Scientist
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The physicist Albert Einstein is probably the most famous scientist of our time. |
This article is about the profession. For other uses, see Scientist (disambiguation).A
scientist is an
expert in at least one area of
science who uses the
scientific method to do
research.
William Whewell coined the word in
1833 at the request of the
poet Coleridge. Before that scientists were termed "natural philosophers" or "men of science".
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Scientists working with lasers. |
Scientists are motivated, often from childhood, by a desire to understand why the world is as we see it and how it came to be. They exhibit an innate curiosity about
Nature. Prestige, reputation, and recognition by their peers are often much more important to scientists than wealth. Science and
technology have continually modified
human existence, and the activity of scientists is today widely known.
Scientists include
theoreticians who mainly develop new models to explain existing data, and
experimentalists who mainly test models by making measurements â€" though in practice the division between these activities is not clear-cut, and many scientists perform both.
Mathematics is usually grouped with the sciences. Like other scientists,
mathematicians start with hunches and then conduct symbolic or
computational experiments to test them. Some of the greatest
physicists have also been creative mathematicians. There is a continuum from the most theoretical to the most
empirical scientists with no distinct boundaries. By
personality, interests, training and
professional activity, there is little difference between
applied mathematicians and
theoretical physicists.
There are notable examples of people who have moved back and forth among disciplines. A number of scientists have been
priests, including the
astronomer and
physician Copernicus; and
Gregor Mendel, whose discoveries on
inheritance founded modern
genetics, which provides a mechanism to explain
Charles Darwin's observations about
evolution.
Descartes not only invented
analytic geometry but formulated a theory of mechanics and advanced ideas about the origins of
animal movement and
perception.
Vision interested the physicists
Young and
Helmholtz, who also studied
optics,
hearing and
music.
Newton extended Descartes' mathematics by inventing
calculus (contemporaneously with
Leibniz). He provided a comprehensive formulation of
classical mechanics and investigated
light and optics.
Fourier founded a new branch of mathematics â€"
infinite, periodic series â€" studied
heat flow and
infrared radiation, and discovered the
greenhouse effect.
Von Neumann,
Turing,
Khinchin,
Markov and
Wiener, all mathematicians, made major contributions to science and
probability theory, including the ideas behind
computers, and some of the foundations of
statistical mechanics and
quantum mechanics. Many mathematically inclined scientists, including
Galileo, were also
musicians.
In the late
19th century,
Louis Pasteur, an
organic chemist, discovered that
microorganisms can cause
disease. A few years earlier,
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., the
American physician, poet and
essayist, noted that
sepsis in women following
childbirth was spread by the
hands of doctors and
nurses, four years before
Semmelweis in
Europe. There are many compelling stories in
medicine and
biology, such as the development of ideas about the circulation of
blood from
Galen to
Harvey. The flowering of genetics and
molecular biology in the
20th century is replete with famous names.
Ramón y Cajal won the
Nobel Prize in 1906 for his remarkable observations in
neuroanatomy.
Some see a
dichotomy between experimental sciences and purely "
observational" sciences such as
astronomy,
meteorology,
oceanography and
seismology. But
astronomers have done basic research in optics, developed
charge-coupled devices, and in recent decades have sent
space probes to study other
planets in addition to using the
Hubble Telescope to probe the origins of the
Universe some 14 billion years ago.
Microwave spectroscopy has now identified dozens of
organic molecules in
interstellar space, requiring
laboratory experimentation and
computer simulation to confirm the observational
data and starting a new branch of chemistry. Computer modeling and
numerical methods are techniques required of students in every field of quantitative science.
Those considering science as a
career often look to the frontiers. These include
cosmology and
biology, especially
molecular biology and the
human genome project. Also the exploration of
matter at the scale of
elementary particles as represented by
high-energy physics, and
nanotechnology, which will surely advance
electronics including microscopic
computers, and perhaps
artificial intelligence. Although there have been remarkable discoveries with regard to
brain function and
neurotransmitters, the nature of the
mind and human
thought still remain mysteries.
There is no sharp distinction between science and
engineering, although engineers typically have practical goals in mind while scientists investigate fundamental
phenomena. Both proceed from problems toward solutions. Scientists often perform engineering tasks in designing experimental equipment and building
prototypes, and some
engineers do first-rate scientific research.
Mechanical,
electrical,
chemical and
aerospace engineers are often at the forefront of investigating new phenomena and materials.
Peter Debye received a degree in
electrical engineering and a doctorate in
physics before eventually winning a
Nobel Prize in
chemistry. Similarly with
Paul Dirac, one of the founders of quantum mechanics.
Claude Shannon, a theoretical engineer, founded modern
information theory.
An increasing proportion of scientists are now
women. In
biology,
genetics, and mathematics, women have made prominent contributions since the early
20th century.
Einstein's first wife,
Mileva Marić, may have assisted in his 1905
special theory of relativity.
Emmy Noether's theorem is one of the foundations of
mathematical physics. In the
1840s Ada Lovelace worked on
Charles Babbage's
analytical computing engine; the
Ada programming language is named after her. From earlier times, there is
Hypatia of Alexandria (
circa 400 AD) and there may well have been others. All these women were mathematicians.
Marie Curie was a two-time winner of the Nobel Prize, for
chemistry and
physics.
*
Astronomers (including
astrophysicists)
*
Biologists (including
botanists,
entomologists,
geneticists,
herpetologists,
ichthyologists,
lepidopterists,
microbiologists,
neuroscientists,
ornithologists,
pharmacologists,
virologists, and
zoologists)
*
Chemists (including
biochemists)
*
Computer scientists*
Ecologists (including
hydrologists,
limnologists, and
toxicologists)
*
Social scientists (including
anthropologists,
demographers,
economists,
political economists,
political scientists,
psychologists, and
sociologists)
*
Geologists (including
mineralogists,
seismologists, and
volcanologists)
*
Mathematicians
*
Physicists
* There's a question about some
inventors.
Charles Goodyear (co-)discovered
vulcanization of
rubber, but he had no formal training and his work was haphazard. Was
Thomas Edison a scientist?
* Farther afield: Is an
historian a scientist? A
psychoanalyst?
*
Science*
History of science (and the
Category: History of science)
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Biography*
Natural science*
Social science*
Nobel Prize*
Fields Medal*
Pseudoscience*
Mad scientistRelated lists
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List of engineers*
List of mathematicians*
List of scientists
