The Science Book

by Clifford A Pickover

  Eggs, such as this one-week-old chicken egg, are candled to observe the development of a chick or duck embryo and veins. Candling is performed in a darkened room with the egg perched on a light.

  1829

  Blood Transfusion • Clifford A. Pickover

  James Blundell (1791–1878), Karl Landsteiner (1868–1943)

  “The history of blood transfusion is a fascinating story and is marked by alternating periods of intense enthusiasm and periods of disillusionment, more so than the introduction of any other therapeutic measure,” writes the surgeon Raymond Hurt. “Its full potential was not achieved until the discovery of blood groups and introduction of a satisfactory anticoagulant.”

  Blood transfusion often refers to the transfer of blood, or blood components, from one person to another in order to combat blood loss during trauma or surgery. Transfusions of blood may also be required during the treatment of various diseases such as hemophilia and sickle-cell anemia.

  Various animal-to-animal blood transfusions, as well as animal-to-human transfusions, had been attempted in the 1600s in Europe. However, the English obstetrician James Blundell is credited with the first successful transfusion of blood from one human to another. Not only did he begin to place the art of transfusion on a scientific basis, he reawakened interest in a procedure that was generally quite unsafe. In 1818, Blundell had used several donors to transfuse a man dying from stomach cancer, but the man died about two days later. In 1829, through the use of a syringe, he transfused blood from a husband to his wife, who was bleeding heavily after giving birth. She happily survived, representing the first successful documented transfusion.

  Blundell soon came to realize that many transfusions led to kidney damage and death. It was not until around 1900 that Austrian physician Karl Landsteiner discovered three blood groups—A, B, and O—and found that transfusion between people with the same blood group usually led to safe transfusions. A fourth blood type, AB, was discovered shortly thereafter. The development of electrical refrigeration led to the first “blood banks” in the mid-1930s. After the Rh blood factor was discovered in 1939, dangerous blood-transfusion reactions became rare.

  Transfusions have sometimes been limited due to prejudice. For example, in the 1950s, Louisiana made it a crime for physicians to give a white person “black blood” without obtaining prior permission.

  SEE ALSO Circulatory System (1628), Cell Division (1855), Heart Transplant (1967).

  Hand-colored engraved image, The Transfusion of Blood—An Operation at the Hôpital de la Pitié (1874), by Miranda, from Harper’s Weekly.

  1829

  Non-Euclidean Geometry • Clifford A. Pickover

  Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky (1792–1856), János Bolyai (1802–1860), Georg Friedrich Bernhard Riemann (1826–1866)

  Since the time of Euclid (c. 325–270 BCE), the so-called parallel postulate seemed to reasonably describe how our three-dimensional world works. According to this postulate, given a straight line and a point not on that line, in their plane only one straight line through the point exists that never intersects the original line.

  Over time, the formulations of non-Euclidean geometry, in which this postulate does not hold, have had dramatic consequences. Einstein said about non-Euclidean geometry: “To this interpretation of geometry, I attach great importance, for should I have not been acquainted with it, I never would have been able to develop the theory of relativity.” In fact, Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity represents space-time as a non-Euclidean geometry in which space-time actually warps, or curves, near gravitating bodies such as the sun and planets. This can be visualized by imagining a bowling ball sinking into a rubber sheet. If you were to place a marble into the depression formed by the stretched rubber sheet, and give the marble a sideways push, it would orbit the bowling ball for a while, like a planet orbiting the sun.

  In 1829, Russian mathematician Nicolai Lobachevsky published On the Principles of Geometry, in which he imagined a perfectly consistent geometry that results from assuming that the parallel postulate is false. Several years earlier, Hungarian mathematician János Bolyai had worked on a similar non-Euclidean geometry, but his publication was delayed until 1832. In 1854, German mathematician Bernhard Riemann generalized the findings of Bolyai and Lobachevsky by showing that various non-Euclidean geometries are possible, given the appropriative number of dimensions. Riemann once remarked, “The value of non-Euclidean geometry lies in its ability to liberate us from preconceived ideas in preparation for the time when exploration of physical laws might demand some geometry other than the Euclidean.” His prediction was realized later with Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity.

  SEE ALSO Euclid’s Elements (c. 300 BCE), Descartes’ La Géométrie (1637), Projective Geometry (1639), Riemann Hypothesis (1859).

  One form of non-Euclidean geometry is exemplified by Jos Leys’s hyperbolic tiling. Artist M. C. Escher also experimented with non-Euclidean geometries in which the entire universe could be compressed and represented in a finite disk.

  1831

  Cell Nucleus • Michael C. Gerald with Gloria E. Gerald

  Antonie van Leeuwenhoek (1632–1723), Franz Bauer (1758–1840), Robert Brown (1773–1858), Matthias Schleiden (1804–1881), Oscar Hertwig (1849–1922), Albert Einstein (1879–1955)

  During the 1670s, the Dutch microscopist Antonie van Leeuwenhoek was the first to see a world previously unknown, which included the fibers of a muscle, bacteria, sperm cells, and the nucleus in the red blood cell of salmon. The next reported sighting of a cell nucleus was in 1802 by Franz Bauer, an Austrian microscopist and botanical artist. However, credit for its discovery is generally assigned to the Scottish botanist Robert Brown. When studying the epidermis (outer layer) of an orchid, he saw an opaque spot that was also present during an early stage of pollen formation; he called this spot a nucleus. Brown first described its appearance to his colleagues at a meeting of the Linnean Society of London in 1831 and published his findings two years later. Both Brown and Bauer thought that the nucleus was a cell structure that was unique to monocots, a plant group that includes orchids. In 1838, the German botanist Matthias Schleiden, the co-discoverer of the cell theory, first recognized the connection between the nucleus and cell division, and in 1877, Oscar Hertwig demonstrated its role in fertilization of the egg.

  CARRIER OF GENETIC MATERIAL. The nucleus, the largest organelle within the cell, contains chromosomes and deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), and regulates cell metabolism, cell division, gene expression, and protein synthesis. The nuclear envelope—a double membrane surrounding the nucleus and separating it from the rest of the cell—is in continuity with the rough endoplasmic reticulum, the site of protein synthesis.

  At the time of his 1831 discovery, Brown was an established botanist. Earlier in his career, from 1801–1805, he collected 3,400 species of plants while in Australia and described and published reports of 1,200 of these. In 1827, he reported on microscopic pollen grains (and later other particles) moving continuously and randomly through a liquid or gas medium colliding with one another. An explanation of this Brownian motion came in 1905, when Albert Einstein explained that it resulted from molecules of water that were not visible hitting visible pollen grain molecules.

  SEE ALSO Micrographia (1665), Discovery of Sperm (1678), Cell Division (1855), Chromosomal Theory of Inheritance (1902), Ribosomes (1955).

  Artistic depiction of the interior of an animal cell, featuring its various organelles. The nucleus is represented in purple at the back of the image, and it contains the nucleolus (depicted as a smaller internal sphere) and chromatin fibers (DNA, protein, and RNA).

  1831

  Darwin and the Voyages of the Beagle • Michael C. Gerald with Gloria E. Gerald

  Charles Darwin (1809–1882)

  There is little to suggest that prior to 1859, Charles Darwin would rank among the most important biologists, and that his Origin of Species (1859) perhaps would be the most significant book wri
tten on science. His father was a financially and socially successful physician, and his mother was the daughter of Josiah Wedgwood, founder of the pottery company bearing his family name. Charles’s grandfather was Erasmus Darwin, a distinguished eighteenth-century intellectual. Neither his year of medical studies nor his bachelor’s studies at Cambridge were marked with distinction. His time was spent exploring nature and hunting.

  Captain Robert FitzRoy was looking for a “gentleman passenger” who could serve as a recorder and collector of biological samples on a five-year voyage of the HMS Beagle that was intended to circumnavigate the globe, with emphasis on charting the South American coastline. The twenty-two-year-old Darwin was selected for this unpaid position because of his keen interest in the natural sciences but, as important, he could serve as a socially equal companion to the captain who was but four years his senior. When Darwin set sail in 1831, he shared the belief of most Europeans in the divine creation of the world and the unchanging nature of its inhabitants.

  When not seasick, Darwin was diligently observing and collecting animals, marine invertebrates, insects, and fossils of extinct animals. He also experienced an earthquake in Chile. The most memorable segment of his voyage was the five weeks he spent on the Galápagos Islands, ten volcanic islands some 600 miles (1,000 kilometers) west of Ecuador. Among his many collectables were four mockingbirds caught on four islands; he noted that each was different. He also brought back to England fourteen finches whose beaks differed in size and shape. When Darwin returned to England in 1835, he was a well-recognized naturalist, a reputation enhanced by his presentations, papers, and a popular work entitled Journal of Researches (renamed The Voyage of the Beagle).

  SEE ALSO Linnaean Classification of Species (1735), Fossil Record and Evolution (1836), Darwin’s Theory of Natural Section (1859).

  Topographical and bathymetric map of the Galápagos Islands, located west of Ecuador, where Darwin found fourteen finches whose beaks were different in size and shape—an observation that proved to be a major building block in his theory of natural selection (1859).

  1831

  Faraday’s Laws of Induction • Clifford A. Pickover

  Michael Faraday (1791–1867)

  “Michael Faraday was born in the year that Mozart died,” Professor David Goodling writes. “Faraday’s achievement is a lot less accessible than Mozart’s [but . . .] Faraday’s contributions to modern life and culture are just as great. . . . His discoveries of . . . magnetic induction laid the foundations for modern electrical technology . . . and made a framework for unified field theories of electricity, magnetism, and light.”

  English scientist Michael Faraday’s greatest discovery was that of electromagnetic induction. In 1831, he noticed that when he moved a magnet through a stationary coil of wire, he always produced an electric current in the wire. The induced electromotive force was equal to the rate of change of the magnetic flux. American scientist Joseph Henry (1797–1878) carried out similar experiments. Today, this induction phenomenon plays a crucial role in electric power plants.

  Faraday also found that if he moved a wire loop near a stationary permanent magnet, a current flowed in the wire whenever it moved. When Faraday experimented with an electromagnet and caused the magnetic field surrounding the electromagnet to change, he then detected electric current flow in a nearby but separate wire.

  Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell (1831–1879) later suggested that changing the magnetic flux produced an electric field that not only caused electrons to flow in a nearby wire, but that the field also existed in space—even in the absence of electric charges. Maxwell expressed the change in magnetic flux and its relation to the induced electromotive force (ε or emf) in what we call Faraday’s Law of Induction. The magnitude of the emf induced in a circuit is proportional to the rate of change of the magnetic flux impinging on the circuit.

  Faraday believed that God sustained the universe and that he was doing God’s will to reveal truth through careful experiments and through his colleagues, who tested and built upon his results. He accepted every word of the Bible as literal truth, but meticulous experiments were essential in this world before any other kind of assertion could be accepted.

  SEE ALSO Ampère’s Law of Electromagnetism (1825), Maxwell’s Equations (1861), Power Grid (1878).

  LEFT: Photograph of Michael Faraday (c. 1861) by John Watkins (1823–1874). RIGHT: A dynamo, or electrical generator, from G. W. de Tunzelmann’s Electricity in Modern Life, 1889. Power stations usually rely on a generator with rotating elements that convert mechanical energy into electrical energy through relative motions between a magnetic field and an electrical conductor.

  1836

  Fossil Record and Evolution • Michael C. Gerald with Gloria E. Gerald

  Georges Cuvier (1769–1832), Richard Owen (1804–1892), Charles Darwin (1809–1882)

  Prior to the nineteenth century, uncovered fossilized skeletal remains appeared to differ rather abruptly and dramatically in form and without apparent intermediate transitions. This was widely interpreted as support of creationism and the view that no animal species had ever become extinct. When Cuvier studied fossilized mammalian skeletons in 1796, he rejected the concept of evolution. By contrast, analogous fossilized skeletons were one of the major linchpins Darwin used when formulating his theory of evolution.

  Georges Cuvier, the great French naturalist-zoologist, combined his knowledge of paleontology with his expertise in comparative anatomy when comparing the fossilized remains of mammals with their living counterparts. In 1796, Cuvier presented two papers; one comparing living elephants with extinct mammoths and, in the other, the giant sloth and the extinct Megatherium found in Paraguay. His findings and many of the geological features of the earth, he believed, could best be explained by several catastrophic events, causing the extinction of many animal species and followed by successive creations. He was a major proponent of catastrophism and highly critical of evolution.

  Charles Darwin’s voyage on the Beagle in the early 1830s took him to Patagonia, where he found the fossilized remains of mastodons, Megatheria, horses, and the large armadillo-like Glyptodons. Upon returning to England in 1836, Darwin took the fossils and his detailed notes to anatomist Richard Owen. Owen determined that these remains were more closely related to living mammals in South America than anywhere else. (He later rejected Darwin’s theory of natural selection.) In his Origin of Species (1859), Darwin noted the importance of these fossils and acknowledged that while “missing links” or transitional forms between the fossilized and living forms might never be found, and represented the greatest objection to his conclusions, nevertheless, the evidence strongly supported his theory of evolution. In 2012, a collection of 314 fossil slides collected by Darwin and his peers were rediscovered in a corner of the British Geological Survey, after being lost for more than 150 years.

  SEE ALSO Linnaean Classification of Species (1735), Darwin’s Theory of Natural Section (1859), Radiocarbon Dating (1949).

  The first discoveries of fossil remains of extinct mammals in the 1790s challenged support for the concept that living organisms were unchanged since the time of creation. This image is of an ammonite, an extinct marine invertebrate classified as a mollusk, whose name was inspired by tightly coiled rams’ horns.

  1837

  Nitrogen Cycle and Plant Chemistry • Michael C. Gerald with Gloria E. Gerald

  Jean-Baptiste Boussingault (1802–1887), Hermann Hellriegel (1831–1895), Martinus Beijerinck (1851–1931)

  Discovered in 1772, nitrogen constitutes some 78 percent of the earth’s atmosphere—four times that of oxygen—and is an essential component of amino acids, proteins, and nucleic acids. Through a series of mutually beneficial interrelationships, nitrogen in decomposing plant and animal material is made available as a soluble plant nutrient and then converted to a gaseous form and returned to the atmosphere.

  That nitrogen must be reduced (fixed before use) by plants or animals was
determined by the French agricultural chemist Jean-Baptiste Boussingault. From 1834 to 1876, at his farm in Alsace, France, he established the world’s first agricultural research station, applying chemical experimental methods to the fields. Boussingault also determined the nature of nitrogen’s movement between plants, animals, and the physical environment, and studied such related problems as soil fertilization, crop rotation, plant and soil fixation of nitrogen, ammonia in rainwater, and nitrification.

  In 1837, Boussingault disproved the general belief that plants absorbed nitrogen directly from the atmosphere and showed that they did so from the soil as nitrates. The following year, he discovered that nitrogen was essential for both plants and animals, and that both herbivores and carnivores obtain their nitrogen from plants. His chemical findings laid the foundation for our current understanding of the nitrogen cycle.

  In 1888, the German agricultural chemist Hermann Hellriegel and the Dutch botanist and microbiologist Martinus Beijerinck independently discovered the mechanism by which leguminous plants utilize atmospheric nitrogen (N2) and soil microbes convert it to ammonia (NH3), nitrates (NO3), and nitrites (NO2). Symbiotic (mutualistic) nitrogen-fixing bacteria, such as Rhizobium, acting in plants of the legume family—including soybeans, alfalfa, kudzu, peas, beans, and peanuts—enter the root hairs of the root system of the plant, multiply, and stimulate the formation of root nodules. Within the nodules, the bacteria convert nitrogen to nitrates, which are utilized for growth by the legumes. When the plant dies, the fixed nitrogen is released, making it available for use by other plants, and thereby fertilizing the soil.