Laws of Nature

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Laws of Nature

• Scientists learn more about the Universe by discovering the natural laws that govern the behaviour of matter & energy and the relationship between them.
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Greatest Scientists

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Occam’s Razor
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Occam’s Razor

• an English philosopher, William of Occam established the guiding rules/laws behind the natural laws.
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• known as Occam’s Razor. (Razor = proceed to simpler theories until simplicity can be traded for greater explanatory power, also the simplest available theory need not be most accurate.)
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• Born:
  – 1285
  – Ockham Civil Parish, Borough of Guildford, Surrey, England (map)
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• Died:
  – 10th April 1347
  – Munich, Germany
  – Aged 62
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• Buried:
  William of Ockham is buried in a tomb at the Kirche St. Anna Catholic Church, in Munich, Germany. (map)

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BSL Version
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• Brief explaining about Greatest Scientists
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Sir Isaac Newton

• in addition of his law of universal gravitation to establish three laws of motion that govern the movement of all objects larger than an atom, unless they are moving at close to the speed of light.
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• Born:
  – 4th January 1643
  – Woolsthorpe Manor House,
  – near Grantham, Lincolnshire, England
  – (map / website / book a visit)
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• Died:
  – 31st March 1727
  – Kensington, London, UK
  – Aged 84
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• Buried:
  – Westminster Abbey, London, UK (map)
  – (see photo below)
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• Blue Plague
  – Sir Isaac Newton’s Blue Plague in London (map)
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Isaac Newton, one of the most influential scientists in history, was buried at Westminster Abbey on March 28, 1727. He passed away in his sleep on March 20th of the same year. A large funeral ceremony was conducted, attended by many dignitaries and scholars.

Albert Einstein

• theory of relativity extended Newton’s laws to include objects that are moving at near-light speed, that matter can be transformed into energy according to the famous equation E=mc2 (E=energy / m= mass / c= speed of light).
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• Born:
  – 14th March 1879
  – Bahnhofstrasse 20, Ulm, Germany (map)
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• Died:
  – 18th April 1955
  – New Jersey, United State of America
  – Aged 76
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• Buried:
  he was not buried. He has no grave. He was cremated and his ashes were scattered on the grounds of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, USA. (map)
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• Blue Plague
  – Sir Isaac Newton’s Blue Plague in London, England (map)
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James Clerk Maxwell

• four mathematical equations invented by a Scottish physicist described a remarkable development with electricity & magnetism, and were used to come up with the creation of the electromagnetic spectrum.
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• Born:
  – 13th June 1831
  – 14 India Street, Edinburgh, Scotland
  – (birthplace virtual tour / map)
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• Died:
  – 5th November 1879
  – Cambridge, England
  – Aged 48
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• Buried:
  He is buried in the churchyard at Parton in Kirkcudbright, Scotland. (photo / map)
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• Awarded:
  1854 – 2nd Wrangler and First Smith’s Prize
  1854 – (Trinity College, Cambridge)
  1857 – Adams Prize
  1860 – Rumford Medal of Royal Society
  1861 – Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS)
  1870 – LL.D. University of Edinburgh Keith Prize
  1870 – (Royal Society of Edinburgh)
  
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Subramanyan Chandrasekhar

• in 1931, an Indian astronomer proved that no white dwarf star could have a mass of more than 1.4 times the mass of our Sun, he created that any stars exceed this mass will explode as supernovae rather than shrink to become white dwarf stars.
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• Born:
  – 19th October 1910
  – Lahore, Lahore District, Punjab, India (now in Pakistan).
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• Died:
  – died of heart failure on 21st August 1995 at the University of Chicago Hospitals.
  – Chicago, Cook County, Illinois, United State of America
  – Aged 84
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• Buried:
  He was buried in Chicago without naming a cemetery.
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• Nobel Prize Recipient:
  He received world-wide acclaim after being awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1983.
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Edwin Powell Hubble

• an American astronomer proved that Hubble’s law, first stated in 1929, the speed at which galaxies appear to be moving away from us is related measurement to its distance – most distant galaxies are moving the fastest.
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• Born:
  – 20th November 1889
  – Marshfield, Missouri, United State of America
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• Died:
  – died of cerebral thrombosis (a spontaneous blood clot in his brain) on 28th September 1953.
  – San Marino, California, United State of America
  – Aged 63
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• Buried:
  No funeral was held for him, and his wife, Grace never revealed his burial site.
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• Discovered:
  In 1929, Edwin Hubble provided the first observational evidence for the universe having a finite age. Using the largest telescope of the time, he discovered that the more distant a galaxy is from us, the faster it appears to be receding into space. This means that the universe is expanding uniformly in all directions.
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