Top 5 scientists killed by their experiments
Jun 8th, 2008 by admin
Man owes a great debt to the scientists on this list. All of them died in their pursuit of knowledge. The advances they have all made to science are extraordinary and many of them paved the way for some of man’s greatest discoveries and inventions.
5. Karl Scheele
Died from tasting his discoveries
Scheele was a brilliant pharmaceutical chemist who discovered many chemical elements - the most notable of which were oxygen (though Joseph Priestley published his findings first), molybdenum, tungsten, manganese, and chlorine. He also discovered a process very similar to pasteurization. Scheele had the habit of taste testing his discoveries and, fortunately, managed to survive his taste-test of hydrogen cyanide. But alas, his luck was to run out: he died of symptoms strongly resembling mercury poisoning.
4. Jean-Francois De Rozier
First victim of an air crash
Jean-Francois was a teacher of physics and chemistry. In 1783 he witnessed the world’s first balloon flight which created in him a passion for flight. After assisting in the untethered flight of a sheep, a chicken, and a duck, he took the first manned free flight in a balloon. He travelled at an altitude of 3,000 feet using a hot air balloon. Not stopping there, De Rozier planned a crossing of the English Channel from France to England. Unfortunately it was his last flight; after reaching 1,500 feet in a combined hot air and gas balloon, the balloon deflated, causing him to fall to his death. His fiancee died 8 days later - possibly from suicide.
3. Elizabeth Ascheim
Killed by X-Rays
Elizabeth Fleischman Ascheim married her doctor, Dr Woolf, shortly after her mother died. Because of his medical position, Woolf was very interested in the new discovery of Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen - x-rays. His new wife became equally interested and she gave up her job as a bookkeeper to undertake studies in electrical science. Eventually she bought an x-ray machine which she moved in to her husbands office - this was the first x-ray lab in San Francisco. She and her husband spent some years experimenting with the machine - using themselves as subjects. Unfortunately they did not realize the consequences of their lack of protection and Elizabeth died of an extremely widespread and violent cancer. Information on Ascheim is scarce, so I recommend you read this PDF on her life.
2. Alexander Bogdanov
Killed himself with blood
Bogdanov was a Russian physician, philosopher, economist, science fiction writer, and revolutionary. In 1924, he began experiments with blood transfusion - most likely in a search for eternal youth. After 11 transfusions (which he performed on himself), he declared that he had suspended his balding, and improved his eyesight. Unfortunately for Bogdanov, the science of transfusion was a young one and Bogdanov was not one to test the health of the blood he was using or the donor. In 1928, Bogdanov took a transfusion of blood infected with malaria and tuberculosis. Consequently he died shortly after.
1. Louis Slotin
Killed himself with an accidental fission reaction
Canadian born Slotin worked on the Manhattan project (the US project to design the first nuclear bomb). In the process of his experimentation he accidentally dropped a sphere of beryllium on to a second sphere causing a prompt critical reaction (the spheres were wrapped around a plutonium core). Other scientists in the room witnessed a “blue glow” of air ionization and felt a “heat wave”. Slotin rushed outside and was sick. He was rushed to hospital and died nine days later. The amount of radiation he was exposed to was equivalent to standing 4800 feet away from an atomic bomb explosion. This accident prompted the end of all hands-on assembly work at Los Alamos. Read also the Wikipedia article on this critical event.
Click here to read the full article
Source: The List Universe
This is retarded! Where is Marie Curie? You guy are sexist.
Er.. Sammy, are YOU retarded? There is no sexism here - there is a girl on the list. Did you miss number 3. Elizabeth Ascheim
Killed by X-Rays
There is a girl on the list, but besides all the femininism “we need equality” crap, Marie Curie was pretty awesome. Without her discoveries some of those people would be unable to kill themselves with radiation in the first place. I thought she was a shoe in! Oh well marie, I care about you
brrreeeeeerrroooooooooooooorrrrrrrrrrhhhhHHAAAA!!!
thee red fat-men reunion.
The reason Mario Curie probably wasn’t mentioned was because they already had a death related to radiation. And the one up there was more awesome than Marie Curie’s death. Simple as that.
Marie Curie would be number 6, but this is a top 5. There are tons more that could be added, but its a top 5, not the David Letterman Top 10.
Relax, jeesh!
Women in science! Pah! I for one say no. They should be locked in the kitchen where they belong and have babies and make sandwiches and clean and have more babies. They can’t be scientists, simple as. Thier heads overheat.
’shopped
you simpleton, internet virgins.
Great, but the list is far from being full. Lots of great scientist not mentioned!
you stole this article from listverse.com , you dirty thieving hack
This was a fun list to read, although I agree, there were definitely some awesome scientists missing. Marie Curie would have been a nice addition, but as Ash Frog mentioned, the radiation death was covered, and awesome.
As for Sammy, is it possible to just have fun? Fifty percent of everything can’t be female. In fact, the demand for a 50/50 split like that is just as bad as sexism in my opinion. The only way to really move forward is to take away the meaning of gender, and to stop allowing such a thing to influence society (we are all together anyway ^^).
Charlie ovisously never met a woman.
nice list btw.
Well, Trebek, I know one thing, your mother was certainly experimenting with quite a warhead, last night!!!
Heh, well khal, i think charlie was joking, but i could be mistaken. I make those kinds of jokes when i get sick of the typical crowd on youtube.
The concept of sexism is ridiculous, to be sexist means to study gender, not to be biased in favor of one gender over the other. Feminists are ridiculous.
that’s why i don’t try anything, ever.
You go, Alex. I’m a female against feminism. Lookin’ forward for a good career in whatever I want. I don’t want to waste my intelligence.
Marie Curie should be first based on the merits of her discoveries,she was awarded TWO nobel prizes in TWO different sciences. She was the first female University Professor at University of Paris in 1908.
The Curies DISCOVERED radium and coined the term radiation.
She died in 1934 from exposure to radiation.
Well, ya’ll sure racist, ’cause I don’t see any blacks, orientals or American Indians on the list. Not to mention religiously biased, as no muslims, budhists or Tibetian monks. Let alone anybody with severe physical handicaps. Or mentally deprived. Or lawyers. Or folically impaired. Or height impaired. Or digitally enhanced (That’s too many fingers or toes.)
Buncha self-absorbed fucktards.
i love you
kiss my ass