Only two northern white rhinos are alive today.
Albert Einstein was born in Ulm, Germany, on 14 March, 1879.
He was one of the greatest scholars that the world has ever known and winner of the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the photoelectric effect that gave rise to solar-powered electricity.
Einstein is well remembered for his theory of Special Relativity where he showed mathematically, that time and space are warped. He later added gravity in this time-space warp in his theory of General Relativity which he considers his greatest achievement.
Einstein’s mass-energy relationship equation, e = mc2, is arguably, the most “famous and beautiful equation” in the world of Physics till today.
Einstein died on 18 April, 1955 in New Jersey, United States.
Specially remembered is Stephen Hawking, the great cosmologist, who died on 14 March, 2018 in Cambridge, United Kingdom. He was born on 8 January, 1942 in Oxford, UK.
He was a world-leading scholar on blackholes. Blackholes are born when giant stars collapse after burning out their nuclear fuel and eventually, die later. In Hawking’s words: “Blackholes are not eternal.”
Hawking in his work with Roger Penrose, showed that there must be a singularity when studying the origin of the Universe. A singularity makes it impossible to proceed mathematically, using Einstein’s General Relativity theory, to the very point of the Big Bang when the Universe was born.
At age 21, he was diagnosed with Amyotropic Lateral Sclerosis and further health complications made him unable to talk without a speech-aided machine.
He continued, under that condition, with his scientific investigations in Theoretical Physics.
Stephen Hawking perhaps, did more than any other scientist to popularise science among ordinary people.
His 256-page epic book, A Brief History of Time, sold more than 25 million copies.
