Father’s Day is a day of celebrating and honouring fatherhood and paternal bonds. In India, Father’s Day is celebrated on the third Sunday of the month of June every year. Let us celebrate this day by commemorating our Fathers!
To be called ‘The Father’ of something, in various fields, means to be the man who first started something or one who did it first successfully. Let’s have a look at men who took the first steps into the unknown, who set off in a vague pursuit, to leave footsteps behind for their children to follow!
Aristotle happens to be known as the Father of Biology and Zoology. Born in 384 B.C., Aristotle contributed a lot to the development of Biology in ancient Greece. When he visited Lesvos in the 4th century B.C., he was wonderstruck by the abundance of animals (the island is still abundant), and with great excitement and meticulous research came up with the idea of a new science known as Biology. He is also known as the Father of Logic.
A while later, a man known as Hippocrates of Kos, a.k.a Hippocrates II, would come up with more than 70 scientific books describing diseases and their treatments. He would come to be known as the Father of Medicine. He was also one of the first doctors to believe that disease was not a punishment from the Gods.
A long time after that, we had a man known as Nicholas Copernicus, who came to be known as the Father of Astronomy. He was the one who discovered that the sun is the centre of the universe, not Earth. He published this idea in his book titled De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (Translated: On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres) and started the Copernican Revolution. We know him also as the one who came up with Heliocentrism (the sun being the centre of the universe), the quantity theory of money, and the Gresham-Copernicus Law.
Sometime after that, we know of a man named Michael Faraday, who was responsible for inventing the world’s first electrical generator, and for the discovery of electromagnetic induction, electrolysis and diamagnetism. Michael Faraday is known as the Father of Electricity.
Around a little while later, we hear about Homi Jehangir Bhabha, FRS. A Nuclear physicist and professor of physics, his contributions to India’s nuclear energy program as its principal architect are nothing short of amazing. Homi Jehangir Bhabha is called the Father of Physics in India.
There are always explorers who take a step in pursuit of wild theories and utterly impulsive curiosities, and many of those times, they open doors to something that will benefit humanity. Like proud fathers do, we hope these great figures are looking after us, watching us follow and surpass their steps with ease, and hunting for newer avenues of growth and possibility. We can always come back to the basics of our craft, by reading about the founding fathers and their work. These men were kind enough to pass on their discoveries to us, so that we may use them for the better. It is one of the great things that fathers do, to mark the path ahead, and teach the wisdom required to walk down the road.