Question 1)
According to Ede and Cormack, what was the impact of Napoleon's reign on the development of scientific and technical training in France?
Napoleon's reign included a refocusing to the education of the masses, including educating women. He centralized and standardized the education system with a focus on language. Napoleon believed in women’s education, to a point. He permitted the reestablishment of the Catholic elementary schools that educated boys and girls. Napoleon’s priority was secondary education however. In this area, he saw to standards not only for students but also for teachers and the curriculum. This was in part done to make France more independent and a sector of the education process was devoted to education young men who were intending to pursue military careers. Other educational areas that were emphasized as career orientated were languages, rhetoric and philosophy; military education would stress mathematics, physics and chemistry.
This had the result of creating a competent military and an increasingly successful middle class. It also developed a sense of patriotism and connectedness throughout the citizenry and a sense of unity that care about from a standardization of the common language. The addition of a series of institutions of higher education resulted in the furtherance of the nation’s scientific research. This resulted in significant developments in the discovery of chemical substitutes for naturally occurring minerals. This increased the nation’s the ability to manufacture weapons and assemble materials of war without relying on imported raw materials. In particular the salt petre that was used in the production of gunpowder.
This expansion of chemistry in France led to The establishment of the school system has another wide reaching effect, French institutions of higher education caught the interest of foreign students and researchers who began to turn from Britten to France to study and perform research. That afforded the nation with not just their own educated minds but American, British and European researchers as well At one time Britton was the worlds educationally dominant nation however they began to fail when they could not “match the support and scope of technical and science training in France and Germany.”
Question 4)
What was Dmitri Mendeleev's major contribution to chemistry? How did his work resolve problems arising in various branches of chemistry up to that point? What underlying philosophy of matter was represented by Mendeleev's periodic table?
Dmitri Mendeleev's major contribution to chemistry was his central role in developing the periodic table. He discovered a pattern in some of the attributes of certain elements then realized that this repetition of qualities appeared periodically, as the elements got heavier. This repetition of qualities and weight became the basis for his arrangement of the original periodic table of elements. .
Mendeleev's periodic table displayed this pattern in a series of rows and columns that represented the formal arrangement and the visual display of Mendeleev’s concept. This related to his realization that each element was made up of one single unique atom that had specific properties.
Question 25)
According to Hunt, what was the significance of Mendeleev's periodic table?
Mendeleev's periodic table was significant in that it helped establish the relationship between conductive and non-conductive materials. It also aided in determining which materials would be most effective in use or telegraph cables.
Question 15)
Who was Fritz Haber, and what role did he play in bridging science and industry?
Fritz Haber was born on December 9, 1868 in Breslau, Germany. He studied chemistry at the University of Heidelberg under Bunsen from 1886 until 1891. He also studied at the Technical School at Charlottenburg under Liebermann. Upon completing University studies he worked first in his father’s basement and under Professor Georg Lunge at the Institute of Technology at Zurich. He maintained a series of positions and by the time of the outbreak of WWII was the Director of the Institute for Physical and Electrochemistry at Berlin-Dahlem, The outbreak of the war and Nazi laws forced his staff to resign and he did so as well, closing his laboratory and moving to Cambridge, England, then to Switzerland for health reasons. He published a textbook on Electrochemistry in 1898 in which he promised to relate chemical research to industrial processes and in the same year he reported the results of his work on electrolytic oxidation and reduction, in which he showed that definite reduction products can result if the potential at the cathode is kept constant. His explanation of the reduction of nitrobenzene in stages at the cathode became the model for other similar reduction processes. That led to the establishment of the quinone-hydroquinone equilibrium at the cathode. He did additional work regarding the loss of energy by steam engines, turbines and motors driven by fuels, and attempted to use electro chemistry to limit their loss. .
Question 16)
Who was Lise Meitner? Discuss the significance of her contribution to nuclear physics.
Lise Meitner born in Vienna, Austria, on November 7, 1878. Meitner studied at University of Vienna and remained in that city to work on radioactivity with Stephen Meyer. She next went to Berlin to study with Planck and studied at the University of Berlin under A.W. Hoffmann Needing a laboratory for her experimental work, she teamed up with Otto Hahn, who needed physicist work with him on the chemistry of radioactivity. Subsequently she joined the Kaiser-Wilhelm Institut für Chemie .She also worked with Planck. The outbreak of WWI interrupted this work. After the war she was established as the head of the physics department of the Kaiser-Wilhelm Institut and maintained a connection with the University of Berlin. She also resumed her work with Hahn. .
She made a significant contribution to nuclear physics when she got strange results from the Uranium atom when her bombardment of neutrons was tried on its atoms. She realized the atom was emitting radioactive energy. Lise Meitner, working with Otto Hahn concluded that isotope 135 of the Uranium atom caused the strange observations. She reasoned that the isotope had an unstable structure. Meitner and Hahn named the process fission and it is one the largest discoveries in science. .
Question 19)
The Manhattan Project started at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, in 1942 and was the United States’ effort to build an atom bomb during World War II. The tests in Oak Ridge were to separate the rare Uranium-235 (U-235) an unstable isotope from Uranium-238 (U-238).
The code name "Manhattan Project" referred to Manhattan Engineer District of the US Army Corps of Engineers, in New York City where most of the research was done.
Leslie Grove's was given the task to build the industrial facilities needed to separate the small amounts of rare uranium-235, uranium-238 and plutonium needed for a bomb. He saw to the construction of facilities on an isolated mesa at Los Alamos, New Mexico. Although this project employed nearly 129,000 people. However, Neils Bohr, Joseph Carter, Glen Seaborg, Enrico Fermi, Richard Feynman, and Albert Einstein were the major contributors. .
Question 4)
Briefly outline Weismann's theory of heredity.
The main importance of Weismann’s theory is that it asserts that characteristics acquired after birth are not passed to the next generation. In order to prove this, he cut the tails off rats and then mated the tailless rats together. When the offspring still had tails, it provided the evidence that the physical condition of having no tail was not linked to the then tailless parents. This left natural selection and genetic coding existing at birth the exclusive the explanation for biological evolution. .
Question 13)
What was "Social Darwinism" and who was one if its major promoters?
Social Darwinism as an ethical theory propounded by Herbert Spencer. He was an elitist who asserted a school of thought in which "might makes right." His theories predated the time when Darwin published his theory. However, once they were published Spencer quickly adapted Darwinian Theory and used it to promote his own ethical theories. These concepts revolved around his claims that the rich and powerful were better adapted to the social and economic climate of the time. Therefore, it was natural, and correct for the strong to thrive at the expense of the weak and only reflected nature. This was then further extended to promote the theory that it was morally incorrect to help weaker people. This was because it would be encourage them to survive and reproduce.
Question 32)
Describe the role played by the United States Atomic Energy Commission in supporting ecological research.
The United States Atomic Energy Commission was formed to find peacetime uses for atomic energy. Part of the reason for this was to reduce the nation’s dependence on coal and oil fueled energy plants. In the course of performing their duties they focused upon atomic energies role in supporting sound ecological policy.
Bibliography
Ede, A, and L B Cormack. 2012. A History of Science in society: From Philosophy to Utility. 2nd.
—. n.d. "HIST 3905 EL 10, History of Science, course manual ,." A History of Science in society: From Philosophy to Utility. Laurentian UIniveristy.
Hunt, Bruce. n.d. Doing Science in a Gobal Empire: Cable Teegraphy and Elecrical Physics in Victorian Britain.
