Miss Buddha (88 page)

Dalton also discovered that each atom has a
characteristic mass and that atoms remain unchanged when they
combine with other atoms to form compound substances. He went on to
use this atomic theory to explain why substances always combine in
fixed proportions—a field of study known as quantitative
chemistry.

In 1869 Russian chemist Dmitry Mendeleyev,
building upon Dalton’s discoveries about atoms and their behavior,
drew up his periodic table of the elements, a monumental
breakthrough which is still in use today.

Other
19
^th
-century discoveries in chemistry included the world’s first
synthetic fertilizer, manufactured in England in 1842. In 1846
German chemist Christian Schoenbein accidentally developed the
powerful and unstable explosive nitrocellulose. The discovery
occurred after he had spilled a mixture of nitric and sulfuric
acids and then mopped it up with a cotton apron. After the apron
had been hung up to dry, it exploded. He later learned that the
cellulose in the cotton apron combined with the acids to form a
highly flammable explosive.

In 1828 the German chemist
Friedrich Wohler discovered that you could create organic
(containing carbon) compounds from inorganic ingredients, a
breakthrough that opened up an entirely new field of research, and
by the end of the 19
^th
century, hundreds of organic compounds had been
synthesized, including mauve, magenta, and other synthetic dyes, as
well as aspirin, still one of the world’s most useful
drugs.

Physics

In physics, the
19
^th
century is remembered chiefly for research into electricity
and magnetism, which were pioneered by physicists such as Michael
Faraday and James Clerk Maxwell.

In 1821 Faraday demonstrated that a moving
magnet could set an electric current flowing in a conductor. This
experiment and others he performed eventual led to electric motors
and generators.

While Faraday’s genius lay in discovery by
experiment, Maxwell produced even greater theoretical
breakthroughs. Maxwell’s famous equations, which first saw the
light of day in 1864, deployed mathematics to explain the
interactions between electric and magnetic fields and demonstrated
the principles behind electromagnetic waves created when electric
and magnetic fields oscillate simultaneously.

While Maxwell realized that light was a form
of electromagnetic energy, he also postulated that the complete
electromagnetic spectrum must include many other forms of waves as
well. In this, he was proven correct by Heinrich Hertz’s discovery
of radio waves in 1888 and by Wilhelm Roentgen’s discovery of
X-rays in 1895.

More monumental still, in 1897, British
physicist Sir Joseph J. Thomson discovered the electron, a
subatomic particle with a negative charge. This breakthrough upset
the long-held notion that atoms were the basic unit of matter.

As with the discoveries in
chemistry, these 19
^th
-century discoveries in
physics proved to have immense practical value, and no one proved
more adept at harnessing these discoveries than the prolific Thomas
Edison.

Working from his laboratories in Menlo Park,
New Jersey, Edison devised the carbon-granule microphone in 1877,
which greatly improved the recently invented telephone. He also
invented the phonograph, the electric light bulb, several kinds of
batteries, and the electric meter.

During his life, Edison was granted over one
thousand patents, a phenomenal feat for a man of no formal
schooling.

Earth Sciences and Astronomy

When it comes to the earth
sciences, the 19
^th
century was a time of controversy. Scientists were
debating, and not always amicably, the Earth’s age. Estimates
ranged from less than 100,000 years to several hundred million
years.

In astronomy, greatly improved optical
instruments facilitated several important discoveries. For example,
the first observation of an asteroid, Ceres, took place in
1801.

Also, astronomers had long noticed that
Uranus exhibited an unusual orbit. French astronomer Urbain Jean
Joseph Leverrier now predicted that another planet nearby was the
cause of this. By mathematical calculations, he narrowed down where
in the sky such a planet would be located, and in 1846, with the
help of German astronomer Johann Galle, Leverrier actually
discovered Neptune.

The Irish astronomer
William Parsons, the third Earl of Rosse, became the first person
to see the spiral form of galaxies beyond our own solar system. He
did this with
the
Leviathan
, a 183-cm (72-in) reflecting
telescope, built on the grounds of his estate in Parsonstown (now
Birr), Ireland, in the 1840s. His observations were hampered by
Ireland’s damp and cloudy climate, but his gigantic telescope
remained the world’s largest for over 70 years.

Life Sciences

During the
19
^th
century, the study of microorganisms became increasingly
important, particularly after French biologist Louis Pasteur
revolutionized medicine by correctly deducing that some
microorganisms are involved in disease.

In the 1880s, Pasteur
devised methods of immunizing people against diseases by
deliberately treating them with weakened forms of the
disease-causing organisms themselves. Pasteur’s vaccine against
rabies was a milestone in the field of immunization, and was one of
the most effective forms, if not
the
most effective form, of
preventive medicine the world had ever seen.

In the area of industrial science, Pasteur
also invented the process of pasteurization to help prevent the
spread of disease through milk and other foods.

Also in the
19
^th
century, the Austrian monk Gregor Mendel laid the foundations
of genetics, although his work, published in 1866, was not
recognized until about forty years later.

But when it comes to
towering scientific giants of the 19
^th
century, none towers higher
than Charles Darwin. His publication of
On
the Origin of Species
in 1859 marked a
major turning point for both biology and human thought.

Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural
selection (independently and simultaneously developed by British
naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace) initiated a violent controversy
that has, in fact, yet to subside. Particularly controversial was
Darwin’s theory that humans resulted from a long process of
biological evolution from apelike ancestors.

As might be expected, the greatest
opposition to Darwin’s ideas came from those who believed that the
Bible was an exact and literal statement of the origin of the world
and of humans, and that science need look no further.

Still, although the general public initially
castigated Darwin’s ideas, by the late 1800s most biologists had
accepted that evolution occurred pretty much along the lines
proposed by Darwin.

Modern Science

Building upon the amazing
progress of the 19
^th
century, the 20
^th
century saw continued and
spectacular advances in all scientific fields, including genetics,
medicine, social sciences, technology, and physics.

Genetics

At the dawn of the
20
^th
century, the life sciences made explosive progress. For one,
Mendel’s work in genetics was rediscovered in 1900, and by 1910
biologists had (correctly) deduced that the postulated genes were
located in chromosomes, the threadlike structures that contain
proteins and deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA).

In the 1940s, American Biochemists
discovered that DNA taken from one kind of bacterium could
influence the characteristics of another. From these experiments,
it grew increasingly clear that DNA is the chemical that makes up
genes and thus the key to heredity.

After American Biochemist James Watson and
British Biophysicist Francis Crick finally established the
structure of DNA in 1953, geneticists were now able to map heredity
in chemical terms. Since then, progress in this field has been
nothing short of astounding. Not only have scientists identified
the complete genome, or genetic catalog, of the human body, but now
also know how individual genes are activated and what effects they
have in the human body.

In the bio-labs, genes can now be
transferred from one species to another, side-stepping the normal
processes of heredity and so creating hybrid organisms that are
unknown in the natural world. This, of course, has sparked, and
continues to spark wide controversy since there is no way of
telling which guns are loaded and which guns are not.

Medicine

As we entered the
20
^th
century, Dutch physician Christiaan Eijkman showed that
disease can be caused not only by microorganisms but by a dietary
deficiency of certain substances we now call vitamins, a very
healthy discovery that has also spawned its own
industry.

In 1909 German bacteriologist Paul Ehrlich
introduced the world’s first bactericide, a chemical designed to
kill specific kinds of bacteria without killing the patient’s cells
as well.

Then, following the discovery of penicillin
in 1928 by British bacteriologist Sir Alexander Fleming,
antibiotics joined medicine’s chemical armory, making the fight
against bacterial infection almost a routine matter.

While these antibiotics cannot act against
viruses, ever since Pasteur discovered vaccines (a weak strain of
the disease itself injected to stimulate the body’s own production
of effective antibodies) in the 1880s, they have been used to great
effect to prevent some of the deadliest viral diseases.

Smallpox, once a worldwide
killer, was pronounced completely eradicated by the late 1970s, and
the United States saw the number of polio cases drop from 38,000 in
the 1950s to less than 10 a year by the 21
^st
century thanks to effective
vaccines.

By the middle of the
20
^th
century, scientists believed they were well on the way to
treating, preventing, or eradicating most of the deadly infectious
diseases that had plagued humankind for centuries. By the 1980s,
however, the medical community’s confidence in its ability to
control infectious diseases was shaken by the emergence of new
types of disease-causing microorganisms. New cases of tuberculosis
developed, caused by bacteria strains that were resistant to
antibiotics. New, deadly infections for which there was no known
cure also appeared, including the viruses that cause hemorrhagic
fever and the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the cause of
acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS)—a disease that has yet to
find a definite cure.

In other fields of medicine, new imaging
techniques, including magnetic resonance imaging and computed
tomography, revolutionized the diagnosis of disease. Scientists
also tried to cure some diseases by gene therapy, where the
insertion of normal or genetically altered genes into a patient’s
cells replaces nonfunctional or missing genes. The jury is still
out on this, still controversial, approach.

Improved drugs and new tools have also made
surgical operations that were once considered impossible
routine.

For instance, drugs that suppress the immune
system now enable the transplant of organs or tissues with a
reduced risk of rejection. Endoscopy permits the diagnosis and
surgical treatment of a wide variety of ailments using minimally
invasive surgery.

Advances in high-speed fiber-optic
connections permit surgery on a patient using robotic instruments
controlled by surgeons at another location. Known as telemedicine,
this form of medicine makes it possible for skilled physicians to
treat patients in remote locations or places that lack medical
help.

Social Sciences

During the
20
^th
century, the social sciences emerged from relative obscurity
to become prominent fields of research.

Early in the century, the Austrian physician
Sigmund Freud founded the practice of psychoanalysis, creating a
revolution in psychology that led him to be called the “Copernicus
of the mind.”

In 1948 the American
biologist Alfred Kinsey published
Sexual
Behavior in the Human Male
, which proved to
be one of the best-selling scientific works of all time. Although
criticized for his methodology and conclusions, Kinsey succeeded in
making human sexuality an acceptable subject for scientific
research.

The
20
^th
century also saw dramatic discoveries in the field of
anthropology, with new fossil finds helping to piece together the
story of human evolution.

A new and surprising source of
anthropological information arrived with studies of the DNA in
mitochondria—cell structures that provide energy to fuel the cell’s
activities. Mitochondrial DNA has since been used not only to track
certain genetic diseases but also to trace the ancestry of a
variety of organisms, including humans.

Technology

Some claim, and I don’t think incorrectly,
that the modern technological era started in 1901 when the Italian
electrical engineer Guglielmo Marconi sent his first radio signal
across the Atlantic Ocean, a feat for which he received the Nobel
Prize in 1909.