MEN of SCIENCE II

Sir Oliver Joseph Lodge

http://www.martinlogan.com

English physicist was born in Penkhull, Stafforshire on June 12, 1851. Educated in University College, London, he taught there from 1875 to 1881. He was a professor of physics at University College, Liverpool, from 1881 to 1900: then first principal of University of Birmingham, from 1900 to 1919. His scientific researches covered a wide field, including investigations into the phenomena of lightning, electric charges and forces, and wave propagation in wireless telegraphy. After his eminent success as a research physicist and pioneer in wireless telegraphy and as an educational reformer, in 1910 he became interested in psychic phenomena and spiritualism, and in the reconciliation of science and religion. He was knighted in 1902, and died August 22, 1940.

Sir Francis Galton

http://galton.org

An English scientist and anthropologist, Galton is known primarily for his work eugenics, the study of hereditary qualities to improve human race. Francis Galton was born on February 16, 1822, in a village near Birmingham, England. Galton studied medicine, but on the death of his father he found himself with sufficient fortune to make him independent of the medical profession and able to devote himself to scientific research and indulge his passion for travel. His varied journeys, during which he obtained firsthand knowledge of primitive people, culminated in a successful exploratory expedition in southwest Africa (1850-1852) for which, in 1853, the Royal Geographical Society awarded him its Gold Medal. In Inquiries into Human Faculty (1883) Galton first used the word “eugenics” to describe his theory of improving the human race by controlling hereditary factors. The Eugenics Society was founded in London in 1908, with Galton as its first honorary president. He was honored by scientific societies all over the world, and was knighted in 1909. He died at Hazlemere, Surrey, on January 17, 1911.