In Part I of this three-part series on Einstein we focused on his biography and on some of the life experiences that shaped his personality and intellect. It is time now to make the effort to understand the meaning and significance of his scientific contribution.

The best place to start is Einstein’s 1905 explanation of the photoelectric effect, which gave him the Nobel prize in 1921. The photoelectric effect is the observation that many metals emit electrons when light shines upon them. It was first observed by Heinrich Hertz in 1887. This photoelectric effect is not to be taken lightly…

In previous articles of this series we talked about the geocentric universe, one that had the Earth at its centre, and how this concept dominated scientific thinking for seventeen centuries. It would take the brilliant mind of Nicolaus Copernicus to upset Aristotle’s and Ptolemy’s geocentric universe.

Born into a prosperous family, Copernicus lived most of his life in Warmia, Prussia, now part of Poland. He learned several languages and wrote most of his works in Latin, the language of science in his time. Copernicus was a true polymath. He obtained degrees in Church Law and worked as physician, classics scholar…

When Einstein first published his theory of relativity in 1905, it was said that there were no more than a small handful of scientists in the world who could understand it. Sir Arthur Eddington, an English astrophysicist and one of the early champions of relativity, was asked whether it was true that he was one of only three people in the world who understood relativity. He replied, “who is the third?” He implied, obviously, that he and Einstein were the only two people who understood the theory and there was no third person.

In this series of three parts we…

The remarkable achievements of Greek philosophers and scientists laid the foundations of our Western civilization. What was the driving force that motivated those philosophers and scientists to do all this work? It was not glory or money or the need for practical use. It was good old scientific curiosity, a human desire to understand our home planet and our universe.

The concept of the universe in classical Greece has harmony, balance and simplicity, consistent with the aesthetic values of the Greeks. The universe is spherical and has the spherical earth at its centre. The stars are fixed in space but…

This last of three parts on a truly American school of philosophy, Pragmatism, focuses on another major proponent named John Dewey. Widely regarded as the leading American philosopher of the twentieth century, Dewey was born in 1859, only seventeen years after the birth of William James, but lived well into the mid-twentieth century.

Dewey was born in Burlington, Vermont and studied at the University of Vermont and Johns Hopkins University. He held academic posts in Michigan, Chicago and finally at Columbia University in New York, where he spent most of his life.

In Pragmatism in America Part I we saw that Charles Peirce and William James are often said to be the founders of the American renaissance. English mathematician and philosopher A.N. Whitehead said that James is the analogue to Plato and Peirce to Aristotle. Let us now take a closer look at what William James was all about.

William James was born in New York City in 1842 to a wealthy, intellectual and cosmopolitan family that was constantly a major cultural focus and a subject of continuing interest to historians and critics. William was the brother of notable writer Henry James…

We have all heard about Pragmatism. What does it really mean? Read on for the basics of this American philosophy and the people who made this a dominant trend in modern thinking. This is the first of three parts in my series on Pragmatism.

This new philosophical current began to develop as nineteenth century America was coming of age culturally and intellectually. The undisputed founder of the new philosophy was Charles Sanders Peirce, one of the most original minds of the century and, in the words of Bertrand Russell, “the greatest American thinker ever”. …

This is not a new story. It’s a story told by her remarkable life, by books and in movies. But I think that many stories need to be told again from time to time, stories of people who can be a role model for all of us and especially for young women and men.

Marie Sklodowska-Curie is the heroine of my story. She was born in Warsaw in 1867, the youngest of five children in a family that struggled to make ends meet after the father lost his job. She was raised in Warsaw during the Russian occupation. …