The world knows the names of many great scientists: mathematicians, physicists, chemists, biologists, linguists, historians, etc. A lot of discoveries have been made by them in different fields of science and engineering. But the greatest event of the 20^th century was the flight of Man into space. Special merit here belongs to Russian scientists. Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky is one of them.

K. Tsiolkovsky was born in 1879 in a small Russian village near Ryasan. Through all his life he had been working on the problem of interplanetary travel. He worked out the theory of cosmic flights. K. Tsiolkovsky believed that «mankind will not remain on Earth forever», and he dreamt to see that day. But he died in 1935.

The man who was standing behind Soviet space strategy from the 1930s was Sergei Pavlovich Korolev. An outstanding scientist, he devoted all his life to rocket research, constructing artificial satellites. The first artificial sputnik was launched on October 4, 1957. The Russians have every right to be proud of it.

Some years later the most remarkable event in the history of Cosmonautics took place. On April 12, 1961 the spaceship «Vostok», piloted by Yuri Gagarin, went up.

It is due to Korolev’s genius and some other top engineers’ talent that Russia became the world leader in conquering space.

Yuri Gagarin was the first man who made his historic flight into space. The whole world applauded to this handsome young man. He orbited the earth once, staying in space for only 108 minutes, but he was the first to fly to stars. Mankind will always remember him. In commemoration of Gagarin’s flight April 12^th has been made the International Day of Cosmonautics.

With Gagarin’s flight to cosmos Tsiolkovsky’s «utopian» dreams came true. A new age of space exploration began.

Isaac Newton

Isaac Newton, one of the greatest men in the history of science, was born in a little village in England in 1642. When Isaac was nineteen he became a student of Cambridge University. He began to study physics, astronomy and mathematics.

Newton’s contribution to these sciences is so great that he may be considered the founder of modern mathematics, physics and spectroscopy. Newton discovered the law of motion and the universal law of gravitation. He studied the nature of light and color and came to the conclusion that white light is composed of many different colors known to us as the spectrum. Such a phenomenon was quite unknown before Newton’s work.

So long as humanity lives, Isaac Newton, the greatest of men of science, will never be forgotten.

Dmitrii Mendeleyev

In 1869 the great Russian scientist Dmitrii Ivanovitch Mendeleyev announced the discovery of the Periodic Law of elements. So science received the key to the secrets of matter. All the greatest discoveries have been made since then in the fields of chemistry and physics have been based on this law.

The elements in Mendeleyev’s Periodic Table follow one another in the order of their atomic weights. They are arranged in periods and groups.

Mendeleyev’s discovery made it possible for the scientists to find 38 new chemical elements to fill the empty spaces left in the Periodic Table. At the same time they tried to find elements heavier than the last element in the Periodic Table. In 1955 the American scientist Dr. Glenn Seabord obtained element No 101 and named it Mendelevium in honor of the creator of the Periodic Law.

Michail Lomonosov

Russia has given the world many outstanding scientists who influenced greatly the progress in science.

 The greatest Russian Scientist, Michail Lomonosov, a great thinker and materialist has made an important contribution to various brunches of science including mechanics. He stated his famous law of the conservation of matter and energy. He built the first Russian chemistry laboratory, where he discovered this law. Moscow University, opened in 1755 on Lomonosov’s initiative, became a major-center of science and education in Russia. Besides, Lomonosov was the writer of the first scientific grammar of the Russian language.