Mendeleyev, D. Ivanovich
1834-1907

Russian chemist who introduced the periodic classification of the elements.

Mendeleyev taught chemistry at St. Petersburg University, where he discovered the periodicity of the chemical properties of the elements.

The periodic table became one of the most useful and important generalizations of chemistry and of all science. In Mendeleyev's lifetime several new elements, including gallium, scandium, and germanium, were found in nature, and their chemical behaviour matched that predicted by Mendeleyev's periodic table.

He also made contribution in the fields of hydrodynamics, meteorology, geology, and he investigated the technology of explosives, petroleum, and fuels.

Michelson, Albert A.

1852-1931

American physicist who experimentally established the speed of light as a fundamental constant (1887). Michelson was the first American to win a Nobel Prize for science.

With the help of his colleague Edward Morley he conducted the Michelson-Morley experiment. This experiment showed that there was no significant motion of the Earth relative to the ether *. This result later became the foundation of Einstein's Theory of Relativity.

(* The ether was a hypothetical medium in which light waves were supposed to travel. The notion of this medium eventually had to be abolished.)

Marconi, Guglielmo

1874-1937

Italian electrical engineer and Nobel laureate. Inventor of a workable system of radio telegraphy.

In 1895 Marconi had developed an apparatus with which he could send signals to a point a few kilometres away with a directional antenna. In 1901, his wireless trans-Atlantic transmission caused a worldwide sensation, and in 1907 a wireless telegraph service was established for public use.

Meitner, Lise

1878-1968

Austrian physicist who served as an assistant to Max Planck at the University of Berlin.

Although she moved to Sweden in 1938, she still corresponded with her colleagues in Berlin. At her instruction, Otto Hahn bombarded uranium with neutrons and produced barium, but he did not realize that he had split the atom until Lise Meitner developed a mathematical theory to explain the splitting of the uranium into two fragments - introducing the term nuclear fission.

Lise Meitner had realised that if one of the two fragments was Barium, the other was Krypton, and there should also be an accompanying release of several neutrons and a large amount of energy. She was the first in the world to explain what had happened, and the first to realise the massive release of energy that takes place.

Messerschmitt
Willy

1898-1978

German chief aircraft designer. His legendary Messerschmitt Bf 109 was the Luftwaffe's foremost fighter throughout the Second World War with more than 33,000 aircraft made. He also designed a 6-engine transport capable of carrying 18 tons and the Me 410, a fighter bomber. In 1944 he produced the Me 262, the world's first jet fighter flown in combat.

After the war he was at first forbidden to design aircraft, but in 1958 he received NATO contracts for co-production of aircraft and missiles.

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