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An article from the Barsanti & Matteucci Foundation website:An invention that has revolutionized the world - Barsanti e MatteucciFelice Matteucci was born in Lucca in Piazza del Giglio on 12 February 1808. His father, Luigi Matteucci, was a lawyer and Minister of Justice under Prince Felice Baciocchi, and his mother was the aristocratic Angiola Tomei-Albiani of Pietrasanta.Felice’s interest in science became clear while he was studying at the Royal Bourbon College of Paris where his father, then the Grand-duke’s representative at the court of the king of France, had enrolled him in 1824. It was in Paris that he began to study hydraulics and mechanics and he completed his studies in Florence, showing a special aptitude for these.Niccolò Barsanti was born in Pietrasanta on 12 October 1821, son of Giovanni Barsanti, a marble sculptor and Angela Francesconi.He was a delicate child with a gentle, affectionate nature.He attended the school run by Piarist Fathers in the S. Agostino Monastery in Pietrasanta, finishing his high school education at the age of 17 with excellent results in all subjects but showing a very marked inclination for the exact sciences and for mathematics and physics in particular. When his school education was finished, his father supposed that his son would go to the University of Pisa to study engineering or medicine.When the young Barsanti, however, went to the headmaster of the school to collect what nowadays would be called his High School Certificate, he told him that he wanted to join the religious congregation of the Piarists. He therefore left for Florence on 17 July 1838, completed his novitiate at the Pellegrino, put on the habit of the Piarists and changed his name to Eugenio.In September 1841, when he was not yet 20, he was transferred to the San Michele School in Volterra to teach maths and physics. It was there in the spring of 1843 that the “little schoolmaster” (as his pupils nicknamed him because he was so young and slightly built) came into the classroom holding a container with a long neck, an instrument he had made himself for the experiment he was about to do, and which was a copy of Volta’s pistol. The little schoolmaster told his pupils what he was going to do.He then filled the container with hydrogen and air, closed the neck hermetically with a cork, and then shot an electric spark from the tips of an insulated brass rod with two little spheres at each end. Instantly, a deafening explosion shot the cork up to the ceiling and the classroom echoed with the noise. He then explained to his terrified pupils what had happened – the spark had ignited the gas mixture, the mixture had expanded and had thus produced the explosion which had expelled the cork. The instrument that Barsanti used is preserved in Volterra.With this experiment, in a flash of inspiration, Barsanti had the idea of using the explosion of a gaseous mixture to generate a force that could be used in a continuous motion engine that would be more efficient than a steam engine. In 1845 he was sent back to Florence to teach maths and physics in the San Giovannino School and thereafter he was appointed lecturer in mechanics and hydraulics in the Ximeniano School.The head of the Ximeniano School at that time was Padre Antonelli, astronomer, mathematician and expert in hydraulics, but, in particular, designer of railway lines chiefly in central Italy. Barsanti told Padre Antonelli about the idea he had had of transforming the force of the explosion of a mixture of gases into a motor force, which might be capable of replacing the steam engine.Padre Antonelli was very impressed and understood at once what the advantages of such a discovery might be. He urged Barsanti not to lose sight of his ideas but to continue his research. He also advised him to ask Felice Matteucci, an engineer who regularly came to the Ximeniano School, to help him.Barsanti explained his ideas to Matteucci who thought them extremely clever and promised to give him as much assistance as he could. The two of them began to carry out important experiments in the Villa in Vorno in order to check the viability of Barsanti’s intuitions regarding the equivalence of thermal energy and mechanical energy.Matteucci understood the importance of Padre Eugenio Barsanti’s ideas and was happy to put his wide knowledge of mechanics at his friend’s disposal. Towards the end of 1851, as Padre Alfani recorded, Barsanti and Matteucci “carried out a long, detailed series of experiments and delicate measurements, as preparation for the mechanical device that would lead them to victory”.From that time on, the idea was not Barsanti’s alone but became the invention of them both, on account of Matteucci’s contribution to the work. Matteucci was able to turn Barsanti’s brilliant idea into reality with his own brilliance and knowledge of mechanics.To Barsanti, therefore, is due the credit for the theory of the internal combustion engine, and to Matteucci, the mechanical genius, the credit for putting the theory into effect. It is difficult to reconstruct all the research and experiments that the two inventors carried out but we can safely say that they persisted until they saw their machine throbbing and heard the steady beat of its internal combustion engine.The invention of the internal combustion engine can be precisely dated as 5 June 1853 which is the date on which the inventors lodged a memorial in the Academy of Georgofili recording the experiments they had carried out for constructing the internal combustion engine. The first engine was built that year in an Italian factory, the Pietro Benini Foundry, as is proved by two invoices sent to Felice Matteucci, one dated 9 June 1853, for building the first engine and the other 2 November 1853, for building the first engine and repairing various parts.On 13 May 1854, after a number of setbacks, they finally obtained their first patent, n. 1072, in England. By 1856, an engine driving a drill and a cutting tool was in regular use in the Maria Antonia railway station workshops in Florence. More engines were built between 1858 and 1860 and other patents were issued in England and France and by the Kingdom of Savoy.Deeply disappointing news was about to come from France, however. In 1860, Etienne Lenoir demonstrated an engine that ran on the same principles as registered by Barsanti and Matteucci in their English patents of 1854 and 1857 and in their French patent of 1858. Despite this, France hailed Lenoir as the inventor of the internal combustion engine.This was a blow to them both, and to Matteucci in particular, but they persevered, notwithstanding, continuing their work with Giovanni Babacci from Forlì, and obtaining a new Barsanti-Matteucci-Babacci patent n. 3270 on 31 December 1861 in England.At this point, and in view of the success of their prototype, they decided to set up a company for building their engines but the newly established New Engine Company urgently required them to build a new, perfectly functioning engine.Nothing daunted, Barsanti set off for Zurich at the famous Escher-Wyss workshops, in order to commission a two-cylinder 20 hp engine. The engine was soon built and sent to Florence, where it was set up in the company’s premises and exhibited at the first Italian Exhibition, held in Florence in 1861. France refused to acknowledge the priority of Barsanti and Matteucci’s discovery.Theirs was a lone voice, however, and they had no support in defending their rights since Italy at that time was recently unified and had more serious problems to deal with. Matteucci, therefore, decided to go to Paris to present their patents but he had to stand by and witness Lenoir’s triumph instead, while his protests went unheard and the French press made no response.Embittered as well as exhausted by intense research, Matteucci became seriously ill. Meanwhile, Padre Eugenio Barsanti continued to work and to devise further improvements to the engine.In 1863 he left for Milan and the Bauer Workshops (now Breda) where he personally oversaw the construction of the 4 hp engine described in the First System patent granted in France on 9 January 1858. Barsanti was concentrating on building a low power engine because the majority of orders were for small machines.Installation costs would therefore be lower and they would also be in a position to meet the demands of numerous small industries. Barsanti and Matteucci, with the support of their patents in England, France and several other European states, decided to establish the priority of their invention by opening the memorial lodged in the Academy of Georgofili in 1853.The document was read at an ordinary meeting on 23 September 1863 and published in the Academy’s records. The engine built in the Bauer Workshops in Milan excited huge interest and there were so many orders that Barsanti and Matteucci considered entering it in the prize competition that was periodically held by the Institute of Science, Letters and Arts in Lombardy.The engine was admitted to the competition trial. The Institute appointed a Commission made up of Professors Camillo Hajeck, Giovanni Codazza and Luigi Magrini who acted as reporter.At a meeting on 23 July 1863, the Commission presented its report which, after a preamble which mentioned earlier attempts made by others, first of all confirmed the indisputable priority of Barsanti and Matteucci’s invention over Lenoir’s, and then described the working of the engine and the tests carried out to measure its dynamic power and assess its efficiency.The Commission concluded that the hourly cost of running the Lenoir engine was about five times greater than for the Barsanti and Matteucci engine. Finally, the Commission decided to award the silver medal to Barsanti and Matteucci.The Bauer engine generated so much interest and so many orders that the company decided to build it on a large scale. Investigations were thus begun to find a manufacturingcompany and their choice was the John Cockerill Co. in Seraing, Belgium.On 28 February 1864, Barsanti set off for Seraing with the engine and when on his arrival it was started up, the engineers and workmen who saw it in action were astounded. It was a great triumph for Padre Barsanti, but sadly it was to be his last, because he died on 19 April.His body was returned to Florence on 26 May and was buried in the little house in Compiobbi, thereafter it was transferred to S. Giovannino and on 24 October 1954 to Santa Croce in Florence. Matteucci continued his work on the engine alone, but in 1867, bad news arrived from Paris in a letter from the editor of the newspaper Il Gaz. He wrote:“In the 1867 exhibition there is an engine copied from yours by two Prussian engineers, Otto and Langen. It was awarded the gold medal. In my article I criticised the award and this has brought protests from the parties concerned. I seek the truth: give me your opinion on the judgment I made, and on the reasons that led you to abandon your patent.”Matteucci set off at once for Paris with his patents, designs and documents, to do his utmost to prove the invention’s priority against everyone who sought to defraud him of his right as inventor, but to no avail. The Imperial French Government’s response was that it was the invention, not the inventor, that was important. Thus, in the end, Barsanti and Matteucci were robbed of all they had worked and hoped for by two Prussians.Matteucci could find no peace of mind and the engine continued to be his obsession. In 1877, he wrote to Giovanni Sacheri, editor of Civil Engineering – Industrial Arts in an attempt to reopen the priority question but it was of no use.By this time, however, his strength was failing and once again he was overwhelmed by a nervous exhaustion which intensified alarmingly. Fresh air, the peaceful time spent in his country villa in Vorno where he had heard the first sound of the engine, the love of his family and friends – all of these failed to bring about his recovery and he died on 13 September 1887.Here it is fitting to add that he hid his learning behind a veil of noble modesty. He was admired by true scholars, but he lacked and still lacks the protection and favour of the mighty ones. He was buried in the family chapel in the Villa “Alla Marina” (Villa Montalvo) in Campi Bisenzio where he rests to this day.

Myths have overcome the minds of many, blinding the world of truth. History is filled with myths that the majority of people who consider themselves “educated” believe. Regardless, we must crush these myths and spread the reality of this world. Let us delve into some of the earliest parts of American History, that mesmerize us all.DISCOVERY OF AMERICA -Many grew up being taught how Colombus sailed the Ocean blue and discovered America, yet this is a fallacy. Colombus sailed to the Caribbean, regardless of what he did there, the Vikings beat him to it by 4 centuries.Norse colonization of North America began in the late 10th century AD when Norseman explored and settled areas of the North Atlantic including the northeastern fringes of North America. Remains of Norse buildings were found at L’Anse aux Meadowns near the northern tip of Newfoundland in 1960. This discovery aided the reignition of archaeological exploration for the Norse in the North Atlantic.The Norse settlements in the North American island of Greenland lasted for almost 500 years. L’Anse aux Meadows, the only confirmed Norse site on the North American mainland, was small and did not last as long. While voyages, for example to collect timber, are likely to have occurred for some time, there is no evidence of any lasting Norse settlements on mainland North America, and these Norseman don’t compare to any unknown voyages thousands of years ago, in a time lost to history.DECLERATION OF INDEPENDENCE -The Founding Fathers signed the Decleration on July 4th, right? Nay, in fact, independence was formally declared on July 2, 1776, a date that John Adams believed would be “the most memorable epocha in the history of America.” On July 4, 1776, Congress approved the final text of the Declaration. It wasn't signed until August 2, 1776. We celebrate a date of approval, not the actual signing itself.PAUL REVERE -“The British are coming! The British are coming!” These words are well known among Americans, yet they are sadly very wrong, they were never spoken.LISTEN, MY CHILDREN, and you shall hear / Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere." With those words, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, in a poem published in 1861, galloped away with the legend of the Boston silversmith who helped start the Revolutionary War. Longfellow's poem, with its romantic image of a lonely rider single-handedly stirring a sleeping countryside to arms, was written more than 40 years after Revere's death for readers facing the specter of another looming conflict. But its simple, inspiring message still resonates: One man, in pursuit of a noble cause, really can make a difference.The poem has only one flaw, historians say: It is inaccurate in almost every way. "We have heard of poetic license," wrote the town historian of Lexington, Mass., in 1868, "but have always understood that this sort of latitude was to be confined to modes of expression and to the regions of the imagination, and should not extend to historic facts." By abandoning the real story of Paul Revere from beginning to end, Longfellow may have undermined his own message. "He appealed to the evidence of history as a source of patriotic inspiration," writes David Hackett Fischer in Paul Reveres Ride, "but was utterly without scruple in his manipulation of historical fact."The real-life Paul Revere was not a national hero until Longfellow crafted his poem, though his mythic stature would rise with each passing stanza. In 1775, Revere was one of many Whig activists in Boston who learned that the British garrison was preparing to send troops to seize military supplies in Concord. At the time, Revere was a small but important player in a much larger colonial intelligence network, which dispatched him and one other rider to alert the local militias. The other man, William Dawes, a Boston tanner, took the main road out of town. Revere, meanwhile, arranged with the help of several other people to sneak across the Charles River. Not only that, but 40 other men rode to silently warn the surrounding militias.Shouting “The British are coming!” in the streets would have been the modern day equivalent of running down Times Square in New York and shouting, “The Americans are coming!” At that point, the colonies were still technically British, and not everybody was cool with the idea of a revolution. More likely, Paul Revere—and he was just one of dozens assigned to put the word out in Boston—whispered his alarm, and instead of warning of the British, he likely said, “The regulars are coming out”.A young George Washington “cannot tell a lie.” -According to legend, when George Washington was just six years old, he chopped down his dad’s cherry tree with a hatchet. When his dad confronted him about it, George supposedly confessed to everything, claiming “I cannot tell a lie.” A nice tale, if only it was true. Turns out, the story first appeared in an 1806 autobiography of Washington, whose writer admitted that he was just trying to show how our most beloved president’s “unparalleled rise and elevation were due to his Great Virtues.”Baseball was invented in Cooperstown. -Every fan of America’s pastime knows it was born in Cooperstown, New York. But that history is an invention, cooked up in 1907 by a committee charged with figuring out the origins of baseball. They gave the credit to Abner Doubleday, a Civil War hero who allegedly invented the game in Cooperstown in 1839. The truth is, Doubleday wasn’t even a fan of the sport, much less its creator. Variations on baseball have been around since the 18th century, from children’s games like rounders to cricket. Baseball as we know it today was the brainchild of New Yorker Alexander Joy Cartwright, a volunteer firefighter and bank clerk who came up with the three-strike rules, the diamond-shaped infield, and all the foul lines.Thomas Edison invented the electric light bulb. -This one burns my biscuts. Edison had a record number of patents—1,093, to be exact—and the vast majority of them weren’t his own inventions. He was just a guy smart enough to find real inventors and steal their ideas before they could take the credit. Edison got the patent for the light bulb in 1880, but it’s true father was Warren de la Rue, a British astronomer and chemist, who created the first light bulb forty years earlier.Betsy Ross designed and sewed the first American Flag. -The only proof we have that Betsy Ross had anything to do with creating the American flag came from her grandson, William Canby, who argued in 1870 —a full decade-plus since the events in question—that his “gam-gam” came up with the whole idea. You’ll forgive us if that sounds fishy. Betsy at least had one contribution to the flag; she suggested a five-pointed star instead of a six-pointed one because it’d be easier to sew. The real creator was likely Francis Hopkinson from New Jersey, who signed the Declaration of Independence and designed many seals for U.S. government departments. When he tried to get paid for coming up with the American flag, it was denied by the Board of Admiralty, on the grounds that “he was not the only one consulted.” Ouch!Cars were invented in America. -When we think of the first car, we think of Henry Ford’s Model T, first introduced in 1908. It was a swell automobile, but not by any stretch of the imagination the “first” horseless carriage. That happened back in the 19th century, when European engineers like Carl Benz and Emile Levassor were making automobile innovations that were light years ahead of Ford. Benz patented the first automobile in 1886. Ford wasn’t even the first to sell cars in the U.S. That would be Ransom E. Olds, who was selling Oldsmobiles in 1901 for the low price of $650.Lincoln was 500 percent against slavery. -Abraham Lincoln may have given us the Emancipation Proclamation in 1862, but he had complicated and conflicting ideas about slavery. In an 1862 letter to a prominent newspaper editor, he shared these ambiguous emotions: “If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union.” So yeah, it’s fair to say that Lincoln freed the slaves. But it’s also fair to note that he was totally open to a plan B, he was in a very stressful situation.America Singlehandedly Beat Hitler. -I really hate to add this one, yet I personally have met people who believe this. The U.S. definitely played a huge part in defeating the Nazis in World War II. They used 2/3 of their entire military force to conquer the Nazis, while almost single handedly strangling the Japanses. But we can’t take full credit. The Nazis were largely defeated by the Soviet Union. While the U.S. lost 1.3 million lives in World War II, the Russians lost a staggering 27 million, an unfathomable number.The Wild West was violent, filled with gunfire, bank robberies, and murder. -Between 1859 and 1900, there were an estimated 12 bank robberies in the entirety of the so-called “Wild West.” And the grand total of gun-related murders in frontier towns came to about 1.5 per year. There could’ve been 1.5 gun-related murders in some U.S. cities today in the time it took you to read that last sentence. The infamous 1881 shootout at the OK Corral in Tombstone, Arizona, in which the Earp brothers exchanged gunfire with the Clanton-McLaury gang, had a body count of exactly three.Sadly this list has to end here, Yet I hope you enjoyed it and could possibly add to the conclusion.Thanks for reading!

Of course.they can also become Supreme Court Justices - Sandra Day O’Connor.And Secretary of State - Condoleeza Rice.Here is a link to 25 modern science, math and technology leaders who were . homeschooled (and I copied the content in this link below). Homeschool rocks. Homeschool works.25 Modern Science, Math and Technology leaders who were homeschooled - A Magical HomeschoolHere is a round-up of 25 modern science, technology, engineering and mathematics leaders who were homeschooled:Grant Colfax (1965- ) is the Director of the Office of National AIDS Policy. He is the President’s lead advisor on domestic HIV/AIDS and is responsible for overseeing implementation of the National HIV/AIDS Strategy and guiding the Administration’s HIV/AIDS policies across Federal agencies. Dr. Colfax is the eldest of the four sons homeschooled while building the family homestead and goat farm with their parents, David and Micki Colfax. The Colfaxes wrote about their homeschooling experiences in the books “Homeschooling for Excellence” and “Hard Times in Paradise.” They did not follow a “school at home” approach and once commented that months went by without books being opened (his parents reported that young Grant was nine before he even learned to read). Dr. Colfax graduated from Harvard Medical School and previously worked as the Director of the HIV Prevention Section in the San Francisco Department of Public Health. Upon appointing Dr. Grant to his current position, President Obama said, “Grant Colfax will lead my Administration’s continued progress in providing care and treatment to people living with HIV/AIDS. Grant’s expertise will be key as we continue to face serious challenges and take bold steps to meet them. I look forward to his leadership in the months and years to come.”Francis Collins (1950- )is the current Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). He is also famous for his leadership of the Human Genome Project. He has received the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the National Medal of Science. He founded and served as president of the BioLogos Foundation, which promotes discourse on the relationship between science and religion and advocates the perspective that belief in Christianity can be reconciled with acceptance of evolution and science. In 2009, Pope Benedict XVI appointed Collins to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. Dr. Collins was homeschooled until sixth grade.Erik Demaine (1981- ) was named “one of the most brilliant scientists in America” in 2003 by Popular Science magazine. The MIT professor of computer science is considered a rising star in the area of theoretical computer science, specifically computational geometry, data structures and algorithms. The Canadian was homeschooled until he entered Dalhousie University at twelve. He completed his bachelor’s degree at age fourteen and completed his PhD by age twenty. He joined the MIT faculty in 2001 at age 20, reportedly the youngest professor in the history of the the university. In 2003, Dr. Demaine became one of the youngest people ever selected for the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship, commonly called “the genius grant.” He has been recognized with many other grants and awards, and his mathematical origami artwork (created in collaboration with his father) is part of the Museum of Modern Art’s permanent collection. It is worth noting that Demaine was raised by his father, a glassblower and silversmith, who had only a high school education. You can read about his unconventional homeschool (or even “roadschool”) education here and here and you can visit his fascinating website here.John Linsley (1925-2002) was an internationally recognized astrophysicist who was nominated for the Nobel Physics Prize in 1980 for his work studying cosmic rays and who won the Premio Internazionale San Valentino d’Oro in astrophysics in 1982. He is best known for being the first to detect an air shower created by a primary particle with an energy of 1020 eV. Dr. Linsley’s observations suggested that not all cosmic rays are confined within the galaxy and showed the first evidence of a flattening of the cosmic ray spectrum at energies above 1018 eV. Dr. Linsley was homeschooled by his mother for most of his childhood.Philip Streich (1991-2012) had already won the prestigious Intel Foundation Young Scientist Award, been honored by Discover magazine as one of the Discover 50 “Best Brains in Science,” been named a Davidson Fellow Laureate and had co-founded a nanotechnology company by the time he entered Harvard as a self-made multimillionaire in his teens. Streich, who was homeschooled from 7th grade on, was the youngest and first non-faculty member to be named a University of Wisconsin System “Innovative Scholar of the Year.” His work was published in magazines such as Science and Advanced Materials. The company he cofounded, Graphene Solutions, was featured in Business Week and won the Wisconsin Governor’s Business Plan top award. As an Intel Science Talent Search finalist, Streich was elected by the other finalists to win the Glenn T. Seaborg Award for scientific communication and the Creativity Foundation’s Legacy Medal for his exceptional creative promise as a scientist and entrepreneur. Streich’s research on carbon nanotubes and their thermodynamic solubility showed promise in finding the key to using nanoparticles in revolutionary applications. He already held numerous patents for his discoveries at the time of his death at only age 21. The Harvard Crimson called him, “an enthusiastic entrepreneur, a scientific prodigy, a political activist, a record producer, and a grandiose party host.”Margaret Mead (1901–1978) was one of America’s most famous and influential cultural anthropologists. In her early years, her family moved frequently and her education alternated between homeschooling and traditional schools. Dr. Mead focused her research on problems of child rearing, personality and culture. She served as executive secretary of the National Research Council’s Committee on Food Habits, curator of ethnology at the American Museum of Natural History, president of the American Anthropological Association, president and chair of the executive committee of the board of directors in the American Association for the Advancement of Science, as well as working as a professor and prolific author. She was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Carter.Samuel Chao Chung Ting (1936- ) is an American physicist who received the Nobel Prize in 1976 for discovering the subatomic J/ψ particle. Ting was born in Michigan, where his parents met and married as graduate students at the University of Michigan. His parents returned to China two months after his birth and due to the Japanese invasion in China he was mostly home-schooled by his parents. Dr. Ting is the principal investigator for the international $1.5 billion Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer experiment which was installed on the International Space Station in 2011 and a professor at MIT. He is a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and an academician of Taiwan’s Academia Sinica.Aaron Swartz (1986-2013) was a computer programmer, writer, political organizer and Internet activist. Starting at age fourteen, he helped develop the web feed format RSS, Creative Commons, and Reddit, among other contributions. He helped launch the Progressive Change Campaign Committee and was a research fellow at Harvard University’s Safra Research Lab on Institutional Corruption. He founded the online group Demand Progress, known for its campaign against the Stop Online Piracy Act. Swartz unschooled himself after ninth grade.Reid W. Barton (1983- ) is one of the most successful performers in the International Science Olympiads. Barton was homeschooled starting in third grade, and attended classes at Tufts University in chemistry, physics, Swedish, Finnish, French and Chinese in fifth and sixth grade. In eighth grade, he worked part-time with MIT computer scientist Charles E. Leiserson on CilkChess, a computer chess program. He worked at Akamai Technologies to build one of the earliest video performance measurement systems that have since become a standard in industry. Barton won two gold medals at the International Olympiad in Informatics and won the Morgan Prize for his work on packing densities. Barton recently earned his Ph.D in Math at Harvard.Fred Terman (1900-1982) is widely considered to be “the father of Silicon Valley.” His father, Lewis Terman, (a Stanford scientist who was best known for developing the Stanford-Binet IQ test) educated him at home until age nine. Terman had graduated from Stanford by age twenty. During World War II, Terman directed a staff of more than 850 at Harvard’s Radio Research Laboratory, an organization charged with creating Allied jammers to block enemy radar, tunable receivers to detect radar signals and aluminum strips to produce spurious reflections on enemy radar receivers. Terman was a founding member of the National Academy of Engineering and was awarded the IRE Medal of Honor for “his many contributions to the radio and electronic industry as teacher, author, scientist and administrator.” Terman’s students at Stanford included Oswald Garrison Villard, Jr., William Hewlett and David Packard, whom he encouraged to form their own companies. He personally invested in many of them, resulting in firms such as Litton Industries and Hewlett-Packard.Erwin Schrödinger (1887-1961) was an Austrian physicist who was very influential in the field of quantum theory. Schrödinger proposed an original interpretation of the physical meaning of the wave function and in subsequent years repeatedly criticized the conventional Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics (once using the now-famous paradox of Schrödinger’s cat). He was the author of many works in various fields of physics, specifically statistical mechanics and thermodynamics, physics of dielectrics, color theory, electrodynamics, general relativity, and cosmology. Schrödinger won many awards, including the Nobel Prize for Physics and the Max Planck Medal. He was homeschooled until age ten.Jacob Barnett (1998- ) is a mathematician and astrophysicist who, while still a teenager, expanded on Einstein’s theory of relativity and became an orator of Physics classes at Indiana University. Diagnosed with autism as a young child, he started out in public school in special education classes. His parents pulled him out and chose to let him follow his interests in math and science instead. He began taking college classes at age 8, taught himself all high school math in 2 weeks at age 10, began work on his Master’s at 13, and was accepted to the Perimeter Institute at 15. He has been featured in the TEDxTeen talk “Forget What You Know” and he has his own You-Tube channel where he explains concepts like quantum mechanics, scientific notation, calculus and linear algebra for viewers of all ages. He is the world’s youngest astrophysics researcher and has been tipped for a Nobel Prize for his work.Benoit Mandelbrot (1924-2010), the Yale mathematics professor known as the “father of fractals” and the person who coined the term, was taught at home by his uncle in his early years. After his family fled Warsaw, he was educated in and out of French schools and by another uncle and family friends, who helped him graduate on time despite what he described as “a peculiar education.” The New York Times wrote of Mandelbrot: “Over nearly seven decades, working with dozens of scientists, Dr. Mandelbrot contributed to the fields of geology, medicine, cosmology and engineering. He used the geometry of fractals to explain how galaxies cluster, how wheat prices change over time and how mammalian brains fold as they grow, among other phenomena.” His awards include the Wolf Prize for Physics, the Lewis Fry Richardson Prize of the European Geophysical Society, the Japan Prize, and the Einstein Lectureship of the American Mathematical Society. The asteroid 27500 Mandelbrot was named in his honor, he’s the subject of a Jonathan Coulton song (the lyrics of which he good-naturedly autographed) and he was made a Knight in the French Legion of Honour. Lebanese author and professor Nassim Nicholas Taleb said that Mandelbrot “had perhaps more cumulative influence than any other single scientist in history, with the only close second, Isaac Newton.”George Washington Carver (1864–1943) was a leading African American scientist, botanist, educator, and inventor in the South after the Civil War. Carver was born into slavery and raised and educated by German immigrants Moses and Susan Carver. He left their home when he was eleven years old and later worked his own way through college at Iowa State, where he also earned a Master’s degree. Dr. Carver researched and promoted alternative crops to cotton, such as peanuts, soybeans and sweet potatoes, which also aided nutrition for farm families. He developed and promoted about 100 products made from peanuts that were useful for the house and farm, including cosmetics, dyes, paints, plastics, gasoline, and nitroglycerin. He became the head the Tuskegee Institute’s Agriculture Department, where he taught for 47 years, developing the department into a strong research center. He taught methods of crop rotation, introduced several alternative cash crops for farmers that would also improve the soil of areas heavily cultivated in cotton, initiated research into crop products (chemurgy), and taught generations of black students farming techniques for self-sufficiency. He received numerous honors for his work, including the Spingarn Medal of the NAACP, induction into the Hall of Fame for Great Americans and membership into the Royal Society of Arts in England.Soichiro Honda (1906-1991) was a Japanese engineer and industrialist who established the Honda corporation, a multinational automobile and motorcycle manufacturer. Honda spent his early childhood helping his father, a blacksmith, with his bicycle repair business. He was not interested in traditional education and developed a fake family seal to stamp his graded reports instead of showing them to his parents. He left home at age 15 to start work as a car mechanic in Tokyo. In 1937, he founded Tōkai Seiki to produce piston rings for Toyota. After a bomber attack destroyed Tōkai Seiki’s Yamashita plant during World War II and his Itawa plant collapsed in the 1945 Mikawa earthquake, Honda sold the salvageable remains of the company to Toyota and used the proceeds to found the Honda Technical Research Institute. He created motorized bicycles and then motorcycles, later branching out into automobiles. His company is now a billion-dollar multinational corporation.Paul Erdős (1913–1996) has been called the world’s greatest problem poser and solver. He collaborated with over 500 mathematicians and published around 1,525 math papers, making him one of the most prolific publishers of papers in mathematical history. The Hungarian-born mathematician worked with hundreds of collaborators pursuing problems in combinatorics, graph theory, number theory, classical analysis, approximation theory, set theory and probability theory. He developed an elementary proof for some of the most challenging math problems, including the the Prime Number Theorem and Bertrand’s conjecture that there was always at least one prime between n and 2n for n > 2. He was homeschooled by his parents, who were both mathemeticians, for much of his childhood.Bertrand Arthur William Russell (1872– 1970) was a British nobleman, logician, philosopher, mathematician, historian and social critic who is considered one of the founders of analytic philosophy. Following the death of his parents when he was very young, he was raised by his grandmother and educated at home by tutors. His work has had a considerable influence on logic, mathematics, set theory, linguistics, artificial intelligence, cognitive science, computer science and philosophy, especially philosophy of language, epistemology and metaphysics. A prominent anti-war activist, he campaigned against Hitler, World War I, Stalin, nuclear weapons and the Vietnam War, among other causes. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature “in recognition of his varied and significant writings in which he champions humanitarian ideals and freedom of thought.”Ruth Elke Lawrence-Naimark (1971- ) is an Associate Professor of mathematics at the Einstein Institute of Mathematics, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and a researcher in knot theory and algebraic topology. She was born in England, where her parents were computer consultants. When she was five, her father gave up his job so that he could educate her at home. At the age of nine, she gained an O-level in mathematics and achieved a Grade A at A-level Pure Mathematics. She graduated from the University of Oxford at age thirteen, then earned a second degree in physics and went on to earn a PhD in mathematics at Oxford at the age of 17. Her first academic post was at Harvard University, where she became a Junior Fellow at the age of 19. Dr. Lawrence-Naimark’s 1990 paper, “Homological representations of the Hecke algebra,” published in Communications in Mathematical Physics, introduced certain novel linear representations of the braid group known as Lawrence–Krammer representation.Wilson “Snowflake” Bentley (1865–1931) is one of the first known photographers of snowflakes, and certainly the best. Born on a family farm in Vermont, he was homeschooled by his mother, a former teacher, who also gave him his first microscope at age fifteen and then his first camera at seventeen. After two years of trial and error, he made the world’s first photomicrograph of a snow crystal at age nineteen. He published 49 popular and 11 technical articles about snow crystals, frost, dew and raindrops, including the entry on “snow” in the 14th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica. He was elected a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society in 1920. “Snow Crystals,” a book of his snow crystals images, was published in 1931.Bill Lear (1902-1978) is best known for founding the Lear Corporation. He also invented the B-battery eliminator and the 8-track cartridge. He was kicked out of high school for “showing up his teachers,” after which he spent time re-building a Model-T car with his father, traveling the country, running and repairing rotary typesetting and printing machines and serving in the navy. He eventually decided to return to complete his high school education and was on track to complete all four years in one when he was expelled again for “showing up his teachers.” He was self-taught and worked as an engineer for companies such as Magnavox and Universal Battery. Lear eventually started his own company, Radio Coil and Wire Corporation, out of the basement of his mother’s old house, which he later traded for stock in another company. He went on to invent the 8-track casette, which enjoyed great commercial success in the 1960’s and 1970’s. He founded Lear Developments, a company specializing in aerospace instruments and electronics, and developed radio direction finders, autopilots and the first fully automatic aircraft landing system, among other inventions. He went on to found the Swiss American Aviation Company and later developed the Lear Jet.Mary Carson Breckinridge (1881–1965) was an American nurse-midwife and the founder of the Frontier Nursing Service. Born to a prominant family, she was educated at home by tutors. She started family care centers in the Appalachian mountains and was known for helping many people with her hospitals.Sho Yano (1990- ) is an American physician who was awarded a PhD in molecular genetics and cell biology from the Pritzker School of Medicine at the University of Chicago at the age of 18 and became the youngest person to graduate with an MD from the University of Chicago at age 21. His mother homeschooled him through the 12th grade. Dr. Yano began his residency in pediatric neurology at Comer Children’s Hospital in 2012.Willard Boyle (1924-2011) was a Canadian physicist and co-inventor of the charge-coupled device. He was awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physics with George E. Smith for the invention of the imaging semiconductor circuit—the CCD sensor, which allowed NASA to send clear pictures to Earth back from space. It is also the technology that powers many digital cameras today. He also helped develop the first continuously operating ruby laser and the first semiconductor injection laser, helped with the development of integrated circuits for telecommunications and electronics, and worked with NASA to help determine where astronauts should land on the moon. He was home schooled by his mother until age fourteen, when he began his college education.Sir Frank Whittle (1907-1996) is credited with single handedly inventing the turbojet engine. Educated for a short time at a private school in England, he was forced to return home when his father’s business failed. He learned at home from then on, both in his father’s workshop and at the local library, where he researched astronomy, engineering, turbines, and the theory of flight in his spare time. At the age of 15, determined to be a pilot, Whittle applied to join the Royal Air Force. After failing the medical exam because of his short stature (he was then only 5 feet tall), he spent six months on a rigorous diet and grew three inches (also putting on three inches in chest circumference). Upon failing again, he applied again under an assumed name and was admitted. His skills and mathematical genius helped him quickly rise through the ranks as a fighter pilot. While writing his thesis, he formulated the fundamental concepts that led to the creation of the turbojet engine, taking out a patent on his design in 1930. He worked as an engineering specialist for Shell Oil, Bristol Aero Engines and the United States Naval Academy, among others. Whittle was ranked number 42 in the BBC poll of the 100 Greatest Britons.Arran Fernandez, (1995- ) is an English mathematician who was accepted to Cambridge at age 15. Arran first made headlines in 2001, when he gained the highest grade in the foundation maths paper at age five. His current goal is to be a research mathematician and find a solution to the Riemann hypothesis – the unsolved theory about the patterns of prime numbers that has baffled mathematicians for 150 years. Fernandez has had several sequences published in the On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences (OEIS), the number theory database established by Neil Sloane. His father Neil, who homeschooled him, told the UK Standard, “Any child could do this. The idea that babies are born with different amounts of intellectual potential is false. It is fundamentally oligarchic. Home-educated children just find it easier to avoid the dumbing-down process.”These brilliant doctors, inventors, engineers, mathematicians and scholars learned at home in all different ways. Some were self directed, some taught by tutors, some unschooled and some taught with the assistance of college classes.The one thing they all had in common was that they contributed to STEM advancements in amazing ways in our modern world.Who knows what the next generation of homeschoolers will contribute?