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Joseph Fraunhofer: The Father of Modern Astronomy
When we think of astronomy, we think of this: a person studying the position of the stars with a telescope, but in the mid-1800s until the mid-1900s most astronomy was more like this: studying the image of the different frequencies of stars from a photograph made with a telescope and a diffraction grating or prism. …
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The Discovery of Alpha, Beta, and Gamma Rays
In this video I am going to talk about the three major types of nuclear radiation: alpha, beta and gamma, distinguished by how powerful they are, alpha being easier to block then beta which is easier to block than gamma. There are quite a few videos about what these radiations are but almost nothing on…
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Radioactivity: Etymology/History and Physics
In July of 1898, Marie Sklodoska Curie and her husband Pierre Curie published the discovery of a new substance they called Polonium by declaring that they had found “Une nouvelle substance radio-active” (yeah, I got bad grades in French class, why do you ask) which is translated as“a new radio-active substance[i]”. This is actually the…
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Where did The Name “Battery” Originate
So, why is this thing called a battery and what does it have to do with a military battery which is a group of missiles or cannons? From shocking jars to Volta and beyond. Table of Contents Franklin’s Battery of Leyden Jars Laura and Giuseppe’s Study Volta’s Invention: “The Galvanic Battery” References Franklin’s Battery of…
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How Niels Bohr Mathematically Derived His Model
I just made a video about the personal history of Niels Bohr and how he made his model and when I was done, I was asked to make a video showing mathematically in detail how Bohr derived the position, energy, and, most importantly, the frequency of light created for an electron in an atom. So…
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Niel Bohr’s Nuclear Model: The Nuclear Model That Changed Physics
Niel Bohr said that before 1913 no one expected that the lines of color you get from burning hydrogen would tell you anything about physics even though the colors follow a pattern. Just like butterflies have patterns with the colors on their wings, “but nobody thought that one could get the basis of biology from…
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The Atomic Meeting of 1941 in Copenhagen
The Atomic Meeting of 1941 in Copenhagen. In the fall of 1941, the scientist Carl Fredrich von Weizsäcker wrote a secret report to Hitler’s army about his and Werner Heisenberg’s visit to Niels Bohr in Nazi occupied Copenhagen: “The technical extraction of energy from uranium fission is not being worked on in Copenhagen…. Obviously, Professor…
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Why Werner Heisenberg Worked for Hitler
In June of 1939, 37-year-old Werner Heisenberg went on a tour of America for a cosmic-ray symposium, and everywhere he went everyone wanted to know why, why, why was he staying in Germany? Heisenberg was no obvious anti-Semite, in fact, he had lost most of his friends, mentors and students to Hitler’s anti-Semitism and had…
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How Max Planck Fought The Nazis
Was Max Planck a fundamentally decent man who actually confronted Hitler and tried his best to thwart the damage inflicted by the fascist regime, especially towards Jewish scientists? Yes! Was Planck also complicit in the Nazi regime of terror by capitulating to Hitler’s demands and convincing others of the futility of protest? Yes! How can…
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Max Planck’s Quantum Theory
In December of 1900, a conservative German scientist named Max Planck wrote a paper that included, according to the Nobel Prize winning Physicist Max Born, “the most revolutionary idea which ever has shaken physics.[i]” For in this paper Planck assumed that light came in little energy packets. Why did he do this and why was…