Everything about Mikhail Lomonosov totally explained
Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov (
Михаи́л Васи́льевич Ломоно́сов) (– ) was a
Russian scientist, writer and
polymath who made important contributions to
literature,
education, and
science. Among his discoveries is
atmosphere of Venus. Sphere of science:
natural science,
chemistry,
physics,
mineralogy,
history,
art,
philology, optical devices and others. Lomonosov was also a poet, who created base of the modern Russian literary language.
From peasant to scholar
Lomonosov was born in the village of Denisovka (later renamed Lomonosovo in his honor) in the
Arkhangelsk Governorate, on an island not far from
Kholmogory, in the Far North of Russia. When he was ten years old the young Lomonosov had to help his father, a fisherman, work, but the boy's thirst for knowledge was unbounded. He almost learned by heart the few books he'd access to – and, seeing there was no chance of education at home, he decided to walk to
Moscow.
An opportunity occurred when he was nineteen and by the intervention of friends he obtained admission into the
Slavic Greek Latin Academy in 1731. He lived on 3 kopecks a day but his progress was very rapid. In only 5 years he completed a 12 year course, finished at the top of his class, and in
1736 he was sent to
Saint Petersburg with a scholarship. There his proficiency, especially in physical science, again stood out. He also plunged into philological science, learned French and German, and ultimately received a 2 year grant to study in German universities. Upon his return to Russia in 1745, he was appointed professor of chemistry at the Academy itself.
Foreign education
He accordingly went to
Marburg University in
Hesse,
Germany, then one of Europe's most important universities (at a time when universities in general were in some decay) because of the presence of the most eminent German
Enlightenment philosopher of his time,
Christian Wolff. Lomonosov studied with Wolff and became one of his personal students; both philosophically and as a science administrator (also a
forte of Wolff), this connection would be most influential for the rest of his life.
At Marburg, he also began to write
poetry, imitating German authors, among whom he's said to have especially admired
Günther. His
Ode on the Taking of Khotin from the Turks was composed in
1739, and attracted a great deal of attention at Saint Petersburg. During his residence in Germany, Lomonosov married a native of that country, and found it difficult to maintain his growing family on the allowance granted to him by the
Saint Petersburg Academy, which was scanty and sent irregularly. His circumstances became desperate, and he resolved to leave the country and to return to Saint Petersburg. In 1743, his wife joined him there.
His achievements
When he arrived in
Russia, he rapidly rose to distinction and was made
chemistry professor at
Saint Petersburg University, where he ultimately became
rector. Eager to improve Russian education, Lomonosov joined his patron
Ivan Shuvalov in founding the
Moscow State University (later named after him) in
1755. In
1764, Lomonosov was appointed to the position of a secretary of state.
In 1756, he tried to replicate
Robert Boyle's experiment of 1673 and concluded that the commonly accepted
phlogiston theory was false. Anticipating the discoveries of
Antoine Lavoisier, he wrote in his diary: "Today I made an experiment in hermetic glass vessels in order to determine whether the mass of metals increases from the action of pure heat. The experiments — of which I append the record in 13 pages — demonstrated that the famous Robert Boyle was deluded, for without access of air from outside the mass of the burnt metal remains the same".
He regarded
heat as a form of motion, suggested the
wave theory of
light, contributed to the formulation of the
kinetic theory of gases, and stated the idea of
conservation of matter in the following words: "All changes in nature are such that inasmuch is taken from one object insomuch is added to another. So, if the amount of matter decreases in one place, it increases elsewhere. This universal law of nature embraces laws of motion as well, for an object moving others by its own force in fact imparts to another object the force it loses" (first articulated in a letter to
Leonhard Euler dated
5 July,
1748, rephrased and published in Lomonosov's dissertation "Reflexion on the solidity and fluidity of bodies", 1760). In 1748, he also created a
mechanical explanation of gravitation.
Lomonosov was the first person to record the
freezing of
mercury and to hypothesize the existence of an
atmosphere on
Venus based on his observation of the
transit of Venus of
1761 in a small observatory near his house in
Petersburg. Believing that nature is subject to regular and continuous
evolution, he demonstrated the
organic origin of
soil,
peat,
coal,
petroleum and
amber. In
1745, he published a catalogue of over 3,000
minerals, and in 1760, he explained the formation of
icebergs.
As a
geographer, Lomonosov got close to the theory of
continental drift, theoretically predicted the existence of
Antarctica (he argued that
icebergs of the South Ocean could only be formed on a dry land covered with ice), and invented sea tools which made writing and calculating directions and distances easier. In 1764, he organized an expedition (led by Admiral
Vasili Chichagov) to find the
Northeast Passage between the
Atlantic and
Pacific oceans by sailing along the northern coast of
Siberia.
Lomonosov was proud to restore the ancient art of
mosaics. In
1754, in his letter to
Leonard Euler, he wrote that his three years of experiments on the effects of chemistry of minerals on their color led to him became very involved into the mosaics art. In
1763, he set up a
glass factory that produced the first stained glass
mosaics outside of
Italy. There were forty mosaics attributed to Lomonosov, with only twenty-four surviving to the present day. Among the best is the portrait of
Peter the Great and the
Battle of Poltava, measuring 4.8 x 6.4 meters.
In
1755, he wrote a
grammar that reformed the
Russian literary language by combining
Old Church Slavonic with the vernacular tongue. To further his literary theories, he wrote more than 20 solemn ceremonial
odes, notably the
Evening Meditation on the God's Grandeur. He applied an idiosyncratic theory to his later poems – tender subjects needed words containing the front vowel sounds E, I, YU, whereas things that may caused fear (like "anger", "envy", "pain" and "sorrow") needed words with back vowel sounds O, U, Y. That was a version of what is now called
sound symbolism. Lomonosov published a
history of Russia in
1760. In addition, he unsuccessfully attempted to write an epic about
Peter the Great, to be based on the
Aeneid by
Vergil. Most of his accomplishments were unknown outside Russia until long after his death.
He died in Saint Petersburg in 1765, leaving no male heirs. A granddaughter married general and statesman General
Nikolay Raevsky.
A moon crater bears his name. In 1948, the underwater
Lomonosov Ridge in the Arctic Ocean was named in his honour.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Mikhail Lomonosov'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://mikhail_lomonosov.totallyexplained.com">Mikhail Lomonosov Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
