| JANUARY 25 - BIRTHS | |
| Ilya Prigogine | |
(source) |
 Born 25
Jan 1917; died 28 May 2003.
Russian-born Belgian physical chemist who received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1977 for contributions to nonequilibrium thermodynamics, or how life could continue indefinitely in apparent defiance of the classical laws of physics. The main theme of Prigogine's work was the search for a better understanding of the role of time in the physical sciences and in biology. He attempted to reconcile a tendency in nature for disorder to increase (for statues to crumble or ice cubes to melt, as described in the second law of thermodynamics) with so-called "self-organisation", a countervailing tendency to create order from disorder (as seen in, for example, the formation of the complex proteins in a living creature from a mixture of simple molecules).  The
End of Certainty, by Ilya Prigogine |
| Theodosius Dobzhansky | |
(source) |
Born 25
Jan 1900; died 18 Dec 1975.
Ukrainian-American geneticist and evolutionist whose work had a major influence on 20th-century thought and research on genetics and evolutionary theory. He made the first significant synthesis of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution with Gregor Mendel's theory of genetics in his book Genetics and the Origin of Species (1937). From 1918 his research gave experimental evidence that genes could vary far more than geneticists had previously believed. Thus, successful species tend to have a wide variety of genes that, while redundant in its present environment, do provide a species as a whole with genetic diversity. Such diversity enables the species to adapt effectively to changes in the surrounding environment - the basis for modern evolutionary theory. |
| Ernst F.W. Alexanderson | |
| Born 25
Jan 1878; died May 1975.
Ernst Frederik.Werner Alexanderson was a Swedish-American electrical engineer and television pioneer who developed a high-frequency alternator (a device that converts direct current into alternating current) capable of producing continuous radio waves and thereby revolutionized radio communication. |
|
| William Shanks | |
| Born 25
Jan 1812; died 1882
English mathematician who spent numerous years manually calculating the value of pi. Shanks kept a boarding school at Houghton-le-Spring in a coal mining area near Durham. His calulation of pi reached 707 places by 1873, a feat unchallenged until the use of electronic computers. He used the formula:  /4
= 4 tan-1(1/5) - tan-1(1/239).
In 1944, Ferguson's new computation of pi showed Shanks had made a mistake in the 528th decimal place, invalidating the digits calculated beyond. Shanks had omitted two terms which caused his error. By the end of the twentieth century, computers could easily extend the results to over 2 billion places. |
|
| George Dollond | |
| Born 25
Jan 1774; died 13 May 1852.
British optician who invented a number of precision instruments used in astronomy, geodesy, and navigation. |
|
| Count (comte) De L'empire Joseph-Louis Lagrange | |
| Born 25
Jan 1736; died 10 Apr 1813.
Italian-French mathematician who made great contributions to the theory of numbers and to analytic and celestial mechanics. His most important book is Mécanique analytique (1788; "Analytic Mechanics"), the textbook on which all later work in this field is based. |
|
| Robert Boyle | |
(source) |
Born 25
Jan 1627; died 30 Dec 1691.
Anglo-Irish chemist and natural philosopher noted for his pioneering experiments on the properties of gases and his espousal of a corpuscular view of matter that was a forerunner of the modern theory of chemical elements. He was a founding member of the Royal Society of London. |
|
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| JANUARY 25 - DEATHS | |
| Stephen Cole Kleene | |
 Died
25 Jan 1994 (born 5 Jan 1909)
American mathematician and logician whose work on recursion theory helped lay the foundations of theoretical computer science. |
|
| Sir Isaac Shoenberg | |
(source) |
Died
25 Jan 1963 (born 1 Mar 1880)
Russian-Born British electrical engineer and principal inventor of the first high-definition television system, as used by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) for the world's first public high-definition telecast (from London, 1936). He had installed the first radio stations in Russia before moving to England in 1914. He was head of a research group for Electrical and Musical Industries (EMI) that developed (1931-35) an advanced kind of camera tube (the Emitron) and a relatively efficient hard-vacuum cathode-ray tube for the television receiver. Until 1964 the BBC used his technical standard proposal - 405 scanning lines and 25 pictures a second. He was director of EMI from 1955. His youngest son, David Shoenberg, became a noted physicist. |
| Beno Gutenberg | |
(source) |
Died
25 Jan 1960 (born 4 Jun 1889)
American seismologist noted for his analyses of earthquake waves and the information they furnish about the physical properties of the Earth's interior. With Charles Richter, he developed a method of determining the intensity of earthquakes. Calculating the energy released by present-day shallow earthquakes, they showed that three-quarters of that energy occurs in the Circum-Pacific belt. |
| Kiyoshi Shiga | |
(source) |
Died
25 Jan 1957 (born 7 Feb 1871)
Japanese bacteriologist, who discovered (1897) the dysentery bacillus Shigella, named after him. Shigellosis is the infectious disease caused by this group of bacteria leading to diarrhea, fever, stomach cramps and possible hospitalization. He also developed dysentery antiserum (1900). After appointment (1899) and serving a short time as director of the Institute of Infectious Diseases, Tokyo, he spent until 1903 working in Germany on the chemotherapy of trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness) with Paul Ehrlich. He returned to Japan and continued his earlier association in research with Kitasato. In 1912, he moved to work again with Ehrlich in Frankfurt, this time focussing on tuberculosis. In his later life he also investigated leprosy and beriberi.« |
| Edwin B. Holt | |
| Died
25 Jan 1946 (born 1873)
Edwin B(issell) Holt was a U.S. psychologist and philosopher noted for his emphasis on the purposive character of knowing. |
|
| Maximilian von Frey | |
(source) |
Died
25 Jan 1932 (born 16 Nov 1852)
Maximilian Ruppert Franz von Frey was an Austrian physiologist who studied the sense of touch, providing the first comprehensive information about the cutaneous senses. He confirmed the existence of locations for heat, cold, pressure, and pain reception and studied differential sensitivities to each. He suggested a sensory receptor for each modality but later work showed these identifications to be incorrect. [Image: Sphygmograph used for pulse recording by Frey, 1891] |
| JANUARY 25 - EVENTS | |
| Smallest vertebrate | |
In 2006, the discovery of the world's smallest vertebrate - the Paedocypris
progenetica fish - was published in the Proceedings of the Royal
Society of London, Series B. A tiny member of the carp family, the
transparent fish was discovered in the highly acidic peat swamps of the
Indonesian island of Sumatra. Mature females are only 7.9mm (3/10 in) in
length; the males measure up to 8.6mm. The dark tea-coloured swamp waters
in which they live have a pH of 3, which is 100 times more acidic than
rainwater. |
|
| French solar power plant | |
(source) |
In 1977, France inaugurated its first operational solar generating plant
at Odeillo in the Pyranees of southwestern France. Its output of 64 kilowatts
(sufficient to power about 1,000 60-watt light bulbs), was connected to
the national electricity grid to demonstrate operational solar power. The
plant was part of the huge solar furnace project run by the National Center
for Scientific Research. The site was built for high-temperature research
using an eight-story parabolic mirror to refocus sunlight from an extensive
field of mirrors on a hillside in front of it, with 63 moveable mirror
arrays designed to follow the motion of the sun. The electricity was generated
by a turbo-alternator driven by steam from a boiler at the focus of the
reflected sunlight*.
Alignment of the mirrors began in May 1969.« |
| Heart transplant | |
(source) |
In 1974, Dr. Christian Barnard
transplanted the first human heart without the removal of the old one. |
| Atomic clock | |
|
In 1955, Columbia University scientists developed an atomic clock accurate
to within one second in 300 years. |
|
| Car headlamp control | |
(source) |
In 1952, the Autronic Eye, an automatic car headlamp beam control
was introduced to the public by General Motors. A phototube atop the left
end of the dashboard, just inside the windshield, dimmed the lights upon
the approach of an oncoming car, and back to bright when the traffic had
passed. It was offered on Oldsmobile and Cadillac cars. But automatic headlights
tended to flicker erratically in response to minute fluctuations of light.
In 1959, the name became the "Guide-Matic Power Headlight Control." General
Motors had solved the problem with a new gadget: "With a twist of the dial
autronic-eye lets you control the automatic dimming of your lights." Thus
the driver could manually control an automatic device designed to eliminate
the need for manual control. |
| Fluoridation | |
|
In 1945, Grand Rapids, Mich., became the first U.S. city to begin fluoridating
the drinking water. With the intention of reducing tooth decay, one part
per million of fluoride was added to the water supply. Fluorine is the
13th most abundant element on earth, found in nature in its ionic form
- fluoride - in combination with other elements, such as calcium, magnesium,
phosphates etc. Thus fluoride is present in small yet varying amounts in
almost all soil, water supplies, plants, and animals and, therefore, is
a normal constituent of all diets. In mammals, the highest concentrations
are found in the bones and teeth. Decades after the conclusion of the Grand
Rapids fluoridation study, fluoride continues to be dental science's main
weapon in the battle against tooth decay. |
|
| Trans-US phone call | |
|
In 1915, the inventor of the telephone, Alexander
Graham Bell, inaugurated
transcontinental
telephone service in the United States with a call made between New York
City and San Francisco, Cal., which was answered by Dr. Watson, his longtime
assistant. The previous long distance limit was New York to Denver, and
only then with some shouting. Two metallic circuits made up the line; it
used 2,500 tons of hard-drawn copper wire, 130,000 poles and countless
loading coils. Three vacuum tube repeaters along the way boosted the signal.
It was the world's longest telephone line. In a grand ceremony, 68 year
old Alexander Graham Bell in New York City made the ceremonial first call
to his old friend Thomas Watson in San Francisco. |
|
| Soda fountain | |
(source) |
In 1870, Gustavus Dows of Lowell, Mass. received his first patent (No.
99,170) for an "Improved Soda Fountain" being the vessel in which carbon
dioxide was injected, both forming the soda-water beverage, and delivering
the drink using the internal pressure. His improvement was to fit it with
an internal perforated partition to improve aeration during oscillation.
Earlier, he had had made the first ornamented soda fountain in the U.S.
(1858), made from white Italian marble with spread eagles perched on the
syrup cocks. He invented a double stream draft arm and cock, for a large
or small stream (1862). From 1863, he made and sold soda fountains for
$225 each. The first U.S. soda fountain patent was granted to Jacob Ebert
and George Dulty (24 Apr 1833). |
| Faraday announces photography | |
(source) |
In 1839, Michael Faraday publicly announced
for the first time the existence of photography
as the subject of his Friday Evening Discourse at the Royal
Institution. Faraday announced the "Daguerreotype"
and Fox Talbot's "photogenic drawings"
at the same time, and invited the audience to inspect the specimens displayed
in the library. Fox Talbot returned the following week to read a more detailed
paper describing his process. Faraday had been instrumental in founding
and sustaining (1826) the Friday Evening Discourse series of lectures which
continue to this day.« [Image:
Michael Faraday] |
| Seed planter | |
|
In 1799, a seed-planting device was patented by Eliakim Spooner of Vermont.
The seeds were fed by gravity. The machine was not practical, however.
The first truly practical seeding machine to be patented in the U.S. was
invented by Joseph Gibbons of Adrian Mich, who received patent No. 1,731
on 25 Aug 1840. His machine combined a grain drill with cavities to deliver
seed and a device for regulating the volume. |
|
| Heat | |
(source) |
In 1798, Benjamin Thompson presented
a paper to the Royal Society,
Enquiry
concerning the Source of Heat which is excited by Friction,
in which
he presented the idea that heat represents a form of motion, as opposed
to the prevailing idea of being a fluid. He had come to this conclusion
from observation that the boring of cannon barrels produces heat from friction. |
