| JANUARY 27 - BIRTHS | |
| Samuel C.C. Ting | |
(source) |
 Born 27
Jan 1936
Samuel Chao Chung Ting is an American physicist who shared, with Burton Richter, the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1976 for his discovery of a new subatomic particle, the J/psi particle. |
| Sir John Carew Eccles | |
(source) |
Born 27
Jan 1903
Australian research physiologist, who in 1963 received (with Alan Hodgkin and Andrew Huxley) the 1963 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for his discovery of the chemical means by which impulses are communicated or repressed by nerve cells. He also showed how signals pass between nerves and muscles. A nerve cell that is switched on by receiving a signal passes a chemical on to the next cell in line. This chemical expands minute openings in cell membranes, allowing ions to flood inside, reversing the electrical charge of the cell. This activity is repeated along the chain of cells, permitting transmission of the original impulse through the body. Eccles observed living cells in action by planting exceptionally tiny electrodes in them. |
| Hyman G. Rickover | |
(source) |
Born 27
Jan 1900; died 8 Jul 1986.
Hyman (George) Rickover, born in Makow, Russia (now Poland), immigrated to the US (1906) and graduated from the Naval Academy in 1922. He eventually became an Admiral. He is known as the Father of the Nuclear Navy for his leadership to build the atomic-powered submarine, USS Nautilus (1954). He served on active duty with the United States Navy for more than 63 years, receiving exemptions from the mandatory retirement age due to his critical service in the building of the United States Navy's nuclear surface and submarine force. |
| Victor Moritz Goldschmidt | |
(source) |
Born 27
Jan 1888; died 20 Mar 1947.
Swiss-born Norwegian mineralogist and petrologist who laid the foundation of inorganic crystal chemistry and founded modern geochemistry. |
| Carl Blegen | |
(source) |
Born 27
Jan 1887; died 24 Aug 1971.
Carl William Blegen was an archaeologist who unearthed evidence that supported and dated the sack of Troy recorded in Homer's Iliad. Storage jars, skeletons and ash piles (which he interpreted as evidence of the city's fiery destruction) reinforced his conviction. He also discovered, in 1939, clay tablets dating from about 1250 BC. At the fabled palace of King Nestor, a major figure in the Trojan War, nearly 1,100 clay tablet records of palace transactions were found there over 15 years. These were inscribed with the earliest known examples of European writing, enabling cryptographers to find the key by which the ancient tablets could be decoded, proving the existence of a Greek civilization where none was formerly thought to exist.«  Troy
and The Trojans, by Carl W Blegen. |
| Ralph Modjeski | |
(source) |
Born 27
Jan 1861; died 26 Jun 1940.
Polish-born American bridge designer and builder, outstanding for the number, variety, and innovative character of his projects. His first major commission was the design and construction of a seven-span bridge with railway and highway over the Mississippi River, at Rock Island, Illinois. Later, he developed a set of standard bridges designs for the Northern Pacific Railroad. He remains outstanding for the large number, variety and innovation of America's finest major bridges for which he was chief or consulting engineer. The longest cantilevered bridge in the world, the Quebec City Bridge, was completed when he took over its re-design following a 1907 failure that killed 75 workers. He was chief engineer of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.« A
man who spanned two eras: The story of bridge engineer Ralph Modjeski,
by Jozef Glomb. |
| James Ward | |
| Born 27
Jan 1843; died 4 Mar 1925.
English psychologist who had widespread influence on the practice and teaching of psychology in Great Britain, resulting particularly from his influential article (1886) in the ninth edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Therein, he defined psychology's principal task as "to analyze and trace the development of individual experience as it is for the experiencing individual." For Ward, the mind is an active participant in experience. What is presented is not an aggregate of things which produce corresponding mental atoms, but a varying continuum to which the mind attends and selects. In 1904, The British Journal of Psychology began publication, edited by James Ward and W.H.R. Rivers.« |
|
| Lewis Carroll | |
(source) |
Born 27
Jan 1832; died 14 Jan 1898.
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, pen-name Lewis Carroll, was an English logician, mathematician, photographer, and novelist, remembered for Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and its sequel. After graduating from Christ Church College, Oxford in 1854, Dodgson remained there, lecturing on mathematics and writing treatises until 1881. As a mathematician, Dodgson was conservative. He was the author of a fair number of mathematics books, for instance A syllabus of plane algebraical geometry (1860). His mathematics books have not proved of enduring importance except Euclid and his modern rivals (1879) which is of historical interest. As a logician, he was more interested in logic as a game than as an instrument for testing reason. |
| Isaac Roberts | |
Modern photo of M31 (source) |
Born 27
Jan 1829; died 17 Jul 1904.
British astronomer who was a pioneer in photography of nebulae. In 1885 he had built an observatory with a 20 inch reflector. Using this instrument Roberts was to make considerable progress in the newly developing science of Astro-photography. He photographed numerous celestial objects including Orion Nebula on 15 Jan 1986 (90 minute exposure) and Pleiades. Undoubtedly his finest work was a photograph showing the spiral structure of the Great Nebula in Andromeda, M31 on 29 Dec 1888. In addition to his contribution to astro-photography, Roberts also devised a machine to be used to engrave stellar positions on copper plates, known as the Stellar Pantograver. He was also a geologist of some considerable note. |
| Thomas Willis | |
(source) |
Born 27
Jan 1621; died 11 Nov 1675.
English physician who made important contributions to anatomy, particularly of the brain and nervous system. In De febribus (1659) he significantly advanced epidemiology with an examination of epidemics of smallpox, influenza, plague, war-typhus, measles, and the first medical description of the typhoid fever. As part of his investigation of the brain's circulation, he injected wax into the blood vessels, which enabled him to see a ring of vessels still known as the "circle of Willis." He identified a type of diabetes (diabetes mellitus). A club of scientists including Robert Boyle, Christopher Wren and John Wilkins met in his rooms (1648-9) in Oxford. A number of them became founding members of the Royal Society of London.« |
|
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| JANUARY 27 - DEATHS | |
| Sir Thomas Octave Murdoch Sopwith | |
(source) |
 Died
27 Jan 1989 (born 18 Jan 1888)
English aircraft pioneer whose firm was famous for British WWI military aircraft. Sopwith's interest in motor racing led in 1910 to flying a monoplane, with which he won the Baron de Forest prize for flying across the English Channel on 18 Dec 1910. In June 1912, Sopwith with Fred Sigrist and others set up The Sopwith Aviation Company and began manufacturing the Sopwith Tabloid biplane. Piloted by Harry Hawker this plane won the British altitude record of 13,000 ft (4000 m) on 16 June 1913. During WWI, the firm manufactured some of the best Allied fighters, including the legendary Sopwith Camel (named after the fuselage shape with a humplike cowl over the guns, in front of the pilot), Sopwith Pup, and Sopwith Snipe. He lived to the age of 101.« Pure
Luck: the authorized biography of Thomas Sopwith, by
Alan Bramson. |
| Meyer Fortes | |
(source) |
Died
27 Jan 1983 (born 25 Apr 1906)
English social anthropologist(born in South Africa) known for his investigations of West African societies. He turned in 1932 to anthropology after originally training in psychology, which shows in his later works on ancestor worship. He was primarily interested in family and kinship, and made field studies (1934–37) with the Tallensi and Ashanti in Ghana. His monographs on these studies laid the foundations for the theory of descent, a cornerstone of the "structural-functionalism" dominating the social anthropology of the 1950s and 60s. His major contributions in lineage theory, studies of religion and ancestor worship set the standard for all subsequent studies of African social organization. He was professor of social anthropology at Cambridge University (1950-73).« The
web of kinship among the Tallensi, by Meyer Fortes. |
| Richard Courant | |
(source) |
Died
27 Jan 1972 (born 8 Jan 1888)
German-born American mathematician, who upon joining the faculty of New York University in 1934, began to build the nucleus of a small research group based on the Göttingen model he had experienced as a student of David Hilbert in Germany. Courant's published papers were in variational problems, finite difference methods, minimal surfaces, and partial differential equations. He encouraged the publication of mathematical texts and high quality monographs, such as Methods of Mathematical Physics by Courant and Hilbert. His leadership was commemorated in 1964 when the institute he founded was named the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University.« What
Is Mathematics? An Elementary Approach to Ideas and Methods,
by Richard Courant, et al. |
| Edward H. White, II | |
(source) |
Died
27 Jan 1967 (born 14 Nov 1930)
First U.S. astronaut to walk in space. With James A. McDivitt he manned the four-day orbital flight of Gemini 4, launched on 3 Jun 1965. During the third orbit White emerged from the spacecraft, floated in space for about 20 minutes, and became the first person to propel himself in space with a maneuvering unit. Two years later, White was one of the three-man crew of Apollo 1 who in 1967 were the first casualties of the U.S. space program, killed during a flight simulation (the others were Virgil I. Grissom and Roger B. Chaffee). |
| David Murray Cowie | |
(source) |
Died
27 Jan 1940 (born 1872)
American pediatrician who promoted the iodization of table salt sold in the U.S. to provide a dietary supplement of iodine, thus reducing the incidence of goiter (major swelling of the thyroid gland in the neck.) The value of sodium iodide for this purpose had been determined by David Marine. Cowie, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Michigan gathered support from the Michigan State Medical Society and pursuaded several table salt producers to add 0.01% sodium iodide to their product. Diamond Crystal Salt, and four other companies agreed. On 1 May 1924, the first iodized salt was on Michigan grocers' shelves. Initially reluctant, Morton Salt Company followed suit later in the year for the national market.«  |
| Adam Sedgwick | |
(source) |
Died
27 Jan 1873 (born 22 Mar 1785)
English geologist who first applied the name Cambrian to the geologic period of time, now dated at 570 to 505 million years ago. |
| Sir Thomas Brisbane | |
(source) |
Died
27 Jan 1860 (born 23 Jul 1773)
Sir Thomas Makdougall Brisbane, Baronet British soldier and astronomical observer for whom the city of Brisbane, Australia, is named. He was Governor of NSW (1821-25). Mainly remembered as a patron of science, he built an astronomical observatory at Parramatta, Australia, made the first extensive observations of the southern stars since Lacaille in (1751-52) and built a combined observatory and magnetic station at Makerstoun, Roxburghshire, Scotland. He also conducted (largely unsuccessful) experiments in growing Virginian tobacco, Georgian cotton, Brazilian coffee and New Zealand flax. |
| János Bolyai | |
(source) |
Died
27 Jan 1860 (born 15 Dec 1802)
Hungarian mathematician and one of the founders of non-Euclidean geometry - geometry that does not include Euclid's axiom that only one line can be drawn parallel to a given line through a point not on the given line. His father, Farkas Bolyai, had devoted his life to trying to prove Euclid's famous parallel postulate. Despite his father's warnings that it would ruin his health and peace of mind, János followed in working on this axiom until, in about 1820, he came to the conclusion that it could not be proved. He went on to develop a consistent geometry (published 1882) in which the parallel postulate is not used, thus establishing the independence of this axiom from the others. He also did valuable work in the theory of complex numbers. |
| John James Audubon | |
(source) |
Died 27 Jan 1851 (born 26 Apr 1785)
Ornithologist, artist, and naturalist known for his drawings and paintings of North American birds. He was born in Haiti, the illegitimate son of a successful merchant, planter, and slave dealer. At age 4, he was taken to France and educated among the well-to-do. By 15 he was drawing French birds. In 1803, Audubon was in Pennsylvania managing his father's estate where he began his ventures into ornithology. In 1820, he made his goal the publication of an anthology of life drawings. He traveled the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers and the Great Lakes, exploring for birds. Unable to find a publisher in America he travelled to London in 1826-27 where his engravings were made. In 1831, Audubon returned to the U.S. and spent more years travelling and painting. Image right: Trumpeter swan by Audubon (1837). |
| JANUARY 27 - EVENTS | |
| Corfam | |
(source) |
In 1964, E.I. duPont de Nemours Co. introduced Corfam.
This hydrocarbon-based, synthetic substitute for leather was flexible,
with tiny pores, for uses such as shoes, handbags, belts and suitcases.
Shoes put on sale with Corfam uppers were supposed to give consumers the
look, feel and durability of leather. DuPont predicted that by 1984, 25%
of America's shoes would be made of Corfam. But synthetic leather was snubbed
by customers in droves. It was one of the best-prepared products in terms
of market and technology development and yet it failed. Time on the market:
seven years. Production ceased in 1971. Corfam was described by Leonard
Sloane in the New York Times as, "Du Pont's $100-Million Edsel,"
(11 Apr 1971). |
| Terramyacin | |
(source) |
In 1950, Science magazine announced the new antibiotic terramyacin.
Made by Charles Pfizer & Co., it was isolated from Indiana soil, and
found effective against pneumonia, dysentery, and other infections. It
was the first pharmaceutical discovered and developed exclusively by Pfizer
scientists. This was the result of the company's intensive quest
to find new organisms to fight disease. Acting on theories that bacteria-fighting
organisms would be found in soil, Pfizer solicited soil samples worldwide,
received 135,000 soil samples and conducted more than 20 million tests.
Said one of the researchers, "We got soil samples from the bottom of mine
shafts... from the bottom of the ocean... from the desert... mountains
and in between." |
| Tape recorder | |
(source) |
In 1948, Wire Recording Corporation of America announced the first magnetic
wire recorder. It is lightweight and portable. The 'Wireway'
machine with a built-in oscillator sold for $149.50. [Image:
Wireway portable combination magnetic wire recorder and phonograph - ca.
1950] |
| Baird demonstrates television | |
(source) |
In 1926, John Logie Baird, a Scottish inventor,
gave the first public demonstration of a true television system in London,
launching a revolution in communication and entertainment. Baird's invention,
a pictorial transmission machine he called a "televisor," used mechanical
rotating disks to scan moving images
into electronic impulses. This information was then transmitted by cable
to a screen
where it showed up as a low-resolution pattern of light and dark. Baird's
first television program showed the heads of two ventriloquist dummies,
which he operated in front of the camera apparatus out of view of the audience.
Television
And Me: The Memoirs of John Logie Baird, by John Logie
Baird, Malcolm Baird. |
| Einstein address | |
1921 (source) |
In 1921, Einstein suggested the possibility of measuring the universe,
which startled the audience, with his address Geometry and Expansion
given at the Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin. Applying certain results
of the relativity theory, he came to the conclusion that if the real velocities
of the stars (as could be actually measured) were less than the calculated
velocities, then it would prove that real gravitations' great distances
were smaller than the gravitational distances demanded by the law of Newton.
From such divergence, the finiteness of the universe could be proved indirectly,
and it would even permit the estimation of its size.«  |
| Incandescent lamp | |
 |
In 1880, Thomas Edison received a patent (#223,898)
for his electric incandescent lamp he invented on 21 Nov 1879. Edison's
invention of the light bulb had a major impact on the electronics
and computer industries. During the two years of research it took to develop
the bulb, one of Edison's assistants noticed a flow of energy from one
electrode to another in a pattern later known as the Edison effect. Later,
the Edison effect was discovered to be an electron flow, which laid the
basis for the electron tube and thence the entire electronics industry. |
