• Question: who is your favourite scientist

    Asked by mohammadz12345 to Audra, Fiona, Gavin, Justin, Steve on 12 Mar 2012.
    • Photo: Fiona Hatch

      Fiona Hatch answered on 9 Mar 2012:

      I guess I can’t say myself? 😀

      This is a very difficult question as there have been so many scientists throughout time that have just changed what we know about science.

      If I had to pick one, it would be someone that affected my work and what we know about the heart. And that person would be Sydney Ringer.

      He was born in 1836 (176 years ago) and was studying organs and how they worked outside the body. He used frog hearts and studied what they needed to beat. He used sodium chloride first (which is a chemical we know as salt) and then distilled water (which is water that is very pure and has nothing else in it). He noticed that the heart was not beating that much. His technician (someone that helps him with the experiments) then used tap water by accident, and the heart started to beat a lot. He then realised that the heart needed calcium to beat. He also then went on to make a solution needed for organ transplants and transportation and to this day it is known as Ringer’s solution.

      His discovery, even though accidental, changed the way we viewed the heart and how the heart beats.

    • Photo: Justin Lawley

      Justin Lawley answered on 11 Mar 2012:

      I don’t really have a favourite scientist, they are mostly all amazing. But, I will pick out Paul Bert, a french physiologist, as he is considered the farther of High Altitude Medicine and Physiology. He was the first person to show that not having enough oxygen in your body is bad for you.. In fact very bad for you.

    • Photo: Gavin Devereux

      Gavin Devereux answered on 11 Mar 2012:

      This is a bit of a standard answer, but he is genuinely a favourite of mine…

      It’d have to be Copernicus. As ideas go, correctly suggesting that the earth revolves around the sun, and not the other way round, is a pretty big one! And, he argued this against what was commonly believed to be the truth (and very forcefully too). It was a brave claim back in those days.

      It was a big and brave claim – and he was right. Doff those caps!!

    • Photo: Audra Benjamin

      Audra Benjamin answered on 12 Mar 2012:

      I don’t have one favourite but two that stand out are Galileo and Marie Curie.

      Galileo stood up for what he believed in, which was that the sun was at the centre of our solar system, even though it went against the establishment at the time and he end up being under house arrest until he died.

      Marie Curie was a physicist and chemist and did pioneering work on radioactivity but as a female scientist she is an inspiration.

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