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Gerolamo Cardano

He was born in Pavia , in September 24, 1501, the illegitimate child of Fazio Cardano, a mathematically gifted lawyer, who was a friend of Leonardo da Vinci.
In 1520, he entered the University of Pavia and later in Padua studied medicine. His eccentric and confrontational style did not earn him many friends and he had a difficult time finding work after his studies had ended. In 1525, Cardano repeatedly applied to the College of Physicians in Milan, but was not admitted due to his reputation and illegitimate birth.
Eventually, he managed to develop a considerable reputation as a physician and his services were highly valued at the courts. He was the first to describe typhoid fever.
Today, he is best known for his achievements in algebra. He published the solutions to the cubic and quartic equations in his 1545 book Ars Magna. The solution to one particular case of the cubic, x3 + ax = b (in modern notation), was communicated to him by Niccolò Fontana Tartaglia (who later claimed that Cardano had sworn not to reveal it, and engaged Cardano in a decade-long fight), and the quartic was solved by Cardano's student Lodovico Ferrari. Both were acknowledged in the foreword of the book, as well as in several places within its body. In his exposition, he acknowledged the existence of what are now called imaginary numbers, although he did not understand their properties (Mathematical field theory was developed centuries later). In Opus novum de proportionibus he introduced the binomial coefficients and the binomial theorem.

Cardano invented several mechanical devices including the combination lock, the gimbal consisting of three concentric rings allowing a supported compass or gyroscope to rotate freely, and the Cardan shaft with universal joints, which allows the transmission of rotary motion at various angles and is used in vehicles to this day. He studied hypocycloids, published in de proportionibus 1570. The generating circles of these hypocycloids were later named Cardano circles or cardanic circles and were used for the construction of the first high-speed printing presses. He made several contributions to hydrodynamics and held that perpetual motion is impossible, except in celestial bodies. He published two encyclopedias of natural science which contain a wide variety of inventions, facts, and occult superstitions. He also introduced the Cardan grille, a cryptographic tool, in 1550
Cardano was accused of heresy in 1570 because he had computed and published the horoscope of Jesus in 1554. Apparently, his own son contributed to the prosecution, bribed by Tartaglia. He was arrested, had to spend several months in prison and was forced to abjure his professorship. He moved to Rome, received a lifetime annuity from Pope Gregory XIII (after first having been rejected by Pope Pius V) and finished his autobiography.
He died in Rome, in September 21, 1576.

Camillo Golgi

Camillo Golgi was born in Corteno (Val Camonica). His father was a physician and district medical officer.
Golgi studied at the University of Pavia, where he worked in the experimental pathology laboratory under Giulio Bizzozero, who elucidated the properties of bone marrow. He graduated in 1865. He spent much of his career studying the central nervous system. Tissue staining techniques in the later half of the 19th century were inadequate for studying nervous tissue. While working as chief medical officer in a psychiatric hospital, he experimented with metal impregnation of nervous tissue, using mainly silver (silver staining).
He discovered a method of staining nervous tissue which would stain a limited number of cells at random, in their entirety. This enabled him to view the paths of nerve cells in the brain for the first time. He called his discovery the "black reaction" (in Italian, reazione nera), which later received his name (Golgi's method) or Golgi stain. The reason for the random staining is still not understood.

The black reaction consisted in fixing silver chromate particles to the neurilemma (the neuron membrane) by reacting silver nitrate with potassium dichromate. This resulted in a stark black deposit on the soma as well as on the axon and all dendrites, providing an exceedingly clear and well contrasted picture of neuron against a yellow background. The ability to visualize separate neurons led to the eventual acceptance of the neuron doctrine.
In addition to this discovery, Golgi discovered a tendon sensory organ that bears his name (Golgi receptor). He studied the life cycle of Plasmodium and related the timing of tertian and quartan fevers seen in malaria with the life cycle of the organisms now named Plasmodium vivax and Plasmodium malariae, respectively. Using his staining technique, Golgi identified the intracellular reticular apparatus in 1898 which bears his name, the Golgi apparatus.
In renal physiology Golgi is renowned for being the first to show that the distal tubulus of the nephron returns to its originating glomerulus, a finding that he published in 1889.
Golgi, together with Santiago Ramón y Cajal, received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1906 for his studies of the structure of the nervous system. Golgi died in Pavia, Italy, in January 1926.

Lazzaro Spallanzani

Alessandro Volta

PAVIA

Past

Athenaeum

Vip

iGEM

Art