| JANUARY 2 - BIRTHS | |
| Donald B. Keck | |
(source) |
 Born 2
Jan 1941
American research physicist, who with his colleagues at Corning Glass, Dr. Robert Maurer and Dr. Peter Schultz, invented fused silica optical waveguide - optical fiber. This was a breakthrough creating a revolution in telecommunications, capable of carrying 65,000 times more information than conventional copper wire. In 1970, Maurer, Keck, and Schultz solved a problem that had previously stumped scientists around the world. They designed and produced the first optical fiber with optical losses low enough for wide use in telecommunications. The light loss was limited to 20 decibels per kilometer (at least one percent of the light entering a fiber remains after traveling one kilometer). |
| Isaac Asimov | |
(source) |
Born 2
Jan 1920; died 6 Apr 1992.
American author and biochemist, who was a prolific writer of science fiction and of science books for the layperson. Born in Petrovichi, Russia, he emigrated with his family to New York City at age three. He entered Columbia University at the age of 15 and at 18 sold his first story to Amazing Stories. After earning a Ph.D., he taught biochemistry at Boston University School of Medicine after 1949. By 18 Mar 1941, Asimov had already written 31 stories, sold 17, and 14 had been published. As an author, lecturer, and broadcaster of astonishing range, he is most admired as a popularizer of science (The Collapsing Universe; 1977) and a science fiction writer (I, Robot;1950). He coined the term "robotics." He published about 500 volumes. |
| Roger Adams | |
(source) |
Born 2
Jan 1889; died 6 Jul 1971.
American chemist and teacher who joined the faculty at the University of Illinois at Urbana in 1916, which he converted into the leading centre of organic chemistry in the U.S. and forged links with industry, notably with Du Pont. Adams worked out the chemical composition of various natural substances, including chaulmoogra oil (which is used in treating leprosy), gossypol (a toxic cottonseed pigment), marijuana, and many alkaloids. He also worked in stereochemistry and with platinum catalysts and the synthesis of medicinal compounds. His name is associated with chemical warfare agent Adamsite (diphenylamine chloroarsine) and the Adams catalyst (platinum oxide or palladium oxide, used for the hydrogenation of carbon-carbon double bonds). |
| Albert C. Barnes | |
(source) |
Born 2
Jan 1872; died 24 Jul 1951.
Dr. Albert C(oombs) Barnes was an American chemist who invented the antiseptic Argyrol (1902). This is a silver-protein compound used in aqueous solution as a topical antiseptic. Believing in the social theories of philosophers such as John Dewey, Barnes felt he could better the lives of his fellow citizens. He applied his own ideas in his own factories. He scheduled his workers on 8-hour shifts 6 hours on the production line, followed by 2 hours of lectures on esthetics and art. He became a noted art collector, whose collection is now in the Barnes Foundation galleries in Merion, outside Philadelphia. Barnes' theories of art appreciation continue to be taught at the Barnes Foundation today. Dr. Barnes died in a car crash in 1951. |
| William Corless Mills | |
1921 (source)
|
Born 2 Jan 1860; died 17 Jan 1928.
American museum curator who excavated Indian remains in Ohio, especially the Adena Mound (1901), a large earthen Indian burial ground near Chillicothe. Dating from about 50 BC, this site now represents the type site for the study of the North American Adena culture and period. Mills also made the definitive study (publ.1921) of Ohio's Flint Ridge "Great Indian Quarry" for the Ohio Archaeological and Historical Society of which he was curator and librarian 1898-1928. [Image: Adena point first described and named by Mills in his 1902 book Excavation of the Adena Mound for points he found at the large mound on the Adena Estate of Governor Worthington in Ross County, Ohio.(source)] |
| Rudolf Clausius | |
(source) |
Born 2
Jan 1822; died 24 Aug 1888.
Rudolf (Julius Emanuel) Clausius was a German mathematical physicist who was one of the founders of thermodynamics. In 1850, he stated the second law of thermodynamics. As a theoretical physicist, he also researched in molecular physics and electricty. In his published work in thermodynamics (1865) he gave the First and Second laws of thermodynamics in the following form: (1) The energy of the universe is constant. (2) The entropy of the universe tends to a maximum. In all Clausius wrote eight important papers on the topic. He restated Sadi Carnot's principle of the efficiency of heat engines. The Clausius-Clapeyron equation expresses the relation between the pressure and temperature at which two phases of a substance are in equilibrium. |
| Charles Thurber | |
1843 (source) |
Born 2
Jan 1803; died 7 Nov 1886.
American inventor of the chirographer, an early form of typewriter, patented in 1843. Born in E. Brookfield, Mass., he formed Allen & Thurber (Worcester, Mass) with his brother in law, Ethan Allen to manufacture firearms. On "Thurber's Patent Printer", patented 1843, the type was mounted on a rotating cylindrical drum. As Scientific American described it, "the paper was secured to the drum, and was brought into the proper place under the type bar guide. The type wheel was revolved until the desired lever came over the guide. The key was then forced down with the finger, and the character was printed." Thurber also patented a different machine which he called the Chirographer, but the machine was far too slow to substitute for hand writing.*  |
| Charles Hatchett | |
(source) |
Born 2 Jan 1765; died 10 Mar 1847.
English chemist who discovered an element he called columbium in 1801. He worked at the British Museum. He found it while analyzing columbite, a black rock in the collection from New England. The sample donor was Sir Hans Sloane, who received it decades earlier from the grandson of mineral collector, John Winthrop (1606-76), Connecticut's first governor. Hatchett was able to detect a new element in the complex mineral, but not to isolate it. It was called niobium by German chemist, Heinrich Rose, who rediscovered the metal forty years later. In 1864, the element itself was first separated by reducing the chloride by heating it in a hydrogen atmosphere. Niobium is a metal that burns when heated in air and is used in arc-welding rods.« |
| Johann Daniel Titius | |
(source) |
Born 2
Jan 1729; died 11 Dec 1796.
Prussian astronomer, physicist, and biologist whose formula (1766) expressing the distances between the planets and the Sun was confirmed by J.E. Bode in 1772, when it was called Bode's Law. Titius suggested that the mean distances of the planets from the sun very nearly fit a simple relationship of A=4+(3x2n) giving the series 4, 7, 10, 16, 28, *, 52, 100, corresponding to the relative distance of the six known planets, up to Saturn, and an unassigned value (*) between Mars and Jupiter. Olbers searched for a planetary object at this empty position, thus discovering the asteroid belt. However, since the discovery of Neptune, which did not fit the pattern, the "law" is regarded as a coincidence with no scientific significance. |
|
Today in Science History Science Store Browse a selection of Bargain Science and Nature Books |
| JANUARY 2 - DEATHS | |
| Dixy Lee Ray | |
(source) |
 Died
2 Jan 1994 (born 3 Sep 1914)
(Margaret Ray) American marine biologist whose interests extended to the environment and the need for greater public understanding of science. A year after appointment to the Atomic Energy Commission, she became its first female chair (1973-75) and championed nuclear power plant construction. On 2 Nov 1976, Ray won election as the first woman to be governor of Washington state. In her single term as governor, Ray generated more controversy than accomplishments, advocating reductions in environmental protections, and supporting nuclear power. She feuded with aides and refused to close the Hanford nuclear dump. She was featured on the cover of Time issue of 12 Dec 1977. 
 Is
it true what they say about Dixy?: A biography of Dixy Lee Ray, by
Louis R Guzzo |
| Lillian Evelyn Gilbreth | |
(source) |
Died
2 Jan 1972 (born 24 May 1878)
(née Moller) American efficiency expert, who as wife of Frank Bunker Gilbreth, contracting engineer, together developed the method of time-and-motion study. Upon her marriage, 19 Oct 1904, she became a partner in her husband's fledgling motion study business. As a contractor, he was already applying ideas to improve the speed of building. After a few years, they applied motion study to industry. Each step of work activity was to be studied in detail (employing motion pictures for analysis) to determine the optimal way to execute a given task. By choosing a method of least exertion, the employees would be more healthy, more productive, and economically improve the business. She continued after her husband's death in 1924. Making
Time: Lillian Moller Gilbreth..., by Jane Lancaster |
| Sir Edward Burnett Tylor | |
(source) |
Died
2 Jan 1917 (born 2 Oct 1832)
English anthropologist regarded as the founder of cultural anthropology. After travelling in the U.S. (1855-56) he proceeded to Cuba (1856), where he met Henry Christy the ethnologist. Together they visited Mexico, where Christy's influence greatly stimulated Tylor's interest in anthropology. Seeing the rich prehistoric remains in Mexico led Tylor to make a systematic study of the science. In his most important work, Primitive Culture (1871), being influenced by Darwin's theory of biological evolution, he developed the theory of an evolutionary, progressive relationship between primitive and modern cultures. By 1883, he was Keeper of the University Museum at Oxford and Professor of Anthropology there 1896-1909. He was knighted in 1912. Primitive
culture: Researches ..., by Edward Burnett Tylor |
| Léon (-Philippe) Teisserenc de Bort | |
(source) |
Died
2 Jan 1913 (born 5 Nov 1855)
French meteorologist who discovered the stratosphere (1902). He established own observatory at Trappes (1896) and pioneered in the use of unmanned, instrumented balloons to investigate atmosphere. Teisserenc de Bort found that above an altitude of 7 miles (11 km) temperature ceased to fall and sometimes increased slightly. He named this upper part of the atmosphere the stratosphere, because he thought that the different gases would lie in distinct strata as, without temperature differentials, there would be no mechanism to disturb them. The lower part of the atmosphere he named the troposphere (Greek: "sphere of change") as here, with abundant temperature differentials, constant change and mingling of atmospheric gases occurred. |
| Sir George Biddell Airy | |
(source) |
Died
2 Jan 1892 (born 27 Jul 1801)
English astronomer who became the seventh Astronomer Royal (1836-92). In his life he studied interference fringes in optics, made a mathematical study of the rainbow and computed the density of the Earth by swinging a pendulum at the top and bottom of a deep mine, determined the mass of the planet Jupiter and its period rotation, calculated the orbits of comets and cataloged stars. He designed corrective lenses for astigmatism (1825), the first that worked. His motivation was his own astigmatism. Airy had a long-standing battle with Babbage. In 1854, the conflict continued between the two during the battle of the incompatible railway gauges in England. Airy championed the railway narrow gauge and Babbage for the wide gauge. |
| Louis Bernard Guyton de Morveau | |
(source) |
Died
2 Jan 1816 (born 4 Jan 1737)
French chemist who collaborated with Lavoisier and others to establish a systematic chemical nomenclature, helping to distinguish elements from compounds. He published studies on phlogiston and crystallization, and also liquified ammonia gas. He wrote the chemical section of the Encyclopédie méthodique (Vol. I, 1786). In 1761, Guyton proposed that the name "alumine" (hence aluminium) be used for the base in alum (potassium aluminium sulphate; Latin alumen = alum). Guyton was one of the first to conclude that iron and steel differ solely in their carbon content, improved the manufacture of gunpowder, was the first to use chlorine and hydrochloric acid gas as disinfectants, and one of the first balloonists (1784). |
| JANUARY 2 - EVENTS | |
| Solar system age | |
In 1960, John Reynolds set the age of solar system at 4,950,000,000 years. |
|
| Monarch butterflies | |
(source) |
In 1975, Kenneth C. Brugger discovered the long-unknown winter destination
of the monarch butterfly in the mountains of Mexico. From 1937, for 38
years, Canadian zoologist Freud Urquhart patiently investigated to establish
the route and destination of the insects. Using tags on the wings of some
butterflies, he followed their migration trails to Mexican territory. Brugger,
one of Urquhart's helpers, after a long period of traveling in the center
of Mexico, found the first butterfly refuge.
Within the territory of only 200 square meters, there are around 20 million
butterflies. The area was cold and covered with oyamel trees and pine trees,
a few kilometers from rural towns. |
| Luna I | |
|
In 1959, the first lunar space shot to escape the Earth's gravitational
pull, the unmanned Luna I, was launched by the Soviet Union. It
passed to within 4,600 miles of the moon before moving on to a solar orbit. |
|
| Night vision tube | |
|
In 1936, the first electron tube to enable night vision was described,
in St Louis, Mo. |
|
| Chicago canal | |
|
In 1900, the Chicago Canal opened. |
|
| Brooklyn Bridge | |
|
In 1870, construction of the Brooklyn Bridge began. |
|
| First US wire suspension bridge | |
|
In 1842, the first wire suspension bridge was opened to traffic in Fairmount,
Pennsylvania. |
|
| Daguerre photographs the moon | |
|
In 1839, French pioneering photographer Louis Daguerre took the first photograph
of the moon.
The
Daguerreotype: Nineteenth-Century Technology and Modern Science,
by Barger and White. |
|
| Luddites trial | |
|
In 1813, a special Commission opened at York, England to put on trial
66 persons for offenses connected with Luddism. Within days, seventeen
of them had been executed on the scaffold. Taking their name from (perhaps
mythical) Ned Ludd, Luddites
vowed to destroy the factory mechanization they blamed for their unemployment.
Riots began in 1812, and spread north from Nottingham where half of the
population were receiving parish relief. Falling prices for goods, bad
harvest increasing prices for food, wages at starvation level, costs of
war and lost foreign markets contributed to the economic distress of the
working class. One thousand looms were broken up in Nottingham, and a law
was passed making destruction of machinery a capital offence.« |
|
