The 19th century laid the foundations for the development of 20th century science and set the stage for many future inventions and technological innovations that we enjoy today. Scientific discoveries of the 19th century were made in many areas and had a great influence on further development. Technological progress progressed uncontrollably. To whom are we grateful for the comfortable conditions in which modern humanity now lives?
Scientific discoveries of the 19th century: Physics and electrical engineering
James Clark Maxwell
A key feature in the development of science of this period of time is the widespread use of electricity in all branches of production. And people could no longer refuse to use electricity, feeling its significant benefits. Many scientific discoveries of the 19th century were made in this area of physics. At that time, scientists began to closely study electromagnetic waves and their effect on various materials. The introduction of electricity into medicine began.
In the 19th century, such famous scientists as the Frenchman Andre-Marie Ampère, two Englishmen Michael Faraday and James Clark Maxwell, Americans Joseph Henry and Thomas Edison worked in the field of electrical engineering.
In 1831, Michael Faraday noticed that if a copper wire moves in a magnetic field, crossing lines of force, then an electric current arises in it. This is how the concept of electromagnetic induction appeared. This discovery paved the way for the invention of electric motors.
In 1865, James Clark Maxwell developed the electromagnetic theory of light. He suggested the existence of electromagnetic waves, through which electrical energy is transmitted in space. In 1883, Heinrich Hertz proved the existence of these waves. He also determined that their propagation speed was 300,000 km/sec. Based on this discovery, Guglielmo Marconi and A. S. Popov created a wireless telegraph - radio. This invention became the basis for modern technologies for wireless information transmission, radio and television, including all types of mobile communications, which are based on the principle of data transmission by means of electromagnetic waves.
Chemistry
DI. Mendelev - a scientist who made many scientific discoveries of the 19th century
In the field of chemistry in the 19th century, the most significant discovery was D.I. Mendeleev Periodic Law. Based on this discovery, a table of chemical elements was developed, which Mendeleev saw in a dream. In accordance with this table, he suggested that there were still unknown chemical elements. The predicted chemical elements scandium, gallium and germanium were subsequently discovered between 1875 and 1886.
Astronomy
XIX Art. was the century of the formation and rapid development of another field of science - astrophysics. Astrophysics is a branch of astronomy that studies the properties of celestial bodies. This term appeared in the mid-60s of the 19th century. Johann Carl Friedrich Zöllner, a German professor at the University of Leipzig, stood at its origins. The main research methods used in astrophysics are photometry, photography and spectral analysis. One of the inventors of spectral analysis is Kirchhoff. He conducted the first studies of the spectrum of the Sun. As a result of these studies, in 1859 he managed to obtain a drawing of the solar spectrum and more accurately determine the chemical composition of the Sun.
Medicine and Biology
With the advent of the 19th century, science begins to develop at an unprecedented speed. There are so many scientific discoveries that it is difficult to track them in detail. Medicine and biology are not far behind. The most significant contributions to this field were made by the German microbiologist Robert Koch, the French physician Claude Bernard, and the microbiological chemist Louis Pasteur.
Bernard laid the foundations of endocrinology - the science of the functions and structure of the endocrine glands. Louis Pasteur became one of the founders of immunology and microbiology. Pasteurization technology is named after this scientist is a method of heat treatment of mainly liquid products. This technology is used to kill vegetative forms of microorganisms to increase the shelf life of food products such as beer and milk.
Robert Koch discovered the causative agent of tuberculosis, anthrax bacillus and vibrio cholerae. For the discovery of the tubercle bacillus, he was awarded the Nobel Prize.
Computers
Although it is believed that the first computer appeared in the 20th century, the first prototypes of modern machine tools with numerical control were built already in the 19th century. Joseph Marie Jacquard, a French inventor, came up with a way to program the loom in 1804. The essence of the invention was that the thread could be controlled using punched cards with holes in certain places where the thread was supposed to be applied to the fabric.
Mechanical engineering and industry
Already at the beginning of the 19th century, a gradual revolution in mechanical engineering began. Oliver Evans was one of the first who in 1804 in Philadelphia (USA) demonstrated a car with a steam engine.
At the end of the 18th century, the first lathes appeared. They were developed by the English mechanic Henry Maudsley.
With the help of such machines, it was possible to replace manual labor, when it was necessary to process metal with great accuracy.
In the 19th century, the principle of operation of a heat engine was discovered and the internal combustion engine was invented, which served as an impetus for the development of faster vehicles: steam locomotives, steamboats and self-propelled vehicles, which we now call cars.
Railroads also began to develop. In 1825, George Stephenson built the first railway in England. It provided rail links to the cities of Stockton and Darlington. In 1829 a branch line was laid that linked Liverpool and Manchester. If in 1840 the total length of railways was 7,700 km, then by the end of the 19th century it was already 1,080,000 km.
The 19th century is the age of the industrial revolution, the age of electricity, the age of railroads. It had a significant impact on the culture and worldview of mankind, radically changed the system of human values. The appearance of the first electric motors, the invention of the telephone and telegraph, radio and heating devices, as well as incandescent lamps - all these scientific discoveries of the 19th century turned the life of people of that time upside down.
Question 01. Explain the reasons for the rapid development of physics and other natural sciences in the 19th century.
Answer. Discoveries in the field of natural sciences immediately found practical implementation in new inventions, which immediately brought fame (as well as money), which stimulated scientists to make new discoveries and young people to engage in science. Research began to require investments, however, thanks to the discoveries, both business and the state were interested in sponsoring the natural sciences.
Question 02. Fill in the table in your notebook "The most important scientific discoveries in the XIX - early XX centuries." Columns of the table: scientific field, year of discovery, name of the scientist, content and significance of the discovery.
Question 03. Prepare a message about a discovery. Use also the text of the document. What qualities do you think a scientist should have?
Answer. Charles Darwin went to his discovery for many years. He traveled on a ship of the English navy, on which he traveled around the world and made many observations as a naturalist, because the voyage lasted five years. For example, in the Galapagos Islands (in the Pacific Ocean), he studied finches. He noticed that with approximately the same body shape, many species of finches have different shapes and sizes of beaks. He suggested that they came from the same ancestor, but over time, development divided them into different species. Returning, he began to study the selection of domestic animals, on the basis of which new breeds appear. He was especially interested in pigeons. People received a variety of colors of these birds by choosing from the offspring only individuals with the qualities they needed. Darwin suggested that nature does the same thing: it selects the qualities it needs and allows organisms with only these qualities to leave offspring. He fixed his conclusions on the example of plants. Thus was born Darwin's theory of evolution, which he published in 1859. But that was not the end of the story. Further, Darwin had to endure the most severe controversy with opponents of his theory until the end of his life.
Charles Darwin knew how to collect material, draw conclusions from it that others had not thought of, knew how to confirm these conclusions. He had the industriousness to develop his theory, the determination to publish it, the perseverance to defend it, and a sufficient lifetime to display the above qualities. This is exactly what, in my opinion, the discoverers need (although, I believe, there is no universal set of qualities that are characteristic of all of them).
Question 04. Describe the advances in medicine at the turn of the XIX-XX centuries. Think about the reasons for these successes.
Answer. Medicine in the 19th century developed vaccines against many diseases, found out the connection between public hygiene and epidemics. All this made it possible to fight much better against many mass diseases, laid the foundations for a complete or almost complete victory over them in the 20th century. In surgery, anesthesia was discovered, an X-ray machine appeared. Thanks to these and many other discoveries, wounds that were previously considered fatal were now treatable. In many ways, the reasons for these successes lie in interaction with other natural sciences. The emergence of microbiology and the rabies vaccine would not have been possible without the development of microscopes (respectively, optics), the X-ray machine was named after the physicist because it would not have been possible without his discovery, the work of chemists made it possible to create new drugs, etc.
The nineteenth century was the era of human breakthroughs in science. This century created the basis for the scientific breakthroughs of the twentieth century.
Breakthroughs of the nineteenth century were made in many fields of science and had a huge impact on the further development of mankind.
One of the major discoveries (inventions) of that century was the invention of electricity and light bulbs. Feeling all the advantages of using electricity, mankind could not refuse it.
It was the achievement in such a branch of science as physics that made possible the appearance of electric light. The study of such a phenomenon as electromagnetic waves was carried out at the end of the eighteenth century, the same M. Lomonosov.
The term electricity means a physical phenomenon in which electric charges move and interact with each other. The term was introduced by the English test scientist William Gilbert back in the sixteenth century.
In the era of the nineteenth century, the study of electricity was carried out by: Thomas Edison, J. Henry, Alexander Ladygin.
Scientist and inventor Michael Faraday during an experiment determined that a copper wire in a magnetic field crosses the lines of force, then an electric current begins to appear in it.
Finally, in 1873, A. Lodygin, a Russian electrical engineer and physicist, demonstrated his invention. Light bulb (lamp). The invention of Lodygin is a slightly elongated flask, inside of which a small rod of retort coal is fixed on two copper wires. Electric current passed directly through the frame, thus the lamp gave light.
But the invention could not work longer than 40 minutes a day. After Russia, - France, Germany, England, also engaged in the design of lamps of this type. Already in the 90s of the nineteenth century, German scientists created a sample - a lamp that can work for several hours. At the same time, Edison did the same in the United States. In Russia, unfortunately, at first this invention was treated with distrust. Therefore, Western countries in the development of the science of electricity have advanced more ahead of Russia.
It was thanks to electricity that the invention of the telephone by J. Bell became possible in the second half of the 70s, in England. And the invention of the radio, by the Russian scientist Popov. By the way, historians and scientists are still arguing about who was the first to invent radio? Marconi or Popov. It was radio and telegraph that were widely used in the fields of the First and then the Second World Wars.
At the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, European countries were preparing for the coming war. For half a century (nineteenth century) preceding the war, mankind invents new weapons of mass destruction, machine guns, large-caliber cannons, automatic rifles. Therefore, scientific breakthroughs concerned not only the creation, but also the destruction and annihilation of people. The poet A. Akhmatova, wrote in her diary “the twentieth century began in 1914”, that is, with the outbreak of war, the world (Europe) woke up from a slumber. And immediately humanity fell into the nightmare of the First World War. After the First World War, 21 years later, the Second World War followed - even more cruel and bloody.
Only after two terrible world wars did humanity realize to what extent "world military conflicts" are dangerous.
It was the breakthrough in the science of electricity that made possible breakthroughs in other sciences (related to physics) in the twentieth century.
Of course, we cannot tell you about all the discoveries of the 19th century, but we can tell you about the most important achievements of this century.
In this century, the foundations were laid for the development of scientific industries for the next 20th century. Technological progress has advanced in leaps and bounds, to whom should we be grateful for what we have today?
Physics and electronics
A key feature in this area is the effort to apply electricity to everything, in all industries, research, and just people's lives. The latter, having felt the obvious advantages, could no longer refuse it. In those days, scientists began to pay attention to electromagnetic waves and their effect on materials.
1831 Faraday notices that a copper wire moving through a magnetic field created by lines of force in it - electricity appears. Thanks to this, the concept of electromagnetic induction appeared. This helped, or rather became the foundation for the invention of electric motors.
1865, Clark Maxwell was sure that light is electromagnetic waves. He further suggested their existence. And already Hertz in 1833 managed to prove their existence, their speed of 300 thousand kilometers per hour was also determined. These studies became the basis for the discovery of radio. Although the business forum then decided that it was better not to invest in this development, they were dumbfounded when Hertz nevertheless found investors for this scientific research.
Chemistry
The most important discovery in this area was the idea of Mendeleev, as a result, he discovered periodic law. After that, the well-known table was created, it was invented by Mendeleev in a dream. It is interesting that all the elements predicted by him were subsequently discovered.
Astronomy
In this area, the science of studying the properties of celestial bodies began to develop - Astrophysics.
Biology and Medicine
With the beginning of the 19th century, all science begins to develop rapidly. There are so many scientific discoveries that it is almost impossible to keep track of them. Studies of various human glands and organs were laid: endocrinology, microbiology, immunology. Some technologies are still used for long-term preservation of products.
Computers
And although the first computer was created in the 20th century, the first prototypes of machine tools with numerical control were built even then. The loom was already programmed, or rather, it was possible to control the actions of the thread through special punched cards. This was done so that the image was only where it is needed.
mechanical engineering
In 1804, the first car was shown on steam engine. At the end of the 18th year, the first lathes began to appear. With their help, it was possible to replace heavy human labor with mechanical. The gasoline engine was invented. The railroads and automobile industry developed rapidly.
In the industrial civilization that established itself in Europe in the 19th century, scientific and technological progress began to be considered the main value. And this is no coincidence. As P. Sorokin noted, “only one XIX century. brought more discoveries and inventions than all previous centuries combined.
The 19th century was the epitome of unprecedented technological progress, scientific and technical discoveries were made that led to a change in the way of life of people: its beginning was marked by harnessing the power of steam, the creation of steam engines and engines, which made it possible to carry out an industrial revolution, to move from manufactory production to industrial, factory production.
Scientific discoveries in the field of physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, geology, medicine followed one after another. Following the discovery by Michael Faraday of the phenomenon of the electromagnetic arc, James Maxwell undertook the study of electromagnetic fields, developing the electromagnetic theory of light. Henri Becquerel, Pierre Curie and Marie Sklodowska-Curie, studying the phenomenon of radioactivity, called into question the previous understanding of the law of conservation of energy.
Physical science has gone from John Dalton's atomic theory of matter to the discovery of the complex structure of the atom. After the discovery of J.J. Thompson in 1897 of the first elementary particle of the electron was followed by the planetary theories of the structure of the atom by Ernest Rutherford and Niels Bohr. Interdisciplinary research is developing - physical chemistry, biochemistry, chemical pharmacology. A true revolution in science was made by the works of the great naturalist Charles Darwin "The Origin of Species" and "The Origin of Man", which interpreted the emergence of the world and man differently than Christian teaching.
Advances in biology and chemistry gave a powerful impetus to the development of medicine. The French bacteriologist Louis Pasteur developed a method of vaccination against rabies and other contagious diseases. The German microbiologist Robert Koch and his students discovered the causative agents of tuberculosis, typhoid fever, diphtheria and other diseases, and created drugs against them. New medicines and tools have appeared in the arsenal of doctors. Doctors began to use aspirin and pyramidon, the stethoscope was invented, X-rays were discovered. If the XVII-XVIII centuries. were the era of windmills, then from the end of the XVIII century. the age of steam begins. In 1784, J. Watt invented the steam engine. And already in 1803. The first steam-powered car appears.
James Clark Maxwell. A great achievement of science in the 19th century. was put forward by the English scientist D. Maxwell electromagnetic theory of light(1865), which summarized the research and theoretical conclusions of many physicists from different countries in the fields of electromagnetism, thermodynamics and optics.
Maxwell is well known for having formulated four equations which were an expression of the basic laws of electricity and magnetism. These two areas had been extensively researched prior to Maxwell over the years, and it was well known that they were interrelated. However, although various laws of electricity had already been discovered and they were true for specific conditions, no general and uniform theory existed before Maxwell.
Charles Darwin (1809 - 1882). The 19th century was a time of celebration evolutionary theory. Charles Darwin was one of the first to realize and clearly demonstrate that all types of living organisms evolve over time from common ancestors. Darwin called natural selection and indefinite variability the main driving force of evolution.
Pierre-Simon Laplace. Laplace is one of the founders probability theory; developed and systematized the results obtained by other mathematicians, simplified the methods of proof.
Most of Laplace's research relates to celestial mechanics. He sought to explain all the visible movements of celestial bodies, based on Newton's law of universal gravitation. He determined the amount of compression of the Earth at the poles. In 1780 Laplace proposed a new method for calculating the orbits of celestial bodies. He came to the conclusion that the ring of Saturn cannot be continuous, otherwise it would be unstable. Predicted the compression of Saturn at the poles; established the laws of motion of Jupiter's satellites.
John Dalton. The first scientist who achieved significant success in a new direction in the development of chemistry was the English chemist John Dalton, who entered the history of chemistry as the discoverer of the law of multiple ratios and the creator of fundamentals of atomic theory. J. Dalton showed that each element of nature is a collection of atoms that are strictly identical to each other and have a single atomic weight. Thanks to this theory, the ideas of systemic development of processes penetrated into chemistry.
He received all his theoretical conclusions on the basis of his own discovery that two elements can be combined with each other in different ratios, but each new combination of elements is a new connection. He believed that all the atoms of each individual element are the same and are characterized by the fact that they have a certain weight, which he called atomic weight. Reasoning in this way, Dalton compiled the first table of the relative atomic weights of hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon, sulfur and phosphorus, taking the atomic mass of hydrogen as a unit. This table was Dalton's most important work.
Computers. Although it is believed that the first computer appeared in the 20th century, the first prototypes of modern machine tools with numerical control were built already in the 19th century.
Mechanical engineering and industry. Cars of the Russian-Baltic Plant - a scientific discovery of the 19th century. Already at the beginning of the 19th century, a gradual revolution in mechanical engineering began. Oliver Evans was one of the first who in 1804 in Philadelphia (USA) demonstrated a car with a steam engine.
At the end of the 18th century, the first lathes appeared. They were developed by the English mechanic Henry Maudsley. Railroads began to develop. In 1825, George Stephenson built the first railway in England.
