In light of the current situation in Ukraine, it occurred to me to investigate what the country is famous for, as we don’t often hear about scientists and mathematicians from Eastern Europe. It’s also worth noting that inventions are often attributed to more than one person and to more than one country. When researching this, I’ve found some technological inventions where maths or physics play a significant role.
The world’s first practical helicopter was designed by Igor Sikorsky who patented a design of a flying machine with two propellers in 1931. Igor was born in Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine. After emigrating to the USA and completing extensive tests, in 1940 he took his creation from the ground and obtained the first order from the US Army.
Sergei Korolev, from Zhytomyr in Ukraine, was a leading airspace engineer. He was involved in launching Sputnik 1, the first artificial Earth satellite, in 1957. Sending Laika, the first dog and animal into space, and launching Yuri Gagarin, the first human who orbited the Earth in 1961, were all significantly down to his creative genius and organisational skills in developing the study of jet propulsion.
I’d like to believe that the future generations will use scientific and technological inventions exclusively for building peace and helping humanity to build a better world, on Earth and beyond.