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            IRA MARK EGDALL
 

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UNSUNG HEROES OF MODERN PHYSICS

The story of five individuals who -- despite extraordinary achievements in quantum mechanics, general relativity, astronomy, cosmology, and space exploration  -- remain for the most part unknown to the general public. They represent a cast of characters even a Hollywood writer could not dream up:

• Georges Lemaître - A Catholic priest who discovered the expansion of  the universe two years before Edwin Hubble. Monsignor Lemaître also proposed our cosmos began with a "primeval atom“ -- what we now call the big bang.

 • Fritz Zwicky – This cantankerous astronomer discovered dark matter, supernovae, neutron stars, galactic cosmic rays, and galaxy clusters.

• Henrietta Swan Leavitt - Hired as an unpaid volunteer to catalogue star images at Harvard Observatory, her ground-breaking discovery was the stepping stone to the 20th century cosmology revolution.

• Pascual Jordan – This unheralded physicist invented quantum field theory, the most accurate and strangest theory in the history of science.

• Joseph Kittinger - In an act of courage beyond all sanity, "try anything" Joe became the first human in space.