Outstanding Scientific Discoveries
Reading this book "Scientists Greater Than Einstein:
The Biggest Life Savers Of The Twentieth Century " Billy Woodward, Joel
Shurkin, Debra Gordon abridged by Srinivasa Rao Kalasapudi with Padamavathi
Anaparti, has been a great experience. Life is the most precious and
irreplaceable thing on the face of earth. Bestowing good health or preventing a
premature death is the greatest accomplishment/ feat any person can ever do. It
is accompanied by a feeling of gratitude, which is perhaps the noblest of
all the human emotions. All those discoveries that have increased average life
span or have averted premature deaths or those that have sufficiently improved
the quality of life are invaluable gifts to the humanity. All the scientists
who lavished these gifts upon mankind have rendered a greatest service.
The book briefly spans through the life of ten scientists
who have made a vast difference in lives of billions of people. It is so
inspiring to read the lives of the scientists- Al Sommer (Vitamin A), Akira
Endo (Statins), Bill Foege (Small Pox), David Nalin (Oral Rehydration Therapy),
Norman Borlaug (Green Revolution), John Enders (Modern Vaccines), Paul
Muller(DDT), Howard Florey (Pencillin), Frederick Banting (Insulin), and Karl
Landsteiner( Blood Groups).
Life of an individual scientist is utterly unique. The
backgrounds, perceptions and individual intelligence levels of all these
scientists are quite different. For some it has been an inner call, for some
research has been the pursuit of happiness. Some of the scientists had average
intelligence levels but they believed in the great saying of Thomas Edison,
“Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration”. Each of them had ardently dedicated themselves
to their research goals. What is striking is their unbelievable conviction and
aspiration towards their goal, and the undaunted will and courage to pursue
their objectives.
After reading the book certainly each of us would be
marveled by the simplicity in their scientific strategy, execution and
planning. Science doesn’t necessarily translate into working with sophisticated
gadgets. The keen interest in a change or a deep passion or being sentimentally
getting attached to an objective, conviction, team work, above all an
intuition. It is a guiding force often results in obtaining a path
breaking-ground breaking discovery.
Further, the book makes us realize that often simple
interventions with commonsense and careful formulation thereafter can do the
miracle. Sometimes neatly thought out and executed strategy would bring the
necessary change in the existing plan and a stage is set for unraveling a new
discovery. A peek into lives of these scientists gives an insight of science
and more appropriately natural science which goes hand in hand with other
branches of science. With gradual progress and developments in allied branches
of science like Chemistry, Biochemistry, Microbiology etc, the discoveries in
life sciences have hastened. The culmination and better coordination of all
these fields of science resulted in significant changes thus leading to ground breaking
discoveries.
Particularly the discoveries that spanned the early 20th
century would give us a glimpse of the great power of intuition and the common
sense displayed by the scientists. Science was not fancied with superior
gadgets during that period. Hence what appears to be a simple experiment as per
present standards is the result of painstaking years of research of those
pioneers. Especially the effort incurred in converting a serendipitous experiment
in case of Pencillium mold into a panacea of all ailments is worth recalling.
The last chapter of the book sums up the importance of
health and raises relevant issues concerning funding medical research and the
callous attitude of the governments in diverting necessary resources to health.
Wish people in general, and nations in specific, treasure the value of life.
Science can do miracles and if endowed with better facilities and resources
both the quality life and the lifespan of people can be increased. General view
of a population explosion being viewed as drain on natural resources be
discarded.
Perhaps this is one of the best reads for youngsters who
are at cross-roads of their life and want to plunge into the depths of science.
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