Braulio - Biography

Gregori Perelman and Millenium Prize.

Grigory Yakoslevich Perelman was born on June 13, 1966 in Saint Petersburg, Russia. His father’s name is Yakov and his mother’s name is Lubov. They are a Jewish

family. Perelman has been learning mathematics since 1975, when his talent was appearing.

The Poincaré conjecture, proposed by great French mathematician Henri Poincaré in 1904, was the most famous open problem in Mathematics. The problem is,

roughly speaking, about characterization of the three dimensional sphere. In 1999, the Clay Mathematics Institute announced the Millennium Prize Problems, in other words, US$1,000,000 prize for the proof of any of the seven conjectures. Only the Poincaré conjecture has been solved in 2002 by Grigori Perelman, that declined the award.

In May 2006, a mathematician committee voted to award Perelman a Field Medal for his work. The Field Medal is the highest award in mathematics, like Nobel Prize in Science. However, Perelman declined the prize again. He was the first person to decline these prestigious prizes. In Perelman words:

“I’m not interested in money or fame”. “Everybody understood that if the proof is correct, then no other recognition is needed”.

The last news about him is that he is unemployed, living with his mother in a small house in Petersburg. Nowadays, Perelman is known to be the most intelligent and weirdest person of the World.

Flávia - Biography

Marie Curie

She was born in the capital of Poland in Warsaw on November 7, 1867. When she was young, she moved to Paris with the financial help of her sister.

She graduated in first position in Mathematics and Physics at University of Paris in Sorbonne. She was the first woman to teach at this prestigious school.

She married the professor of Physics Pierre Curie in 1895 and then adopted the name of Marie Curie, and before her marriage she was called Maria Sklokowska.

In 1896, Henri Becquerel encouraged her to study the radiation emission of uranium salts. With her husband, Marie began to study the materials that produced the radiation, looking for new material with the hypothesis that it should exist in certain minerals. Indeed, in 1898 they deduced that explanation: there were certainly some components that would release more energy than uranium, then on December 26, 1898, Marie Curie announced the discovery of this new substance to the Academy of Sciences in Paris.

With Pierre Curie and Henri Becquerel, she received the Nobel Prize of the Physics in 1903, in recognition of extraordinary services obtained in their investigations of the radiation phenomena, three years after they identified the radioactive elements polonium and radium. She was the first woman to receive the Nobel Prize.

Pierre was appointed professor at the University of Paris in Sorbonne in 1904 and he began researching for x-rays.

In 1906, she succeeded her husband in the chair of General Physics at the University, after he died.

In 1911, she received the Nobel Prize of Chemistry. The Nobel Prize in Chemistry was given her in the same year that the Academy of Sciences in Paris rejected her as a partner.

She was the first person to receive two Nobel Prizes in different fields. The only other person was Linus Pauling, but Marie Curie was the only person to win two Nobel Prizes in science.

Marie Curie died of leukemia in 1934, surely because of the massive exposure to radiation during their work. In 1995 her remains were transferred to the Pantheon in Paris, becoming the first woman to be buried at this site.

In my opinion, she was a person who left her mark on science, even in an age so full of prejudice and sexist. She showed the world that women are as able as men to perform a scientific function. Many other women do not even have a chance to study, or have the opportunity to take a scientific position. I'm sure that our planet has lost a lot because there has been prejudice in science.

Silvia - Inventions

Composition: An important invention. (final version)

I used to think that the telephone was invented by Alexander Graham Bell but after a little research, we can see that many scientists dispute the credit for this invention. But as usual the Americans Elisa Gray and A. Graham Bell have become the best known.

The telephone emerged from the creation of the electrical telegraph. Though the early researches of the telegraph were from the fourteenth century, in the seventeenth century many scientists in many countries were searching for other ways of sending multiple telegraph messages simultaneously over a single telegraph wire by using different modulated audio frequencies for each message and these efforts led directly to the invention of the telephone, or 'the speaking telegraph'.

The invention of the telephone made people closer at a time when transports had not been developed yet. At the beginning, they were heavy and the sound was not so clear. In the course of time, they became much lighter and achieved a better performance.

The disadvantage of the telephone is that it needs wires to connect people. That’s why nowadays we may have much more cell phones than telephones. Another disadvantage is that it is not so secure. If somebody wants, he can hear our conversation without our awareness.

I chose to tell you about the telephone because in my opinion it can be considered one of the most important invention in the whole telecommunication development process.

Fabiani - Tabloid Article

For the first time Flávia Macionni admits the use of botox!

After being seen several times in one of the most famous aesthetic clinics of São Paulo Macionni admitted during the week, on a news site, that she had already made use of botox. It’s however doubtful and uncertain how long the diva has been making use of botox. Asked about it, she replied that it was the first application that she made. However, sources report that the scientist and now actress does applications for more than 10 years already.

This however, is not the first controversy in which Macionni is referenced. The actress seems to be going through a bad phase in her career. Some fans say that in her shows Macionni doesn’t meet anyone else for photos and autographs.

Gossip has it that the actress had undergone a rehabilitation treatment due to alcohol addiction for more than a year, which would explain its ups and downs in her mood and her less frequent performance.

Apparently, this doesn’t seem to be a good time for the Diva. The question is whether Macionni will overcome this bad phase or whether he will fall into the same mood of most of the artists after they achieve success.

Pricila - Inventions

The invention of the computer.

There is not just one inventor of the computer, as the ideas of many scientists and engineers led to its invention. These ideas were developed in the 1930s and 1940s, mostly in an independent way, in Germany, Great Britain and the USA, and were turned into a working machine. In Germany, Konrad Zuse hit upon the idea of building a program-controlled calculating machine, when he had to deal with extensive calculations in statistics. In 1935, he began to design a program-controlled calculating machine in his parents' home in Berlin. This was the grandfather of our computers.

In modern times, the computer is very important. It’s used both for leisure and for work! We can know the world using the computer and have fun! We can store photos, music, work, etc.

The disadvantage of the computer is that sometimes people don't go out and have fun to use the computer. The computer is a technology that is always moving forward, we have new computers every year, with new programs and types. Thus, the computers we buy today is will probably be outdated in a few months. In my opinion, the computer is very important to most people in the world! One of the most usefull tools developed for the computer is the internet, it helps us to communicate with people, make friends, have fun, etc. I could not live without the computer.

Patricia - Inventions

The refrigerator: a useful and interesting invention of the modern world. One of the most notable inventions we use daily at our homes is the refrigerator, also called fridge. Its history is very interesting but a little bit confusing, because there are a lot of people involved in the creation of this household appliance. The first known artificial refrigeration system was demonstrated by William Cullen at the University of Glasgow in 1748.However, he didn´t use his discovery for anything. In 1805, an American inventor called Oliver Evans, designed the first vapor-compression refrigeration machine, but only in 1834, Jacob Perkins modified Evans' original design, building the world's first refrigerator and filing the first legal patent for refrigeration using vapor-compression. In 1918, William C. Durant started the Frigidaire Company in order to begin the first mass production of refrigerators. Until then, the refrigerating system needed to use some flammable and toxic gases and only on 1980s more efficient refrigerators were developed providing a safer and low-toxic device. The great advantage of having a fridge at home is the reduction of spoilage of foodstuff. It permits people to eat more fruits, vegetables and meat that can be stored for longer periods. Keeping the food and drinks in the fridge is healthy and hygienic because it decreases the reproduction rate of bacteria. Another advantage we can mention is the duration of the product. Some fridges can last for more than 10 years with a good performance. A disadvantage of fridges, nowadays, is the great energy expenditure because it needs to be plugged 24hs a day. Despite some modern models being equipped with a thermostat that can control the temperature and turn off the freezing system, it is still very expensive to maintain a refrigerator. Finally, the refrigerator is such a miracle of the modern world that we sometimes don´t give it the deserved recognition. In my opinion, every the little thing that can make our life easier and healthier must be valued. The fridge can be a common and silly thing for many people, but try to live without one to see how difficult it is.

Caroline - Inventions

Cell phone – the most important invention.

I think that the most important invention is the cell phone. It was invented by Bell Labory in the USA in 1947, but it was impractical comparing to what is considered a portable handset today. The cell phone weighed 80 pounds (36 kg), and the AT&T service, basically a massive party line, cost US$30 per month (equal to $337.33 today) plus 30–40 cents per local call, equal to $3.37 to $4.5 today.

Nowadays, you don`t need to ask me why the cell phone is so fantastic because everybody uses it to talk with somebody, play games, listen to music, take pictures, surf the web, in other words, to do everything.

However, you can ask me why I chose the cell phone to write about, since we have a lot of good inventions like the car, the subway and the internet, etc. I `ll tell you. The cell phone connects people and the world. We use it to study, work or just relax. You can see people with cell phones in all the places: streets, parks, subways, cars, schools, even, in other countries! Cell phones are cheap! Everyone has one, it`s accessible and portable! You can write a quick text message if you need to say something but you can`t make a call. This is very common in the cinema, a meeting or in the traffic.

The best of everything is: The scientists couldn`t produce any evidence that the cell phone is dangerous to the health. The only thing that we need to concern about it is the addiction in teenagers that use the cell phone to everything during all the day, but this is a surmountable problem, as parents tend to put limits on cell phone bills. Now I need to ask you. Do you thing it`s possible to use the cell phone for a short time? Consider how many functions it has. Can you imagine the world without the cell phone?