Important Discoverers of the Past

Lives made miserable by a world of ignorance, fear, jealousy and suspicion

Lyle Jacobson’s discovery of the Binary Universe is one of hundreds of instances in recorded history in which significant additions to the body of human knowledge and scientific discovery was achieved by individuals both within and outside the recognized scientific and academic communities. Their intention was to enlighten, educate and improve humanity by adding what they discovered to its body of knowledge. Instead of being welcomed, thanked and praised for their contributions, they were met with rejection, ridicule, threats, apathy and exclusion. As a consequence, most of those innovators found little or no acceptance or recognition of their discovery during their lifetimes and almost never profited from them. Their own lives were fraught with personal frustration and the bitter resentment of an unjust and ungrateful society. In some instances, such as with Galileo, Isaac Newton and Giordano Bruno, they were subjected to criticism, physical or emotional punishment and even death for daring to contradict the entrenched dominant beliefs of their time.

ANTECEDANTS

Among the more notable of these historical examples were:

Louis Pasteur (1822-1895), a chemist, not a physician, who discovered the cause and only effective treatment for Rabies in humans resulting from always fatal rabid dog bites, and whose life-saving process is still in use today. More importantly, his discovery of the germ theory and the identification of viruses led to the prevention of infectious diseases and the preservation of perishable foods. He is best known for the process known today as pasteurization.

Ignaz Semmelweis (1818-1865), who as a young and inexperienced medical student in Vienna, discovered not only the cause and cure of the dreaded infectious disease Puerperal or ‘childbed’ fever that had a mortality rate in hospitals of more than 15% of both mothers and newborn infants across Europe, but whose greatest contribution was the principal of anti-sepsis, the foundation of modern medicine. In later life, having been rejected and ridiculed for his simplistic claims (wash your hands to save lives) by the medical establishment despite overwhelming dramatic evidence that he was right, Semmelweis was committed to an asylum for the insane in his native Hungary where he died as a result of beatings administered by the asylum staff.

Nicholas Copernicus (1473-1543), a catholic canon by profession, whose astronomical observations contradicted and seriously challenged the widely accepted and Vatican enforced belief in the Ptolemaic concept of a Geocentric (earth-centered) solar system in favor of a Heliocentric (sun-centered) concept. His discoveries ultimately led to a complete revision of man’s perception of our planetary system and the universe but were not permanently accepted until proven by Galileo and finally applied by Newton 150 years later. Fortunately for Copernicus, his findings were not published or widely disclosed until just before his death.

Alfred Wegener (1880-1930), although an educated German astronomer by profession, Wegener became interested in geology and the study of our own planet’s history in his youth. A chance discovery while reading a book in the university library documented the existence of exact species and fossils of plants, insects and animals in Africa and South America. This intrigued him. He related this information to observations of the ‘fit’ of the shapes between major continents, separated by the Atlantic Ocean, indicating they were at one time a single land mass. While this was not a new observation, it was his discovery and corroborating evidence that led to his theory of “Continental Drift”. It is now certain that where vast oceans now divide continents was once one big mass of land that ‘rifted’ and drifted apart. It was many decades after Wagener’s death before his theory became accepted scientific fact.

There are many more examples of scientific discovery by maverick or seemingly inappropriate individual researchers whom the reader is encouraged to investigate on your own. We haven’t the space here for that.

Now, in case you mistakenly think human beings are any more enlightened, tolerant or open-minded today than they were several centuries or millennia ago, think again. The forgoing has been intended as an introduction to the story of Lyle Jacobson and how he discovered the importance of ‘nothing’ as a fundamental principle of the universe and of all life.