noble, the first doctoral degree was awarded in medieval Paris around 1150, the doctorate of philosophy developed in Germany as the terminal Teachers credential in the 17th century. Typically, upon completion, the candidate undergoes an oral examination, always public, starting in 2016, in Ukraine Doctor of Philosophy is the highest education level and the first science degree. PhD is awarded in recognition of a contribution to scientific knowledge. A PhD degree is a prerequisite for heading a university department in Ukraine, upon completion of a PhD, a PhD holder can elect to continue his studies and get a post-doctoral degree called Doctor of Sciences, which is the second and the highest science degree in Ukraine. Scandinavian countries were among the early adopters of a known as a doctorate of philosophy
8.
Aziz Sancar
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Aziz Sancar is a Turkish-American biochemist and molecular biologist specializing in DNA repair, cell cycle checkpoints, and circadian clock. In 2015, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry along with Tomas Lindahl and he has made contributions on photolyase and nucleotide excision repair in bacteria that have changed his field. He is the co-founder of the Aziz & Gwen Sancar Foundation and his oldest brother, Kenan Sancar is a retired Brigadier-General of the Turkish Armed Forces. He is the cousin of HDP Mardin deputy Mithat Sancar and he was the seventh of eight children. His parents were illiterate, however, they put emphasis on education. He was educated by teachers who received their education in the Village Institutes. Throughout his school life, Sancar had great success that was noted by his teachers. He wanted to study chemistry whilst at school, but was persuaded to study medicine after five of his classmates also got into medicine along with him. As such, he studied medicine at the Faculty of Medicine of Istanbul University, in an interview, Sancar stated that in his youth, he was nationalist but he didnt participate in activities. Sancar received his primary education near his hometown of Savur, Aziz Sancar is honorary member of the Turkish Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. After graduating from Istanbul University, Sancar returned to Savur, although he wanted to go to the United States, he was recommended to try out being a doctor and he worked as a doctor in the region for 1.5 years. He only spoke French when he arrived in the US but learned English during his education at Johns Hopkins. Soon after, he wrote to Rupert, who had involved in the discovery of DNA repair and was at Johns Hopkins during Sancars time there but had since moved to the University of Texas at Dallas. He was accepted and completed his PhD in molecular biology there and his interest had been stimulated by the recovery of bacteria, which had been exposed to deadly amounts of ultraviolet radiation, upon their illumination with blue light. In 1976, as part of his dissertation, he managed to replicate the gene for photolyase. After completing his PhD, Sancar had three rejected applications for positions and then took up work at Yale University as a laboratory technician. He worked at Yale for five years, here, he started his field-changing work on nucleotide excision repair, another DNA mechanism that works in the dark. He has stated that his accent of English was detrimental to his career as a lecturer, at Chapel Hill, Sancar discovered the following steps of nucleotide excision repair in bacteria and worked on the more complex version of this repair mechanism in humans
9.
Croatia
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Croatia, officially the Republic of Croatia, is a sovereign state between Central Europe, Southeast Europe, and the Mediterranean. Its capital city is Zagreb, which one of the countrys primary subdivisions. Croatia covers 56,594 square kilometres and has diverse, mostly continental, Croatias Adriatic Sea coast contains more than a thousand islands. The countrys population is 4.28 million, most of whom are Croats, the Croats arrived in the area of present-day Croatia during the early part of the 7th century AD. They organised the state into two duchies by the 9th century, tomislav became the first king by 925, elevating Croatia to the status of a kingdom. The Kingdom of Croatia retained its sovereignty for nearly two centuries, reaching its peak during the rule of Kings Petar Krešimir IV and Dmitar Zvonimir, Croatia entered a personal union with Hungary in 1102. In 1527, faced with Ottoman conquest, the Croatian Parliament elected Ferdinand I of the House of Habsburg to the Croatian throne. In 1918, after World War I, Croatia was included in the unrecognized State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs which seceded from Austria-Hungary, a fascist Croatian puppet state backed by Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany existed during World War II. After the war, Croatia became a member and a federal constituent of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. On 25 June 1991 Croatia declared independence, which came wholly into effect on 8 October of the same year, the Croatian War of Independence was fought successfully during the four years following the declaration. A unitary state, Croatia is a republic governed under a parliamentary system, the International Monetary Fund classified Croatia as an emerging and developing economy, and the World Bank identified it as a high-income economy. Croatia is a member of the European Union, United Nations, the Council of Europe, NATO, the World Trade Organization, the service sector dominates Croatias economy, followed by the industrial sector and agriculture. Tourism is a significant source of revenue during the summer, with Croatia ranked the 18th most popular tourist destination in the world, the state controls a part of the economy, with substantial government expenditure. The European Union is Croatias most important trading partner, since 2000, the Croatian government constantly invests in infrastructure, especially transport routes and facilities along the Pan-European corridors. Internal sources produce a significant portion of energy in Croatia, the rest is imported, the origin of the name is uncertain, but is thought to be a Gothic or Indo-Aryan term assigned to a Slavic tribe. The oldest preserved record of the Croatian ethnonym *xъrvatъ is of variable stem, the first attestation of the Latin term is attributed to a charter of Duke Trpimir from the year 852. The original is lost, and just a 1568 copy is preserved—leading to doubts over the authenticity of the claim, the oldest preserved stone inscription is the 9th-century Branimir Inscription, where Duke Branimir is styled as Dux Cruatorvm. The inscription is not believed to be dated accurately, but is likely to be from during the period of 879–892, the area known as Croatia today was inhabited throughout the prehistoric period
10.
Nobel Prize
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The Nobel Prize is a set of annual international awards bestowed in a number of categories by Swedish and Norwegian institutions in recognition of academic, cultural, or scientific advances. The will of the Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel established the prizes in 1895, the prizes in Chemistry, Literature, Peace, Physics, and Physiology or Medicine were first awarded in 1901. Medals made before 1980 were struck in 23 carat gold, between 1901 and 2016, the Nobel Prizes and the Prize in Economic Sciences were awarded 579 times to 911 people and organisations. With some receiving the Nobel Prize more than once, this makes a total of 23 organisations, the prize ceremonies take place annually in Stockholm, Sweden. Each recipient, or laureate, receives a medal, a diploma. The Nobel Prize is widely regarded as the most prestigious award available in the fields of literature, medicine, physics, chemistry, peace, and economics. The prize is not awarded posthumously, however, if a person is awarded a prize and dies before receiving it, though the average number of laureates per prize increased substantially during the 20th century, a prize may not be shared among more than three people. Alfred Nobel was born on 21 October 1833 in Stockholm, Sweden and he was a chemist, engineer, and inventor. In 1894, Nobel purchased the Bofors iron and steel mill and this invention was a precursor to many smokeless military explosives, especially the British smokeless powder cordite. As a consequence of his patent claims, Nobel was eventually involved in a patent infringement lawsuit over cordite, Nobel amassed a fortune during his lifetime, with most of his wealth from his 355 inventions, of which dynamite is the most famous. In 1888, Nobel was astonished to read his own obituary, titled The merchant of death is dead, as it was Alfreds brother Ludvig who had died, the obituary was eight years premature. The article disconcerted Nobel and made him apprehensive about how he would be remembered and this inspired him to change his will. On 10 December 1896, Alfred Nobel died in his villa in San Remo, Italy, Nobel wrote several wills during his lifetime. He composed the last over a year before he died, signing it at the Swedish–Norwegian Club in Paris on 27 November 1895, Nobel bequeathed 94% of his total assets,31 million SEK, to establish the five Nobel Prizes. Because of skepticism surrounding the will, it was not until 26 April 1897 that it was approved by the Storting in Norway. The executors of Nobels will, Ragnar Sohlman and Rudolf Lilljequist, formed the Nobel Foundation to take care of Nobels fortune, Nobels instructions named a Norwegian Nobel Committee to award the Peace Prize, the members of whom were appointed shortly after the will was approved in April 1897. Soon thereafter, the other prize-awarding organisations were designated or established and these were Karolinska Institutet on 7 June, the Swedish Academy on 9 June, and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on 11 June. The Nobel Foundation reached an agreement on guidelines for how the prizes should be awarded, and, in 1900, in 1905, the personal union between Sweden and Norway was dissolved
11.
Svante Arrhenius
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Svante August Arrhenius was a Nobel-Prize winning Swedish scientist, originally a physicist, but often referred to as a chemist, and one of the founders of the science of physical chemistry. He received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1903, becoming the first Swedish Nobel laureate, Arrhenius was born on 19 February 1859 at Vik, near Uppsala, Sweden, the son of Svante Gustav and Carolina Thunberg Arrhenius. His father had been a surveyor for Uppsala University, moving up to a supervisory position. At the age of three, Arrhenius taught himself to read without the encouragement of his parents, and by watching his fathers addition of numbers in his account books, in later life, Arrhenius enjoyed using masses of data to discover mathematical relationships and laws. At age eight, he entered the cathedral school, starting in the fifth grade, distinguishing himself in physics and mathematics. His work focused on the conductivities of electrolytes, in 1884, based on this work, he submitted a 150-page dissertation on electrolytic conductivity to Uppsala for the doctorate. It did not impress the professors, among whom was Cleve, and he received a fourth-class degree, later, extensions of this very work would earn him the 1903 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Arrhenius put forth 56 theses in his 1884 dissertation, most of which would still be accepted today unchanged or with minor modifications, Arrhenius explanation was that in forming a solution, the salt disassociates into charged particles. Faradays belief had been that ions were produced in the process of electrolysis, Arrhenius proposed that, even in the absence of an electric current and he thus proposed that chemical reactions in solution were reactions between ions. They were far more impressed, and Ostwald even came to Uppsala to persuade Arrhenius to join his research team, Arrhenius declined, however, as he preferred to stay in Sweden for a while and had received an appointment at Uppsala. In an extension of his ionic theory Arrhenius proposed definitions for acids and bases and he believed that acids were substances that produce hydrogen ions in solution and that bases were substances that produce hydroxide ions in solution. The Arrhenius equation gives the basis of the relationship between the activation energy and the rate at which a reaction proceeds. In 1891 he became a lecturer at the Stockholm University College, being promoted to professor of physics in 1895, and rector in 1896. He was married twice, first to his former pupil Sofia Rudbeck, with whom he had one son Olof Arrhenius, about 1900, Arrhenius became involved in setting up the Nobel Institutes and the Nobel Prizes. He was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1901, for the rest of his life, he would be a member of the Nobel Committee on Physics and a de facto member of the Nobel Committee on Chemistry. He used his positions to arrange prizes for his friends and to attempt to deny them to his enemies, in 1901 Arrhenius was elected to the Swedish Academy of Sciences, against strong opposition. In 1903 he became the first Swede to be awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry, in 1905, upon the founding of the Nobel Institute for Physical Research at Stockholm, he was appointed rector of the institute, the position where he remained until retirement in 1927. He was elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society in 1910, in 1911 he won the first Willard Gibbs Award
12.
William Ramsay
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After the two men identified argon, Ramsay investigated other atmospheric gases. His work in isolating argon, helium, neon, krypton and xenon led to the development of a new section of the periodic table, Ramsay was born in Glasgow on 2 October 1852, the son of civil engineer William Ramsay and Catherine, née Robertson. He was a nephew of the geologist Sir Andrew Ramsay, Ramsay went back to Glasgow as Andersons assistant at the Anderson College. He was appointed as Professor of Chemistry at the University College of Bristol in 1879, in the same year he became the Principal of University College, Bristol, and somehow managed to combine that with active research both in organic chemistry and on gases. In 1887 he succeeded Alexander Williamson as the chair of Chemistry at University College London and it was here at UCL that his most celebrated discoveries were made. As early as 1885–1890 he published notable papers on the oxides of nitrogen. On the evening of 19 April 1894 Ramsay attended a lecture given by Lord Rayleigh, Rayleigh had noticed a discrepancy between the density of nitrogen made by chemical synthesis and nitrogen isolated from the air by removal of the other known components. After a short conversation he and Ramsay decided to follow this up, by August, Ramsay could write to Rayleigh to announce that he had isolated a heavy component of air, previously unknown, which did not appear to have any obvious chemical reactivity. He named the gas, which is inert, with the Greek word for lazy, in the following years, working with Morris Travers, he discovered neon, krypton, and xenon. He also isolated helium which had observed in the spectrum of the sun but had not been found on earth. In 1910 he also made and characterized radon, in 1904 Ramsay received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Ramsays high standing in scientific circles led to him being an adviser in the setting up the Indian Institute of Science and he suggested Bangalore as the most appropriate location for the institute. The corporation bought property along the English coast to implement the process, but the company quickly faded from public view. Ramsay was the president of the British Association in 1911–1912, Ramsay was married to Margaret Johnstone Marshall and had a daughter, Catherine Elizabeth and a son, William George, who died at 40. Ramsay lived in Hazlemere, Buckinghamshire until his death and he died in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, on 23 July 1916 from nasal cancer at the age of 63 and was buried in Hazlemere Parish church. A blue plaque at number 12 Arundel Gardens, Notting Hill, commemorates his life, the Sir William Ramsay School in Hazlemere, and the Ramsay grease, are named after him. Clan Ramsay Secondary sources Morris Travers, the Life of Sir William Ramsay. Argon and the Non-Inert Pair, Rayleigh and Ramsay, argon, a New Constituent of the Atmosphere
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