Physical Sciences

Nikola Tesla was born a subject of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1856 in a mountainous area of the Balkan Peninsula known as Lika. His father Milutin, and his mother Djuka, were both Serbian by origin. Tesla's father was a stern but loving Orthodox priest, who was also a gifted writer and poet. At a young age, Tesla immersed himself in his father's library. Tesla's mother was a hard working woman of many talents who created appliances to help with home and farm responsibilities. One of these was a mechanical eggbeater. Tesla attributed all of his inventive instincts to his mother.

(Adapted from a Caltech commencement address given in 1974; HTML'ed from the book "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!")

During the Middle Ages there were all kinds of crazy ideas, such as that a piece of rhinoceros horn would increase potency. Then a method was discovered for separating the ideas -- which was to try one to see if it worked, and if it didn't work, to eliminate it. This method became organized, of course, into science. And it developed very well, so that we are now in the scientific age. It is such a scientific age, in fact, that we have difficulty in understanding how witch doctors could ever have existed, when nothing that they proposed ever really worked -- or very little of it did.

Despite his relative obscurity, the greatest genius of all time may have been Nikola Tesla. With over 700 patents in his name, Tesla shaped our current technological landscape more than any other individual. How, then, did this great man end up dying destitute and in obscurity? Did Tesla's extraordinary mind decline into insanity... or was he simply far, far ahead of his time?

In this epic-length series, ParaScope takes a look at the early life and bizarre eccentricities of the great inventor, and his hard-fought first victory with the alternating current engine.

This transcript of the classic talk that Richard Feynman gave on December 29th 1959 at the annual meeting of the American Physical Society at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) was first published in the February 1960 issue of Caltech's Engineering and Science, which owns the copyright. It has been made available on the web at http://www.zyvex.com/nanotech/feynman.html with their kind permission.

A great American printer and publisher, author, inventor, scientist and diplomat, Benjamin Franklin stands in the front rank of the people who built the United States. He is the only person to sign the four key documents in American history: the Declaration of Independence, the Treaty of Alliance with France, the Treaty of Peace with Great Britain, and the Constitution of the United States. He was the leader of his day in the study of electricity, and is one of the most revered and beloved figures in American history.

Tesla Memorial Society of New York is celebrating its 25th anniversary. It was founded in Buffalo, New York in 1979. It is the oldest Tesla society in North America dedicated to keeping the memory of Nikola Tesla alive. We are committed to the pursuit of science, progress and brotherhood among all nations and religions around the world.

This web site is dedicated to Richard P. Feynman, scientist, teacher, raconteur, and musician. He assisted in the development of the atomic bomb, expanded the understanding of quantumelectrodynamics, translated Mayan hieroglyphics, and cut to the heart of the Challenger disaster. But beyond all of that, Richard Feynman was a unique and multi-faceted individual. Feel free to explore this site to find out about Feynman, what he was and why he remains one of the most celebrated and revered scientists of modern times.

Einstein was born on March 14, 1879, in Ulm, Württemberg, Germany. He was the son of Hermann and Paulina Koch Einstein. When Einstein was five years old, his father showed him a pocket compass. Little boy genius was deeply impressed by the mysterious behavior of the compass needle, which kept pointing in the same direction no matter which way the compass was turned. He later said he felt then that "something deeply hidden had to be behind things."

The Niels Bohr Institute (NBI) is a part of the Niels Bohr Institute for Astronomy, Physics and Geophysics, University of Copenhagen, and shares premises in the city with the Nordic Institute for Theoretical Physics (Nordita), which has programs in condensed matter and astrophysics in addition to the subjects listed below. Most experimental activity takes place at CERN, Brookhaven, and DESY as well as other facilities in Europe and overseas.
The NBI has a long tradition of international collaboration and is a meeting ground for scientists from all over the world. Short term visitors at the NBI number more than 150 per year, not including participants in the many symposia, workshops, and schools arranged each year. As a result, the NBI has the infrastructure needed to care for many foreign visitors and has a network of international contacts with the nearly 2000 physicists who have spent longer periods at the NBI and Nordita. The scientific staff at the NBI now comprises 25 permanent scientists, about 25 temporary scientists including long-term visitors, and 21 Ph.D. students.