For most people, the name Georges Lemaître probably doesn’t ring any bells. Yet Lemaître –Belgian Catholic priest, WWI military hero, theoretical physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and professor of physics –- was one of the most influential scientists of his generation. Born in 1894, Lemaître was a pioneer in offering a new conception of the cosmos, in a career that spanned the better part of forty years…
Since the publication of his first novel in 1967, Thomas Pynchon has established himself as a artificer of postmodernist literature – and arguably the most important American writer since Melville. Lauded by readers, critics, and his literary peers alike, he has only produced eight novels in the past 50 years…
In 2018, Ronan Farrow won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service because of his investigative reporting, which exposed rampant sexual misconduct in Hollywood during the nascent stages of the #MeToo movement. No stranger to Tinseltown, he is the son of actress Mia Farrow and renowned filmmaker Woody Allen…
For more than four decades, Kerry Kennedy has devoted her life to human rights activism, leading delegations into places such as Haiti, Kenya, South Korea, and Gaza. Kerry, the seventh of Ethel and Robert F. Kennedy’s eleven children, started working in the field of human rights in 1981 as an intern with Amnesty International…
As heir to the Hyatt Hotel fortune, billionaire J.B. Pritzker is currently the wealthiest officeholder in America. Pritzker, who has an estimated net worth of $3.6 billion, handily defeated incumbent Bruce Rauner in 2018 to become the 43rd governor of Illinois…
According to TV lore, when actor David Schwimmer was offered the role on a new NBC sitcom – about a group of friends who live together in New York City – he turned it down, explaining that a sitcom “felt like a prison sentence.” Lucky for viewers around the globe, he changed his mind…
Celebrated astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson has spent much of his career bringing the complexities of science and space exploration to the general public. Aside from his prolific writing, he is a well-known popularizer of science on television and radio…
Undeniably one of the most influential economists and scholars of the 20th century, Milton Friedman was a prominent advocate of free markets. In contrast to the Keynesian theory, he proselytized monetarism, which highlighted the importance of monetary policy and how the shifts in the money supply have immediate and lasting effects…
Computer pioneer Gordon Moore is one of the great technological visionaries, not only helping create the silicon chip, but also the personal computer revolution that led to the rise of Silicon Valley. In tech circles, his name is associated with “Moore’s Law,” which states that the number of transistors that fit on a computer chip will double each year…
Described by Time magazine as “one of the nation’s most effective advocates of family rights and feminist causes,” Gloria Allred is the most famous woman attorney practicing law in the nation today. With a legal career that started more than forty years ago, she is perhaps best known for her involvement in high-profile cases such as the O.J. Simpson trial…
