Franciscus (Franz) Cornelius Donders FRS FRSE (27 May 1818 – 24 March 1889) was a Dutch ophthalmologist. During his career, he was a professor of physiology in Utrecht, and was internationally regarded as an authority on eye diseases, directing the Netherlands Hospital for Eye Patients. Along with Graefe and Helmholtz, he was one of the primary founders of scientific ophthalmology.
August Friedrich Leopold Weismann FRS (For), HonFRSE, LLD (17 January 1834 – 5 November 1914) was a German evolutionary biologist. Fellow German Ernst Mayr ranked him as the second most notable evolutionary theorist of the 19th century, after Charles Darwin. Weismann became the Director of the Zoological Institute and the first Professor of Zoology at Freiburg.
His main contribution involved germ plasm theory, at one time also known as Weismannism, according to which inheritance (in a multicellular animal) only takes place by means of the germ cells—the gametes such as egg cells and sperm cells. Other cells of the body—somatic cells—do not function as agents of heredity. The effect is one-way: germ cells produce somatic cells and are not affected by anything the somatic cells learn or therefore any ability an individual acquires during its life. Genetic information cannot pass from soma to germ plasm and on to the next generation. Biologists refer to this concept as the Weismann barrier. This idea, if true, rules out the inheritance of acquired characteristics as proposed by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck. However, a careful reading of Weismann's work over the span of his entire career shows that he had more nuanced views, insisting, like Darwin, that a variable environment was necessary to cause variation in the hereditary material.The idea of the Weismann barrier is central to the modern synthesis of the early 20th century, though scholars do not express it today in the same terms. In Weismann's opinion the largely random process of mutation, which must occur in the gametes (or stem cells that make them) is the only source of change for natural selection to work on. Weismann became one of the first biologists to deny Lamarckism entirely. Weismann's ideas preceded the rediscovery of Gregor Mendel's work, and though Weismann was cagey about accepting Mendelism, younger workers soon made the connection.
Weismann is much admired today. Ernst Mayr judged him to be the most important evolutionary thinker between Darwin and the evolutionary synthesis around 1930–1940, and "one of the great biologists of all time".
Reid William Barton (born May 6, 1983) is a mathematician and also one of the most successful performers in the International Science Olympiads.
Tullio Levi-Civita, (English: , Italian: [ˈtulljo ˈlɛːvi ˈtʃiːvita]; 29 March 1873 – 29 December 1941) was an Italian mathematician, most famous for his work on absolute differential calculus (tensor calculus) and its applications to the theory of relativity, but who also made significant contributions in other areas. He was a pupil of Gregorio Ricci-Curbastro, the inventor of tensor calculus. His work included foundational papers in both pure and applied mathematics, celestial mechanics (notably on the three-body problem), analytic mechanics (the Levi-Civita separability conditions in the Hamilton–Jacobi equation) and hydrodynamics.
Louis Leprince-Ringuet (27 March 1901, in Alès – 23 December 2000, in Paris) was a French physicist, telecommunications engineer, essayist and historian of science.Leprince-Ringuet advocated strongly for the creation of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) and remained its indefatigable supporter. He was vice chair (1956–69) and chair (1964–66) of CERN’s scientific policy committee. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society.He is known for early discovery of the kaon. He also coined the term hyperon in 1953.
Hugo Junkers (3 February 1859 – 3 February 1935) was a German aircraft engineer and aircraft designer who pioneered the design of all-metal airplanes and flying wings. His company, Junkers Flugzeug- und Motorenwerke AG (Junkers Aircraft and Motor Works), was one of the mainstays of the German aircraft industry in the years between World War I and World War II. His multi-engined, all-metal passenger- and freight planes helped establish airlines in Germany and around the world.
In addition to aircraft, Junkers also built both diesel and petrol engines and held various thermodynamic and metallurgical patents. He was also one of the main sponsors of the Bauhaus movement and facilitated the move of the Bauhaus from Weimar to Dessau (where his factory was situated) in 1925.
Amongst the highlights of his career were the Junkers J 1 of 1915, the world's first practical all-metal aircraft, incorporating a cantilever wing design with virtually no external bracing, the Junkers F 13 of 1919 (the world's first all-metal passenger aircraft), the Junkers W 33 (which made the first successful heavier-than-air east-to-west crossing of the Atlantic Ocean), the Junkers G.38 "flying wing", and the Junkers Ju 52, affectionately nicknamed "Tante Ju", one of the most famous airliners of the 1930s.
When the Nazis came into power in 1933, they requested Junkers and his businesses aid in the German re-armament. When Junkers declined, the Nazis placed him under house arrest in 1934 and eventually seized control of his patents and company. He died the following year. Under Nazi control, his company produced some of the most successful German warplanes of the Second World War.
Marie Ennemond Camille Jordan (French: [ʒɔʁdɑ̃]; 5 January 1838 – 22 January 1922) was a French mathematician, known both for his foundational work in group theory and for his influential Cours d'analyse.
Andrew Russell Forsyth, FRS, FRSE (18 June 1858, Glasgow – 2 June 1942, South Kensington) was a British mathematician.
Maurice Paul Auguste Charles Fabry (French: [fabʁi]; 11 June 1867 – 11 December 1945) was a French physicist working on optics. Together with Alfred Pérot he invented the Fabry–Pérot interferometer. He is also one of the co-discoverers of the ozone layer.
Pedro Carlos Aspe Armella (born on (1950-07-07)7 July 1950 in Mexico City, Mexico) is a Mexican economist. He served as secretary of finance (1988 – 1994) in the cabinet of Carlos Salinas de Gortari, where he successfully renegotiated foreign debt, gave autonomy to the central bank and promoted a controversial privatization plan.
Aspe Armella is the son of Pedro Aspe Sais, a lecturer at Escuela Libre de Derecho and former director of El Palacio de Hierro, and Virginia Armella Maza. His great-grandfather was a federal deputy in the early years of the 20th century and his grandfather coordinated the Mexican diplomatic service in the Álvaro Obregón administration.He undertook his basic studies at private schools managed by the Society of Jesus and received a bachelor's degree in economics from the ITAM and a doctorate in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is also a member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) since 1980 and has been awarded the Order of the Phoenix by the government of Greece (1986).Before joining the cabinet of President Salinas, Aspe Armella chaired the department of economics at the ITAM; served as the founding president of the National Institute of Statistics, Geography and Informatics (INEGI, 1982 – 1985); worked as Undersecretary of Planning (1985 – 1987) and headed the Budget and Planning Secretariat in the cabinet of Miguel de la Madrid.He has also authored The Analysis of Household Composition and Economics of Scale in Consumption (1976), L'impresa nell economia aperta in presenza di incertezza (1978) and Financial Policies and the World Capital Market: The Problem of Latin American Countries (1983).Aspe is married to historian Concepción Bernal Verea, a daughter of notable anthropologist and diplomat Ignacio Bernal; and has two daughters and two sons. He is the current CEO of Protego, S.A., a consulting company based in Mexico City with offices in Monterrey, and a member of the board of the American International Group (AIG), McGraw-Hill and its subsidiary Standard & Poor's.
In November 2017 an investigation conducted by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalism cited his name in the list of politicians named in "Paradise Papers" allegations.