| OCTOBER 20 - BIRTHS | |
| Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard | |
(source) |
 Born 20
Oct 1942
German developmental geneticist who shared the 1995 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine (with Edward Lewis) for research into the mechanisms of early embryonic development. The paper in Nature "Mutations Affecting Segment Number and Polarity in Drosophila," (1980) she co-authored, with Eric Wieschaus, revolutionised the field of developmental genetics. In a systematic search for mutant genes affecting the formation of segments in the eggs of a small fruit fly, they identified all of the genes of this type, elucidating the processes of development in the fruit fly embryo. They categorised the mutants as three different types of genes, which they believed controlled an increasingly complex organisation of the organism. 
 Coming
to Life: How Genes Drive Development, by Christiane Nusslein-Volhard. |
| Sir James Chadwick | |
(source) |
Born 20
Oct 1891; died 24 Jul 1974.
English physicist who received the Nobel Prize for Physics (1935) for his discovery of the neutron. He studied at Cambridge, and in Berlin under Geiger, then worked at the Cavendish Laboratory with Rutherford, where he investigated the structure of the atom. He worked on the scattering of alpha particles and on nuclear disintegration. By bombarding beryllium with alpha particles, Chadwick discovered the neutron - a neutral particle in the atom's nucleus - for which he received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1935. In 1932, Chadwick coined the name "neutron," which he described in an article in the journal Nature. He led the UK's work on the atomic bomb in WW II, and was knighted in 1945.« The
Neutron and the Bomb: A Biography of Sir James Chadwick,
by Andrew P. Brown. |
| Sir Frederic Bartlett | |
(source) |
Born 20
Oct 1886; died 30 Sep 1969.
Sir Frederic C(harles) Bartlett was a British cognitive psychologist who was Britain's most outstanding psychologist between the World Wars. He wrote on practical (ergonomic) problems in applied psychology, but is best-known for his pioneering cognitive approach to understanding human memory. In forming one of the earliest models of memory, Bartlett observed that in remembering stories or events there is a tendency for distortions to occur. In his most famous experiment, Bartlett had subjects read a folk tale, tested their recall several times, and studied their changing recountings of the story. People tend to remember what they regard as most important and recall what would have been expected rather than what actually occurred.« Thinking,
by Sir Frederic Bartlett. |
| George Robert Stephenson | |
| Born 20
Oct 1819; died 26 Oct 1905.
English railroad engineer who contributed to the pioneering work of his uncle George Stephenson and his cousin Robert Stephenson. He began his career in 1837, assisting his uncle on the construction of a railway from Manchester to Leeds. He helped his cousin build the Victoria tubular bridge across the St. Lawrence River in Canada. Later, he functioned independently as a consultant and designer on railway projects, bridges and tunnels in England, New Zealand and Denmark. Upon Robert's death in 1859, George Robert became director of the Newcastle locomotive works.« Lives
of the engineers: The locomotive ; George and Robert Stephenson,
by Samuel Smiles. |
|
| Austin Flint | |
(source) |
Born 20
Oct 1812; died 13 Mar 1886.
American physician who was an eminent doctor and pioneer of heart research in the United States during the nineteenth century. In 1847, he founded Buffalo Medical College and taught at several medical schools. Flint was an authority on pulmonary and respiratory diseases, and popularized the use of the binaural stethoscope. The Austin Flint murmur is a heart disorder he described in 1862 in which blood from the aorta is regurgitated into the heart before contraction of the ventricles. The best known of his numerous textbooks is Treatise on the Principles and Practice of Medicine (1866). [Image: Austin Flint's diagram of the relations of the heart to the lungs, liver, and stomach (1859).] The
Physiology Of Man,... The Existing State Of Physiological Science...,
by Austin Flint. |
| Sir Christopher Wren | |
(source) |
Born 20
Oct 1632; died 25 Feb 1723.
Architect, astronomer, and geometrician who was the greatest English architect of his time whose famous masterpiece is St. Paul's Cathedral, among many other buildings after London's Great Fire of 1666. Wren learned scientific skills as an assistant to an eminent anatomist. Through astronomy, he developed skills in working models, diagrams and charting that proved useful when he entered architecture. He inventing a "weather clock" similar to a modern barometer, new engraving methods, and helped develop a blood transfusion technique. He was president of the Royal Society 1680-82. His scientific work was highly regarded by Sir Isaac Newton as stated in the Principia. Sir
Christopher Wren; Renaissance architect, philosopher, and scientist,
by Heywood Gould. |
| Thomas Bartholin | |
(source) |
Born 20
Oct 1616; died 4 Dec 1680.
Danish anatomist and mathematician who was first to describe fully the entire human lymphatic system (1652). He was one of the earliest defenders of Harvey's discovery of the circulation of blood. He was a member of the mathematical faculty of the University of Copenhagen, 1647-49, and anatomy professor there, 1649-61. He published many works on anatomy, physiology and medicine, (1645-74) and in 1658 a general work on pharmacology. In 1654, along with the rest of the medical faculty at the university, Bartholin published advice to the people on how to take care of themselves during the plague. King Christian V named Bartholin as his personal physician, with an annual salary, although Bartolin rarely had to treat the king. |
| Vannoccio Biringuccio | |
(source) |
Born 20
Oct 1480; died Aug 1537.
Italian metallurgist and armament maker. As head of the Papal foundry and a contemporary of Leonard da Vinci, he wrote in great detail about foundry practices. He is chiefly known as the author of De la pirotechnia (1540; "Concerning Pyrotechnics"), the first clear, comprehensive 16th-century how-to book for the practicioner of "pyrotechnical arts". The book was a practical guide for distilling liquids, refining metals and mixing gun powder. This includes gold, silver, iron, copper, tin, steel and brass; the preparation of ores for smelting, refining, alloying; casting, cutting and making moulds. It also contains several chapters on the preparation and use of rockets in warfare and festivals. |
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| OCTOBER 20 - DEATHS | |
| Andrey Nikolayevich Kolmogorov | |
(source) |
 Died
20 Oct 1987 (born 25 Apr 1903)
Russian mathematician whose basic postulates for probability theory that have continued to be an integral part of analysis. This work had diverse applications such as his study of the motion of planets (1954), or the turbulent air flow from a jet engine (1941). In topology, he investigated cohomology groups. He made a major contribution to answering the probability part of Hilbert's Sixth Problem, and completely resolved (1957) Hilbert's Thirteenth Problem. Kolmogorov was active in a project to provide special education for gifted children, not only by writing textbooks and in teaching them, but in expanding their interests to be not necessarily in mathematics, but with literature, music, and healthy activity such as on hikes and expeditions.« |
| Paul A.M. Dirac | |
(source) |
Died
20 Oct 1984 (born 8 Aug 1902)
English physicist and mathematician who originated quantum mechanics and the spinning electron theory. In 1933 he shared the Nobel Prize for Physics with the Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger. Paul
Dirac: The Man and his Work, by Abraham Pais, et. al |
| Harlow Shapley | |
(source) |
Died
20 Oct 1972 (born 2 Nov 1885)
Astronomer, known as "The Modern Copernicus," who discovered the Sun's position in the galaxy. From 1914 to 1921 he was at Mt. Wilson Observatory, where he calibrated Henrietta S. Leavitt's period vs. luminosity relation for Cepheid variable stars and used it to determine the distances of globular clusters. He boldly and correctly proclaimed that the globulars outline the Galaxy, and that the Galaxy is far larger than was generally believed and centered thousands of light years away in the direction of Sagittarius. In the early 1920's, Shapley entered a "Great Debate" with Heber D. Curtis. They truly argued over the "Scale of the Universe." |
| Maurice-Irénée-Marie Gignoux | |
(source) |
Died
20 Oct 1955 (born 19 Oct 1881)
French geologist who investigated the stratigraphy of the late Pliocene and Quaternary deposits of the Mediterranean (about 5 million years ago to the present) and studied the structure of the Alps. He experimented with fold models to support his work. His interest in useful applications for his science was shown in his geological research concerning the effect on large alpine valleys used for hydroelectricity, especially the Génissiat Dam on the Rhone. His publications include Stratigraphic Geology (1936), which by the fourth edition was translated into English, Polish and Russian; and Géologie des barrages (Geology of Dams, 1955).« Stratigraphic
Geology, by Maurice Gignoux. |
| Félix Tisserand | |
(source) |
Died 20 Oct 1896 (born 13 Jan 1845)
François-Félix Tisserand was a French astronomer whose 4-volume textbook Traité de mécanique céleste (1889-96; "Treatise on Celestial Mechanics") updated Pierre-Simon Laplace's work. At age 28, he was named Director at Toulouse Observatory (1873-78). He went to Japan to observe the 1874 transit of Venus. The 83-cm telescope he installed at the Toulouse Observatory in 1875 had a wooden base insufficiently stable for photographic work, but he was able to use it for observation of the satellites of Jupiter and of Saturn. From 1892 until his death he was director of the Paris Observatory, where he completed the major work, Catalogue photographique de la carte du ciel, and arranged for its publication.« [Image right: Tisserands's 83-cm telescope.] |
| Nikolai Przhevalsky | |
(source) |
Died
20 Oct 1888 (born 31 Mar 1839)
Russian explorer who discovered a wild camel and the primative horse (known as Przhevalsky's horse) during expeditions in the mountain regions between Tibet and Mongolia, where he also made collections of plants and animals. In 1881, Przewalski made an official statement describing their appearance, characteristics and remote habitat. They lived in herds from 5 to 15 animals led by a stallion. He noted that they were alert and very shy, with acute hearing, very good eyesight and a highly developed sense of smell. They seemed to prefer saline soils and could survive for a long time without water. On his fifth expedition, he died after drinking typhoid-infected water while investigating Lake Issyk Kul's shores. |
| OCTOBER 20 - EVENTS | |
| Aquarium | |
(source) |
In 1984, the Monterey Bay Aquarium opened,
the largest artificial environment
for marine life, built on Cannery Row on the site of the old Hovden sardine
cannery, with a $40 million grant from David Packard of Hewlett Packard,
and housing 6500 marine animals from at least 525 species displayed on
a grand scale. The idea for an aquarium
devoted to showcasing Monterey Bay habitats came in 1977 from a group of
four marine biologists at Stanford's Hopkins Marine Station. Currently,
the aquarium has an active research program, with groups working on sea
otter conservation and tuna conservation biology and a sister institution,
the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, which conducts deep-sea research
in the vast Monterey submarine canyon. |
| Nobel for crops | |
(source) |
In 1970, American agricultural pioneer
Norman Borlaug received the Nobel Peace Prize for his contribution
to the "green revolution" that increased grain production throughout the
Third World by perfecting and introducing new strains of wheat and rice
crops. Subsequently, he conceived the World Food Prize, awarded each fall
for improving the world's food supply or access to it. In this way he made
possible the wide recognition of others in the field. |
| The meter | |
 |
In 1983, the length of the meter
was redefined by the international body
Conférence Générale
des Poids et Mesures (GCPM) by a method to give greater accuracy. Originally
based on one ten-millionth of the distance from the North Pole to the equator,
the meter was re-established as the distance that light travels in a vacuum
in 1/299,792,458 of a second |
| Atlantic small boat crossing | |
22 Jul 1957(source) |
In
1956, Dr. Hannes Lindemann began his voyage across the Atlantic Ocean in
a small boat (17 feet). Lindemann, a German physician on a U.S. Air Force
base in Morocco. He wrote a book
Alone at Sea, about his two journeys across the Atlantic Ocean. Battling
thirst, hunger, mental disorientation, hallucinations, lack of sleep, and
shark encounters, Lindemann succesfully sailed alone across the Atlantic
in 1956 in 76 days in a Klepper
foldboat double seat Aerius to which he added an outrigger and mizzensail.
Leaving Las Palmas in the Canary Islands, he reached St. Thomas in the
US Virgin Islands just after Christmas. His prior crossing was in a 23-foot
African dugout canoe in 1955. Alfred Johnson made the first solo Atlantic
crossing in 1876.«
Alone
at sea, by Hannes Lindemann. |
| Compotype | |
(source) |
In 1925, the compotype was patented by its inventor, Clifton Chisholm of
Cleveland, Ohio, as an "Embossing Machine" (U.S. No. 1,557,754).
The keyboard-controlled machine embossed one line of characters on an aluminum
strip with flanged edges. These could be arranged in a holder for several
strips in parallel from which several lines of printed material could be
produced. Blanks came from a ribbon of metal on a roll, automatically flanged
to give a mounting channel shape, and fed between embossing dies. Each
character was also printed on a record card, visible during operation.
The machine was designed to provide an efficient mechanism for the rapid
production of the embossed strips. The patent was assigned to the Multigraph
Sales Co. of the same city. |
| Vacuum tube | |
(source) |
In 1906, Dr. Lee DeForest (26 Aug 1873 - 30 Jun 1961), one of the "fathers
of radio," announced his three-element electrical vacuum tube (now known
as a triode) to a meeting of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers
He had discovered
that when a mesh, or grid, of wire was placed between the filament and
collector "plate" in a diode tube (first made by J. Ambrose Fleming, 1904),
a large voltage-amplifying effect could be produced. DeForest patented
this vacuum tube on 15 Jan 1907. The ability of this tube to amplifiy weak
signals was an invention as great as radio itself, because it made long-distance
communication possible. [Image:
early DeForest Audion] |
