| JANUARY 12 - BIRTHS | |
| Ruth Rogan Benerito | |
(source) |
 Born 12
Jan 1916
American chemist who was a pioneer in the development of wash- and- wear fabrics. Earlier, she investigated fat emulsions and transport of fat in animals. For the Office of the Surgeon General, she developed an intravenous fat emulsion for intravenous feeding to help supply necessary calories for long term patients. Benerito also investigated the reaction epoxies. Her findings have been used not only in the textile industry but also to paper, film, and epoxy plastic manufacturers, and they have been applied in the use of epoxy compounds to preserve wood. Benerito has been granted over 50 patents. Her research has resulted in the development of cotton fabrics that are crease and stain resistant, comfortable, and "drip-dry" and better able to retard flames. |
| Sergey Pavlovich Korolev | |
(source) |
Born 12
Jan 1907; died 14 Jan 1966.
Soviet designer of guided missiles, rockets, and spacecraft. He was one of the founders of Moscow Group for the Study of Reactive Motion. In 1933, he participated in the Soviet Union's first launch of a liquid-propellant rocket. Because he was not a member of the Communist Party, he spent much of his life under house arrest. After demonstrating his expertise in the modification of captured V2 rockets, Korolev directed the design, testing, construction, and launching of the Vostok spacecraft, and most of the U.S.S.R.'s other projects. Around 1958, Korolev argued for the pursuit of manned space flight instead of military reconnaissance satellites. After much debate, the Vostok project was approved provided the launch vehicle could also be useful to the military. |
| Igor Vasilyevich Kurchatov | |
(source) |
Born 12
Jan 1903; died 7 Feb 1960.
Soviet nuclear physicist who from 1932 conducted nuclear science research in the Soviet Union, during which time his team built a cyclotron, a proton accelerator and studied artificial radioactivity and neutron-proton interactions. During WW II, he was chosen as director for the development of his country's first atomic bomb, detonated 29 Aug 1949. Meanwhile, in Dec 1946, Kurchatov demonstrated a working prototype reactor, though limited to producing only a few watts and by Jun 1948, a plutonium production reactor. He subsequently produced the world's first practical thermonuclear bomb (1952). Before 1978, the Soviet name for element-104 was kurchatovium (Ku), though subsquently rutherfordium (Rf) became the accepted name.«  I.V.
Kurchatov:: A Socialist-Realist Biography of the Soviet Nuclear Scientist,
by I. N. Golovin |
| Paul Hermann Müller | |
(source) |
Born 12
Jan 1899; died 12 Oct 1965.
Swiss chemist who received the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1948 for discovering the potent toxic effects on insects of DDT. With its chemical derivatives, DDT became the most widely used insecticide for more than 20 years and was a major factor in increased world food production. |
| David Wechsler | |
(source) |
Born 12
Jan 1896; died 2 May 1981.
U.S. psychologist and inventor of several widely used intelligence tests for adults and children. During WW I, while assisting Edwin Garrigues Boring (1886-1968) in testing army recruits, Wechsler realized the inadequacies of the Army Alpha Tests (designed to measure abilities of conscripts and match them to suitable military jobs). He concluded that academically defined "intelligence" did not apply to "real life" situations. After leaving the military and more years of research, he developed the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, and introduced deviation scores in intelligence tests. He developed the Wechsler Memory Scale in 1945, Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (1949), and Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence (1967). |
| Knut Johan Angstrom | |
| Born 12
Jan 1857; died 4 Mar 1910.
Swedish physicist, son of Anders Angstrom, who invented an electric compensation pyrheliometer and other devices for infra-red photography. With these, he studied the sun's heat radiation.« |
|
| Gregorio Ricci-Curbastro | |
(source) |
Born 12
Jan 1853; died 6 Aug 1925.
Italian mathematician instrumental in the development of the absolute differential calculus (also called the Ricci calculus), now known as tensor analysis. Ricci-Curbastro's early work was in mathematical physics, particularly on the laws of electric circuits and differential equations. He changed area somewhat to undertake research in differential geometry and was the inventor of the absolute differential calculus between 1884 and 1894. Ricci-Curbastro's absolute differential calculus became the foundation of tensor analysis and was used by Einstein in his theory of general relativity. As a councillor for his home town of Lugo, he was involved in many projects relating to the supply of water and to swamp drainage. |
| Étienne Lenoir | |
(source) |
Born 12 Jan 1822; died 4 Aug 1900.
(Jean-Joseph-) Étienne Lenoir was a Belgian inventor who devised the world's first commercially successful internal-combustion engine. He moved to Paris where his work with electro-plating led him to other electrical inventions, among them a railway telegraph. Lenoir patented his first engine in 1860. Looking much like a double-acting steam engine, it fired an uncompressed charge of air and illuminating gas with an ignition system of his own design. One of these engines powered a road vehicle in 1863; another ran a boat. Because of improved designs by Nikolaus Otto and other inventors, the Lenoir engine became obsolete and only about 500 Lenoir engines were built. The Lenoir engine wasn't efficient enough, and the inventor died poor. Image right: patent diagram 24 Jan 1860 (source) |
| Johan August Arfwedson | |
| Born 12
Jan 1792; died 28 Oct 1841.
Swedish chemist who discovered lithium (1817) in a compound in the mineral petalite, though he was unable isolate it as metal. That required electrolysis with stronger batteries than he had available. (The separation was eventually accomplished by Davy.) Arfwedson abandoned scientific endeavour to spend his time running his family's manufactories and mines that he inherited. Petalite is now known to be lithium aluminium silicate.« |
|
| Lazzaro Spallanzani | |
(source) |
Born 12 Jan 1729; died 11 Feb 1799.
Italian physiologist who made important contributions to the experimental study of bodily functions and animal reproduction. Spallanzani demonstrated that microorganisms arose not by spontaneous generation but from spores in the air. He also studied regeneration and spermatozoa. He showed that contact by semen was necessary for development of the egg and he achieved the first successful artificial insemination of a dog (1785). He explained the circulation of the blood and the digestive system of animals. Spallanzani also worked on various problems in the physical and earth sciences. His investigations into the development of microscopic life in nutrient culture solutions paved the way for the research of Louis Pasteur. (Cartoon source) |
| Antonio de Ulloa | |
(source) |
Born 12
Jan 1716; died 5 Jul 1795.
Spanish scientist and naval officer who discovered the element platinum (atomic number 78). In 1735, the French and Spanish governments sent an scientific expedition to Peru and Equador to measure a degree of meridian at Quinto, close to the equator. Ulloa was one of the officers appointed to take charge of the expedition. In 1744, the ship on which he returned was captured by the British, and he was taken prisoner, though treated respectfully by the English naval officers for they "were not at war with the arts and sciences." The log of his voyage to Peru published in 1748 contains a description of platinum. He established the first museum of natural history and the first metallurgical laboratory in Spain, as well as the Cadiz observatory. |
| Jan Baptista van Helmont | |
(source) |
Born 12
Jan 1580; died 30 Dec 1644.
Belgian chemist, physiologist, and physician who recognized the existence of discrete gases and identified carbon dioxide. He was part medieval alchemist and part scientist. Helmont was the first to recognize the existence of gases distinct from atmospheric air. He determined that the gas given off by burning charcoal is the same as that given off by fermenting grape juice. He called it spiritus silvestre (“wild spirit”); we call it carbon dioxide. As a physician and physiologist, Helmont was one of the first to apply chemical principles to questions of human health and disease. He has been called by some the “father of biochemistry.” Yet, he was subjected to several interrogations by the Inquisition, and spent time under house arrest. |
| JANUARY 12 - DEATHS | |
| Francis R. "Joe" Boyd | |
(source) |
 Died
12 Jan 2004 (born 26 Jan 1926)
American geologist whose studies on the origins of volcanic rocks contributed to the understanding of the formation of the Earth. In Yellowstone National Park, he discovered that the volcanic eruptions that formed Yellowstone Plateau produced rocks of an unusual type, called welded tuff. In the 1960s, he helped develop the Boyd-English device, a piston-cylinder laboratory apparatus to simulate the pressure exerted on minerals deep within the Earth. Able to create a synthetic diamond, it also helps scientists determine the nature of minerals in the various rock layers of the Earth. He was a leading authority on the mantle root of the 3.5-billion-year-old Kaapvaal craton (the kernel on which a continent grows) rock in southern Africa. |
| William Hewlett | |
(source) |
Died
12 Jan 2001 (born 20 May 1913)
William (Redington) Hewlett was an American electrical engineer who co-founded the Hewlett-Packard Company, a leading manufacturer computers, computer printers, and analytic and measuring equipment. In 1939, he formed a partnership known as Hewlett-Packard Company with David Packard, a friend and Stanford classmate. (The order of their names was determined by a coin toss.) HP's first product was an audio oscillator based on a design developed by Hewlett when he was in graduate school. Eight were sold to Walt Disney for Fantasia. Lesser-known early products were: bowling alley foul-line indicator, automatic urinal flusher, weight-loss shock machine. The company's first "plant" was a small garage in Palo Alto, with $538 initial capital. |
| Charles B. Huggins | |
(source) |
Died
12 Jan 1997 (born 22 Sep 1901)
Charles Brenton Huggins was a Canadian-born American surgeon and urologist whose investigations demonstrated the relationship between hormones and certain types of cancer. In 1939, Huggins made a very simple inference that led to the development of new forms of cancer therapy. Noting that the prostate gland was under the control of androgens (male sex hormones) he concluded that cancer of the prostate might be treated by preventing the production of androgens. In 1941, he began to inject with female sex hormones to neutralize the effect of androgens produced by the testicles. For his discoveries Huggins received (with Peyton Rous) the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1966. |
| Kenneth Wartinbee Spence | |
(source) |
Died
12 Jan 1967 (born 6 May 1907)
U.S. psychologist who attempted to construct a comprehensive theory of behaviour to encompass conditioning and other simple forms of learning and behaviour modification. He is known for both theoretical and experimental research on learning. Spence was particularly interested in learning and conditioning. He extended the research and theories of Hull, in an attempt to establish a precise, mathematical formulation to describe the acquisition of learned behavior. He tried to measure simple learned behaviors such as salivating in anticipation of eating. Much of his research focused on classically conditioned, easily measured, eye-blinking behavior in relation to anxiety and other factors. |
| Frank Alvord Perret | |
(source) |
Died
12 Jan 1943 (born 2 Aug 1867)
American electrical engineer and inventor who later became a pioneer field volcanologist. Using his prior experience at Thomas Edison's labs, at age 20, Perret co-founded the Elektron Mfg Co. in Brooklyn, NY developing the motors, dynamos and electric controls that the company manufactured (and later, elevators). The first American electric elevator (1887) was probably powered by an Elektron motor. He began a second career in 1904 as a volcanologist, using his electrical knowledge to the measure their seismic activity. He became well known for his studies at Vesuvius (1906), Etna (1910), Stromboli and Kilauea (1911). From 1929, he lived at the foot of Mont Pelée, Martinique, where he founded a memorial volcanological museum.« |
| Hermann Minkowski | |
(source) |
Died
12 Jan 1909 (born 22 Jun 1864)
German mathematician who developed the geometrical theory of numbers and who used geometrical methods to solve difficult problems in number theory, mathematical physics, and the theory of relativity. By 1907, Minkowski realised that the work of Lorentz and Einstein could be best understood in a non-euclidean space. He considered space and time, which were formerly thought to be independent, to be coupled together in a four-dimensional "space-time continuum". Minkowski worked out a four-dimensional treatment of electrodynamics. His idea of a four-dimensional space (since known as "Minkowski space"), combining the three dimensions of physical space with that of time, laid the mathematical foundation of Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity. |
| Sir Isaac Pitman | |
(source) |
Died
12 Jan 1807 (born 4 Jan 1813)
English inventor of the Phonetic Shorthand System was a philanthropic headmaster whose shorthand system was initially taught free of charge, and has since been adapted for such diverse languages as Arabic, Hebrew, Hindi, Japanese, Latin, Persian, Welsh, and Tamil. In 1829, he learned Samuel Taylor's system of shorthand, and offered a manual of that system to a publisher who suggested that Pitman should invent a new system of his own. In Stenographic Soundhand (1837) he set forth a shorthand system based on phonetic rather than orthographic principles. He published books about shorthand using his own publishing house. His brother, Benn Pitman (1822-1910) emigrated to the U.S. in 1852 where he introduced the Pitman system. |
| Wilhelm Hofmeister | |
(source) |
Died
12 Jan 1877 (born 18 May 1824)
Wilhelm (Friedrich Benedikt) Hofmeister was a German botanist whose investigations of plant structure made him a pioneer in the science of comparative plant morphology. He discovered the regular alternation of sexual and asexual generation in plants (1862), which is the basis for the explanation of the life cycle in all known plants. He recognized that all land plants form one multicellular individual which he called the gametophyte that produced gametangia; and then a second multicellular individual called the sporophyte that forms sporangia in which meiosis results in the formation of spores. Hofmeister called this life cycle pattern with distinct gametophytes and sporophytes: alternation of generations. |
| Georg Forster | |
(source) |
Died
12 Jan 1794 (born 26 Nov 1754)
Explorer and scientist who helped to establish the literary travel book as a favoured genre in German literature. Forster sailed to the Pacific as a botanical collector with James Cook's second expedition to the Pacific 1772-75 on board the "Resolution". He then worked as an anthropologist, essayist, art critic, and travel writer in Germany, and finally participated in the French Revolution before dying in his Paris exile in 1794. He died before he was 40. |
| Pierre de Fermat | |
(source) |
Died
12 Jan 1665 (born 17 Aug 1601)
French mathematician, often called the founder of the modern theory of numbers. Together with Rene Descartes, Fermat was one of the two leading mathematicians of the first half of the 17th century. He anticipated differential calculus with his method of finding the greatest and least ordinates of curved lines. He proposed the famous Fermat's Last Theorem while studying the work of the ancient Greek mathematician Diophantus. He wrote in pencil in the margin, "I have discovered a truly remarkable proof which this margin is too small to contain," that when the Pythagorean theorem is altered to read an + bn = cn, the new equation cannot be solved in integers for any value of n greater than 2. |
| John Bloomfield Jervis | |
(source) |
Died
12 Jan 1885 (born 14 Dec 1795)
American civil engineer who made outstanding contributions in construction of canals, railroads, and water-supply systems for the expanding United States. Jervis began his career in Rome as an Axeman for an Erie Canal survey party in 1817. By 1823 he was superintendent of a 50-mile section of the Erie Canal. After appointment in 1827 as its Chief Engineer, he won approval of his idea that a railroad be incorporated into the Delaware and Hudson Canal project, at a time there were no railroads in America. Jervis even designed its locomotive, the Stourbridge Lion, the first locomotive to run in America. He designed and built the 41-mile Croton Aqueduct (New York City's water supply for fifty years: 1842-91), and the Boston Aqueduct. |
| JANUARY 12 - EVENTS | |
| First Hispanic astronaut | |
 |
In 1986, the shuttle "Columbia 7" blasted off with a crew that included
the first Hispanic American in space, Dr. Franklin R. Chang-Diaz and
U.S. Rep. Bill Nelson, D-Fla. It was the 24th space shuttle mission. |
| Pyramid restoration | |
(source) |
In 1984, restorers stopped using mortar and adopted the original system
of interlocking blocks practiced by the ancient Eygptian pyramid builders.
An international panel overseeing the restoration
of the Great Pyramids in Egypt abandoned modern construction techniques
which were found to be destructive when water in modern cement caused adjacent
limestone stones to split. Located at Giza outside Cairo, some of the oldest
manmade structures on earth were showing severe signs of decay by the early
1980s. Successful repair work began on the 4,600-year-old Sphinx in 1981,
but restoration of the pyramids had been frustrated by the problems of
modern cement. Upon returning to the ancient methods, the project ran smoothly. |
| Nuclear test | |
|
In 1965, at 10:58 a.m. PST, scientists conducted what they called a "controlled
excursion", burning up a nuclear rocket in Nevada. It produced a radioactive
cloud over Los Angeles. |
|
| Submarine cable plow | |
|
In 1937, the first U.S. patent for a submarine cable plow was issued. It
was designed to feed a cable at the same time that it would dig a trench
in the ocean bed. The device could be used at depths up to a half mile.
The first transatlantic cable of high-speed permalloy was buried on 14
Jun 1938. The inventors were Chester S. Lawton of Ridgewood, N.J. and Capt.
Melville H. Bloomer of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. They assigned the
patent to the Western Union Telegraph Co. (No. 2,607,717). |
|
| Edison patent | |
|
In 1919, a U.S. patent for a "Method and Means for Improving the
Rendition of Musical Compositions" was issued to Thomas A. Edison. His
patent application was dated three years earlier, on 12 Jan 1916 (No. 1,323,218). |
|
| Edison patent | |
|
In 1909, a U.S. patent for "Waterproofing Paint for Portland Cement Buildings"
was issued to Thomas A. Edison (No. 909,167) and another for "Waterproofing
Paint for Portland Cement Structure" (No. 909,169). He also received a
patent for "Waterproofing Fibers and Fabrics" (No. 909,806). |
|
| Wireless message | |
|
In 1908, a wireless message was sent long-distance for the first time from
the Eiffel Tower in Paris. |
|
| Edison patent | |
|
In 1897, one of the various patents for a "Phonograph" was issued to Thomas
Alva Edison (No.575151). It was one of several patents relating to his
invention received by the patent office on 3 Dec 1890 that were issued
on various dates between 27 Jun 1893 and 30 Sep 1898. |
|
| Black American patent | |
|
In 1897, a U.S. patent for "Extension Steps for Cars" was issued to Black
American inventor D.L. White (No. 574,969)
The
Inventive Spirit of African Americans: Patented Ingenuity,
by Patricia Carter Sluby. |
|
| First U.S. X-ray photograph | |
|
(source) |
In 1896, the first x-ray photograph
in the U.S. was taken by Dr. Henry Louis Smith, a professor
of physics and astronomy at Davidson College, Davidson, NC. It showed the
location of a bullet in the hand of a corpse, using a 15 minute exposure.
Immediately after he first heard of Roentgen's discovery in Germany, Smith
obtained the hand of the corpse, and fired a bullet into it, for this experiment.
In Feb 1896, he published this X-Ray photograph in the Charlotte Observer.
He was subsequently elected president of Davidson College in 1901. In 1905,
Smith established
the first electric light plant in the town of Davidson.« |
| Edison patent | |
|
In 1886, a patent for an "Electrode for Telephone-Transmitters" was issued
to Thomas Alva Edison (No. 348114). The patent application was dated one
year earlier on 12 Jan 1885. |
|
| Latimer patent | |
(USPTO) |
In 1886, a U.S. patent was issued for an "Apparatus for Cooling and Disinfecting"
to African-American Lewis H.
Latimer. (No. 334,078). It consisted of a suitable fabric stretched
between a water reservoir and a drip-pan to saturate it and present "a
large evaporating surface to cool air about passing over it." It could
be placed in a window frame so that air passing through it would be cooled
by evaporation of the water. In neighborhoods with unpleasant odors, deodorizing
or disinfecting liquids could be added to or substitute the water, using
"chemical agents - such as carbolic acid, bromochloralum, &c.," to
destroy such odors or germs." His first patented invention was for a water-closet
for railroad cars (10 Feb 1874, No. 147,363).«
Great
Discoveries and Inventions by African-Americans, by David
M. Foy |
| Aerophore | |
(source) |
In 1875, the aerophore, an apparatus to enable a person to enter a noxious,
inflammable atmosphere, was successfully tested at Chatham, 12-14 Jan 1875.
Invented by Louis Denayrouze, a naval lieutenant, it comprised an air-pump,
lamp, and flexible tubing*. Air in cylinders at a pressure of 300-350 lb/in2,
reduced through a valve to atmospheric pressure, supported respiration.
The apparatus was heavy
and unmanageable for more than an hour's supply. He and Benoit Rouquayrol,
a French mining engineer, had patented an underwater aerophore
(1865), a steel tank filled with compressed air carried on a diver's back,
connected through valves to a mouthpiece. It was the predecessor of contemporary
scuba equipment.« [Image:
Air cylinders, with inset of face mask. Not shown is the equipment on the
miner's back and the hand-lamp. Ref *
p.17.]  |
