Ask for more information about Mendel, the story of Mendel

Profession: Monk geneticist.

Nationality: Why Austria is famous: Founder of New Genetics.

Birth: July 20, 1822 Place of birth: Heinzendorf, AustriaAsterisk: Cancer.

Death: January 6, 1884 (age 61) Cause of death: nephritis.

In 1843, Mendel came to the monastery of St. Thomas at the foot of the hill in the old town of Brno.

This monastery belonged to the Augustinians. The Augustinians saw science as a kind of covenant, and they also upheld the divine order of the world. As a result, the monastery's collection of nearly 10,000 books includes not only theology, but also natural history, geography and astronomy.

Mendel was one of those people who was interested in the "scientific covenant." In 1848, Mendel became a priest, but he was shy by nature and spoke stumbling in Czech. In short, his sermons were basically a disaster and did not appeal to the parishioners at all.

In order to escape the unemployment crisis, Mendel decided to apply to become a high school teacher, but the school required him to pass the natural sciences teaching exam.

Mendel didn't take the test. His geology was so bad and his biology was terrible that the examiner asked him to classify the mammals, and he made it up himself, and he also grouped kangaroos and elephants together. In his comments, the examiner wrote, "The applicant seems to know nothing about the terminology, and he has no regard for the rules of the system of nomenclature, and only calls the animals by their names in colloquial German."

Mendel had no choice but to continue to make up for scientific knowledge. On the recommendation of the monastery, he was admitted to the University of Vienna.

At that time, the University of Vienna was home to many first-class scientists. For example, it was Professor Christian Doppler who taught John physics at the time. The experience at the University of Vienna gave Mendel a systematic framework of knowledge and gave him an idol in his heart, that is, Doppler.

After a few years of study at the University of Vienna, Mendel returned to Brno and tried for a second time to qualify as a teacher.

I haven't taken the test again. Mendel fell ill before the exam due to anxiety, and in addition, he quarreled with the botany examiner for the first exam for unknown reasons, probably related to a disagreement of academic opinion. Mendel never finished the three-day exam, and he never took the formal teaching qualification in his life, and has been working as a substitute teacher.

He spends his free time planting peas. Yes, Mendel planted peas almost all the time. With the magnanimity of the abbot, he lived a life of sowing, pollinating, picking, hulling, counting, analyzing, day after day, year after year.

1. Early years.

Mendel was born on July 20, 1822, in the village of Heinzedorff, in Austro-Crarian Silesia (now part of the Czech Republic), to a poor peasant family, to a horticulturist father and mother (his maternal grandfather was a gardener).

2. Pea experiment.

Mendel's pea experiment was just beginning when Darwin's theory of evolution had just been discovered. He carefully studied Darwin's writings and absorbed a wealth of nutrients from them. Among the relics of Mendel that have survived to this day, there are several books of Darwin's writings, on which Mendel's handwriting is still kept, which shows his interest in Darwin and his writings.

3. The conclusion is buried.

Second, Mendel focused on in-depth theoretical proof based on experimental data. However, the great Mendelian thinking and experimentation were too far ahead of their time. Although the vast majority of the participants were members of the Brunn Natural Science Society, there were chemists, geologists and biologists, as well as botanists and phycologists specializing in biology.

4. Keep the clouds open and see the moon.

With the first crow of the rooster in the 20th century, De Vries from the Netherlands, Corens from Germany, and Cermak from Austria simultaneously and independently "rediscovered" Mendelian laws of heredity. The year 1900 became an epoch-making year in the history of genetics and even biological science. From then on, genetics entered the Mendelian era.