Hello Firoz: Kindly let me know the source of this message. Is it published in a newspaper or is it taken from a blog?
Subramani -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of firoz pathan Sent: Tuesday, January 30, 2007 12:14 PM To: [email protected]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Pathan, Firdosh; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [AI] blind scientists Question: Have there been, or are there currently, any successful blind scientists ? If so, what kind of research do they do ? Answer: Dr D. Kent Cullers, the NASA scientist who developed the computer software radio astronomers use to hunt for alien microwave signals in the SETI project (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence), has been blind since birth. Cullers heads the SETI Institute's Project Phoenix search of nearby Sun-like stars and has devoted most of his professional life to seeking evidence of life elsewhere in the Universe. George Maestri Los Angeles, California Answer: Cullers was the inspiration for the blind radio astronomer Kent Clark in the film "Contact" directed by Robert Zemeckis, and based on Carl Sagan's novel. It starred Jodie Foster and William Fichtner as Kent Clark. Derek Bell Electronic and Engineering Department University College Dublin, Ireland Answer: In mathematics, being blind is less of a disability than in most other branches of science. Nicholas Saunderson FRS (1682-1739) lost both eyes following smallpox at the age of 12. From 1711 until his death he was the Lucasian professor of mathematics at Cambridge University, where he was an effective and popular teacher. Three mathematical books by him were published after his death, with his text on algebra becoming very widely read. Leonhard Euler (1707-1783), one of the greatest mathematicians, lost the sight in his right eye in 1738, and was totally blind from 1771. Thereafter Euler kept a team of colleagues and secretaries very busy with his continuous work on mathematics, and he published more than any other mathematician has ever done. W. G. Bickley, professor of mathematics at Imperial College, became blind in about 1960, but he quickly learned Braille and continued to work in his field. In 1959, Stephen Smale astonished mathematicians by proving a sphere could be turned inside-out in a smooth manner - but he did not find a way of actually performing the eversion. The blind mathematician Bernard Morin soon constructed his renowned sequence of about 20 smooth transformations, which shows how a sphere can be turned inside out. Garry Tee Department of Mathematics University of Auckland New Zealand Answer: Your correspondent asks whether there have been any successful blind scientists. There certainly have. One of the most famous was the Belgian physicist Joseph Plateau (1801-1883), who was the inventor of the stroboscope. At the age of 28 he gazed at the midday sun for 20 seconds, with a view to studying the after-effects. The effects turned out to be temporary blindness for several days, followed by a gradual deterioration of vision and permanent blindness at the age of 42. Despite this calamity, he continued his research on subjective visual phenomena for the next forty years. His wife and son (and later his son-in-law G. L. van der Mensbrugghe) performed the experiments, which he devised and interpreted. Even more remarkably, Plateau began to do experiments on the shapes of soap films after he became blind. With the help of a sighted assistant, he measured the angles between soap bubbles in a foam (the connecting edges are now called Plateau borders in his memory), and performed hundreds of other original experiments on the shapes and colours of soap films. He interpreted the results in a great work "Statique experimentale et theoretique des liquides soumis aux seules forces moleculaires", where he was the first to enunciate the role of intermolecular forces in film stability. Len Fisher Nunney, Somerset Answer: Louis Braille, who was totally blind, invented the Braille system of raised dots in the early 1800s to enable those with sight impairment to read and write. From 1839 he worked with colleagues to make the first device for printing Braille and his story is told in "Triumph Over Darkness: The life of Louis Braille" by Lennard Bickel (1988, Allen and Unwin). Joyce Sumner Anstey, Leicestershire Answer: You should consider Georg Everhard Rumpf or Rumphius (1627-1702), who was also known as "Plinius indicus" or the "blind seer of Ambon". >From 1653 he was a merchant in Ambon, Indonesia, with the Dutch East Indian Company, but he also wrote extensive treatises on plants and animals. In 1670 he became incurably blind because of glaucoma, in 1674 an earthquake killed his wife and two daughters, and in 1687 his house was razed by fire. Yet he overcame these obstacles and, from memory, he dictated his manuscripts again. He described about 1200 plants, including where they grew and critical accounts of their uses. You will also find amusing anecdotes in his writing which has an inimitable style with a dry sense of humour. Even now reading them is a great pleasure. Rumpf also wrote instructions on how to build fortifications, advised on sermons in the local language and started a dictionary which, unfortunately, was stolen. He didn't stop there. In 1679 he prepared a land description of Ambon and its surroundings with detailed descriptions of the geography, geology, ethnology and anything that might be of interest to a wide public. Simultaneously he wrote a history of Ambon and its surrounding islands. Another scientist for your list is Geerat J. Vermeij (who appeared in a " New Scientist" supplement, 2 November 1996, p 10) professor of geology at the University of California in Davis, who studies marine molluscs by touch. He became blind when he was six. He has written several scientific books and a biography, "Privileged Hands" published in 1997. He has received several awards for his scientific work. J. F. Veldkamp Nationaal Herbarium Nederland The Netherlands --- To view an archive of BlindNews messages (not complete yet) go to: http://www.snowbeast.net/blind/ To view an archive of BlindNews messages go to: http://www.snowbeast.net/blind/ To unsubscribe send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the subject unsubscribe. To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please visit the list home page at http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.i n To unsubscribe send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the subject unsubscribe. To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please visit the list home page at http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in
