Edgar Allan Poe, Pythagoras, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein are prominent people who made significant contributions to English, Science, Social Studies and Science respectively. They are therefore persons of keen interest in these fields. The purpose of this paper is to create biographies for these prominent people.
English: Edgar Poe Allan
Poe was a poem writer, an editor, and a critic in America in the 19th Century. He wrote several suggestive poems and short stories which have captured the attention of a great multitude of readers across the globe, making him indispensable in the English fraternity. Many people are fond of his quotes, stories, and poems, but only a few understand whom he was.
Poe was born to Elizabeth Poe and David Poe in Boston, Massachusetts on the 19th day of January 1809 who were both professional actors. However, the joy of having parents did not last for Poe. Both of his parents died when he was barely three years old (Esplin, 2016). Following his being orphaned at such a tender age, John Allan and Frances became his foster parents in Richmond, Virginia where he spent most of his years as a young man. John Allan was a wealthy exporter of tobacco, and he took excellent care of the young Poe.
Edgar Allan Poe went to the most premium schools in the region. He later joined the University of Virginia where he became an excellent scholar. At the university, he also became a gambler and incurred huge debts that Allan refused to pay, leading to his expulsion from the university. His relationship with Allan also deteriorated, forcing him to move to Boston in 1827.
The United States Army recruited him in 1827, and it was while in the army that he became a writer. He began his poetry in the same year.
In the course of time, Poe’s literary work began to receive considerable public attention. Frank (2015) asserts that it was his creative stories of horror and mystery that gave rise to the present day detective story. Poe lived forty years and died in mysterious circumstances on October 7th, 1849.
Math: Pythagoras
In the field of mathematics, the name of Pythagoras and his contribution to the subjects are both imminent. One cannot teach the subject without according Pythagoras his due credit as the master for the theorem of Pythagoras (Rendell, Riedweg & Lautner, 2015). Some people refer to him as the first mathematician, perhaps because of the time he lived.
Pythagoras was born in 569 BC on the island of Samos found in the Mediterranean Sea, Greece. His parents were Mr. Mnesarchus and Mrs. Pythais, and he had three brothers. Even though people know very little about his childhood, many researchers believe that Pythagoras got the best education of that time. He learned and a skillful player the lyre, poetry, music, astronomy, philosophy, and mathematics. He got married to Theano, and they had one daughter and one son.
He spent his life as a teacher, an inventor and a great thinker in Egypt, Persia, and Italy. He coined various mathematical concepts such as the sum of interior angles of a triangle is 180 degrees, the famous Pythagoras’ Theorem for right-angled Triangle, and rational and irrational numbers (Beckmann, 2015). Pythagoras had a great multitude of followers, and he founded his school of philosophy and religion. He died in 495 BC.
Social Studies: Thomas Jefferson
History has rich tales of great men and women whose contribution shaped the planet in an invaluable manner. Such are the likes of Thomas Jefferson, who was not only the third president of the United States, but also one of the draftsmen of the Declaration of Independence, and a key player in the Louisiana Purchase.
The parents of Thomas were Mrs. Jane Randolph and Mr. Peter Jefferson. He was born around the middle of April 1743. His birthplace was Shadwell in Virginia. The Jefferson’s was related to some of the wealthiest people in Virginia that time (Randall, 2014). Information about Jefferson’s childhood and education is scanty, but his prominence in the American history is invaluable.
Jefferson was among the draftsmen the Declaration of Independence for the USA. He also became the first person to serve in the state secretariat. Thomas served as the second Vice-president, and ascended the ranks of power to the presidency. According to Tulis (2014), it was Jefferson’s subscription to Republican ideas that earned him the slot as the president despite his public hesitancy. He liberated the presidency from European royalty, reducing bureaucracy, and lowering the national debt. He died of uremia in Monticello, Virginia on July 4th, 1826.
Science: Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein is among the most influential people in the pulpits of science. He was a physicist and mathematician and developed the theory of relativity. His remarkable explanation of the photoelectric effect in 1921 won him the Nobel Prize.
Einstein was born to Mr. Hermann Einstein who was an engineer and a salesperson, and Mrs. Pauline Koch. He was born at Ulm, Württemberg, Germany, on the14th of March 1879 (Gordon, 2017). While schooling as a physics student in Zurich, he met a Serbian lady called Maric and they developed a correspondence which later led to their marriage.
Einstein made numerous discoveries, but the most remarkable ones are the equation E=MC2, foreshadow to atomic power, and the theory of relativity. Through the Equation E=MC2, Einstein proposed that the energy € of a body is directly proportional to the product of the mass (M) thereof and the speed of light squared (C2). Laurence (2017) links Einstein’s equation to the development of atomic bomb because made it possible to turn tiny particles into enormous amounts of energy. Albert Einstein lived for 76 years and died on April 18th, 1955.
References
Edgar Allan Poe
Frank, A. (2015). Transferential Poetics, from Poe to Warhol. New York: Fordham University Press.
Esplin, E. (2016). Borges’s Poe: The Influence and Reinvention of Edgar Allan Poe in Spanish America. University of Georgia Press.
Pythagoras
Rendell, S., Riedweg, C., & Lautner, P. (2015). Pythagoras: his life, teaching, and influence. Aestimatio: Critical Reviews in the History of Science, 2, 162-167.
Beckmann, P. (2015). History of Pi. St. Martin’s Griffin.
Thomas Jefferson
Randall, W. S. (2014). Thomas Jefferson: a life. New Word City.
Tulis, J. K. (2017). The rhetorical presidency. Princeton University Press.
Albert Einstein
Gordon, F. (2017). Albert Einstein. ABDO.
Laurence, W. L. (2017). Dawn over zero: The story of the atomic bomb. Pickle Partners Publishing.
