Volodymyr Vernadsky
Volodymyr Vernadsky was a prominent Ukrainian scientist and scholar.
He was born in 1863.
Vernadsky is considered to be one of the founders of geochemistry, biogeochemistry, and radiogeology.
His father was an economist and his mother was a music instructor. According to family legend, his father's ancestors were Zaporizhian Cossacks.
Vernadsky graduated from Saint Petersburg State University in 1885.
He traveled through Europe, studying the museums of Paris and London, and worked in Munich and Paris.
He was a pioneer in the field of geochemistry and is credited with coining the term "biosphere" to describe the thin layer of the Earth's surface that supports life.
In Vernadsky's theory of the Earth's development, the noosphere is the third stage in the earth's development, after the geosphere (inanimate matter) and the biosphere (biological life). Just as the emergence of life fundamentally transformed the geosphere, the emergence of human cognition will fundamentally transform the biosphere.
Vernadsky was a prolific writer and researcher, and his work spanned a wide range of disciplines, including chemistry, geology, ecology, and biology. He was particularly interested in the study of minerals and their relationship to life.
He wrote to his wife Nataliia on 20 June 1888 from Switzerland: “Minerals are remains of those chemical reactions which took place at various times on earth; these reactions take place according to laws which are not always known to us, but which, we are allowed to think, are closely tied to general changes which the earth has undergone as a planet. The task is to connect the various phases of changes undergone by the earth with the general laws of celestial mechanics.”
Throughout his career, Vernadsky held a number of prestigious academic positions, including director of the Mineralogical Museum in St. Petersburg.
He was one of the founders and the first president of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences.
He was also a prominent public figure and played an important role in the development of Ukrainian scientific communities.
Volodymyr Vernadsky is most noted for his 1926 book The Biosphere in which he worked to popularize a term biosphere, by hypothesizing that life is the geological force that shapes the earth.
The scientist died in 1945.
He is considered one of the most influential scientists of the 20th century. His ideas continue to inspire researchers in fields ranging from geology and ecology to astrobiology and space exploration.
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