| OCTOBER 17 - BIRTHS | |
| Mae C. Jemison | |
(NASA) |
 Born 17
Oct 1956
American physician and the first African-American woman in space. Jemison holds degree in chemical engineering (1977) and a Doctor of Medicine degree (1981). Before she became an astronaut, Jemison worked as a doctor in West Africa. NASA selected Jemison for astronaut training in 1987. She was as a Science Mission Specialist aboard the Shuttle Endeavour on 12 Sep 1992. During the eight-day mission, she conducted space-sickness experiments and conducted research on bone loss in zero gravity. Jemison left NASA in 1993 and became the director of The Jemison Institute for Advancing Technology in Developing Countries, an organization that researches, designs, implements and evaluates cutting-edge technology in a real-life context. |
| Vladimir Vladimirovich Belousov | |
(source) |
Born 17
Oct 1907; died 25 Dec 1990.
Soviet geologist and geophysicist whose theory of density differentiation (1942) held that movements of the Earth's surface is a result of gradual internal structural changes as denser matter sinks towards the Earth's centre. He visualized continents remaining more or less in place, affected only by vertical motion (though his description of the forces involved was poorly formed.) His position as a prominent scientist was influential in sustaining this concept. Until the late 60's, Soviet scientists delayed accepting newer ideas of plate tectonics. Belousov maintained a belief that vertical movements of continental land masses could not be correctly explained by the plate tectonics theory advanced in the West.« |
| Paul Bernays | |
(source) |
Born 17
Oct 1888; died 18 Sep 1977.
Paul Isaak Bernays was a Swiss mathematician and logician who is known for his attempts to develop a unified theory of mathematics. Bernays, influenced by Hilbert's thinking, believed that the whole structure of mathematics could be unified as a single coherent entity. In order to start this process it was necessary to devise a set of axioms on which such a complete theory could be based. He therefore attempted to put set theory on an axiomatic basis to avoid the paradoxes. Between 1937 and 1954 Bernays wrote a whole series of articles in the Journal of Symbolic Logic which attempted to achieve this goal. In 1958 Bernays published Axiomatic Set Theory in which he combined together his work on the axiomatisation of set theory. |
| Ernest Goodpasture | |
(source) |
Born 17
Oct 1886; died 20 Sep 1960.
Ernest (William) Goodpasture was a research scientist, the founder of mumps vaccine, Professor of Pathology, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. Noted for research in virology, particularly the isolation and identification of viruses, the pathogenesis and pathology of viral diseases. He discovered the first practical method for developing uncontaminated viruses in chick embryos, which made possible the mass-production of vaccines for such diseases as smallpox, influenza, yellow fever, typhus, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, and other illnesses caused by agents that can be propagated only in living tissue. Also known for describing Goodpasture's disease (1919), an uncommon condition which typically causes rapid destruction of the kidneys. |
| Robert S. Woodworth | |
| Born 17
Oct 1869; died 4 Jul 1962
Robert S(essions) Woodworth was a U.S. psychologist who conducted major research on learning and developed a system of "dynamic psychology" into which he sought to incorporate several different schools of psychological thought. |
|
| Magnus Gustaf Retzius | |
(source) |
Born 17
Oct 1842; died 21 July 1919.
Swedish anatomist and anthropologist best-known for his studies of the histology of the nervous system. Retzius' Das Menschenhirn, 2 vol. (1896; "The Human Brain") was perhaps the most important work written on the gross anatomy of the brain during the 19th century. He served as a professor of histology at the Karolinska Mediko-Kirurgiska Institutet, Stockholm (1877-1900), where he made important contributions to anatomical descriptions of the muscles of the eardrum, the bones of the middle ear, and the Eustachian tube. Retzius also made a useful study of ancient Swedish and Finnish skulls. |
| Paul Bert | |
| Born 17
Oct 1833; died 11 Nov 1886.
French physiologist, politician, and diplomat, founder of modern aerospace medicine. He found that an animal illness at high altitudes caused mainly by the low oxygen content of the sparse atmosphere. Bert also made a study of "the bends", suffered by deep-sea divers coming up too quickly to the surface from the great pressures of the depths. Bert demonstrated that high external pressures force large quantities of atmospheric nitrogen to dissolve in the blood, then during rapid decompression the nitrogen forms gas bubbles that obstruct capillaries. In 1878, he published the first results of hyperbaric experiments, considered the cornerstone publication for diving medicine, hyperbaric medicine, and aerospace medicine. |
|
| Johann Friedrich Meckel | |
| Born 17
Oct 1781; died 31 Oct 1833.
German anatomist who first described the embryonic cartilage (now called Meckel's cartilage) that ossifies to form part of the lower jaw in fishes, amphibians, and birds. He also described a pouch (Meckel's diverticulum) of the small intestine. |
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| OCTOBER 17 - DEATHS | |
| Jacques-Salomon Hadamard | |
(source) |
 Died
17 Oct 1963 (born 8 Dec 1865)
French mathematician who proved the prime-number theorem (as n approaches infinity, the limit of the ratio of  (n)
and n/ln n is 1, where (n)
is the number of positive prime numbers not greater than n). Conjectured
in the 18th century, this theorem was not proved until 1896, when Hadamard
and also Charles de la Vallée Poussin, used complex analysis. Hadamard's
work includes the theory of integral functions and singularities of functions
represented by Taylor series. His work on the partial differential equations
of mathematical physics is important. He introduced the concept of a well-posed
initial value and boundary value problem. In considering boundary value
problems he introduced a generalisation of Green's functions (1932). |
| John Stanley Plaskett | |
(source) |
Died
17 Oct 1941 (born 17 Nov 1865)
Canadian astronomer known for his expert design of instruments and his extensive spectroscopic observations. He designed an exceptionally efficient spectrograph for the 15-inch refractor and measured radial velocities and found orbits of spectroscopic binary stars. He designed and supervised construction of the 72-inch reflector built for the new Dominion Astrophysical Observatory in Victoria and was appointed its first director in 1917. There he extended the work on radial velocities and spectroscopic binaries and studied spectra of O and B-type stars. In the 1930s he published the first detailed analysis of the rotation of the Milky Way, demonstrating that the sun is two-thirds out from the centre of our galaxy about which it revolves once in 220 million years. |
| Santiago Ramón y Cajal | |
1920 (source) |
Died
17 Oct 1934 (born 1 May 1852)
Spanish histologist who (with Camillo Golgi) received the 1906 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for establishing the neuron, or nerve cell, as the basic unit of nervous structure. This finding was instrumental in the recognition of the neuron's fundamental role in nervous function. He developed new stains and microscope techniques. |
| Gustav Robert Kirchhoff | |
(source) |
Died
17 Oct 1887 (born 12 Mar 1824)
German physicist who, with Robert Bunsen, established the theory of spectrum analysis (a technique for chemical analysis by analyzing the light emitted by a heated material), which Kirchhoff applied to determine the composition of the Sun. He found that when light passes through a gas, the gas absorbs those wavelengths that it would emit if heated, which explained the numerous dark lines (Fraunhofer lines) in the Sun's spectrum. In his Kirchhoff's laws (1845) he generalized the equations describing current flow to the case of electrical conductors in three dimensions, extending Ohm's law to calculation of the currents, voltages, and resistances of electrical networks. He demonstrated that current flows in a zero-resistance conductor at the speed of light. |
| William Cookworthy | |
| Died
17 Oct 1780 (born 12 Apr 1705)
English chemist who pioneered the manufacture of porcelain in Britain. He discovered deposits of kaolin and China stone (forms of decomposed granite) near St. Austell, Cornwall (1756). It was sufficiently pure to make a Chinese-style pure white porcelain. He spent many years experimenting to perfect the product. Also, for Thomas Smeaton's new Eddystone lighthouse, he formulated a hydraulic cement that both set quickly and hard enough to withstand erosion from the sea waves. He patented his porcelain process (17 Mar 1768), and ran a factory ten years before selling out to another manufacturer. China clay is an important industrial product used today in coated paper, toothpaste, paint, rubber, plastics, pharmaceuticals and agricultural products.« |
|
| René Réamur | |
| Died
17 Oct 1757 (born 28 Feb 1683)
French scientist active in various fields, and the foremost entomologist of the early 18th century. He devised a thermometric scale known by his name. In 1720, he built the first cupola furnace, for melting gray iron. He improved techniques for making iron and steel. In 1740, After studying the chemical composition of Chinese porcelain, he formulated his own Réaumur porcelain. In biology, he observed regeneration of lost limbs by crayfish. Réaumur wrote six volumes (1734-42) of Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire des insectes (Memoirs Serving as a Natural History of Insects). Although unfinished, this work was a substantial contribution to entomology. In 1752, he isolated gastric juice and studied its role in food digestion. |
|
| OCTOBER 17 - EVENTS | |
| First UK nuclear power | |
(source) |
 
In 1956, the Queen opened
Calder Hall, the first gas-cooled and Britain's first nuclear power station
in the shadow of the massive chimneys of the Windscale plant, where explosives
were made for Britain's first atomic bomb. "This new power, which has proved
itself to be such a terrifying weapon of destruction," she said, "is harnessed
for the first time for the common good of our community." At 12:16 GMT,
she pulled the lever which directed electricity from the power station
into the National Grid for the first time. A crowd of several thousand
people gathered to watch the opening ceremony, which was also attended
by scientists and statesmen from almost 40 different countries. The plant
closed
on 31 Mar 2003. [Image
right: Queen Elizabeth opening Calder Hall.]
 Calder
Hall: The story of Britain's first atomic power station,
by Kenneth Edmund Brian Jay. |
| Steel patent | |
 |
In 1885, a steel-making process was patented by Sir Henry Bessemer, a British
inventor
and metallurgist. His patent was for a method
of making steel by blasting compressed air through molten iron to remove
impurities and excess carbon. The "Bessemer Process," made it possible
to mass-produce steel inexpensively. In the course of his life, Bessemer
earned more than 100 patents, knighthood, and great wealth. |
| First British telpher line opened | |
Jenkin (source) |
In 1885, the first electric telpher line*,
an aerial tramway, was opened
in Britain by Viscountess Hampden with a simple ceremony. It was built
to carry clay from the pits at Glynde in Sussex to the railway. The line,
nearly one mile long, was made with a double set of steel rods, each 66-ft
long, 3/4-in in diameter and 8-ft apart, supported on wooden posts at a
height of about 18-ft above the ground. An electric locomotive hauls ten
buckets at a speed of up to 5 mph, hanging by their travelling wheels from
the same steel line which carried the electric current. Each 100-lb bucket
carried up to 300-lb of clay. The inventor, who had died four months earlier,
was Fleeming Jenkin, who coined
the name "telpher" line to mean, in general, "the transmission of goods
and passengers by means of electricity without driver, guard, signal-man,
or attendants."« |
