| OCTOBER 21 - BIRTHS | |
| Ronald E. McNair | |
(source) |
 Born 21
Oct 1950; died 28 Jan 1986
Ronald E(rwin) McNair was an American physicist and astronaut who was the second African American to fly in space.He had been fascinated by space since childhood, when as early as in elementary school he talked about the Sputnik satellite. McNair was nationally recognized for his work in the field of laser physics, including chemical and high-pressure lasers. In 1978, he was one of 35 applicants selected from a pool of 10,000 for NASA's space shuttle program. He was assigned as a mission specialist on the Feb 1984 flight of the shuttle Challenger, during which he orbited the earth 122 times. Sadly, on his second trip, on the morning of 28 Jan 1986, McNair with six other crew members died in an explosion shortly after launching aboard the Challenger. |
| Samuel W. Alderson | |
(source) |
Born 21
Oct 1914; died 11 Feb 2005
American physicist and engineer who invented the crash-test dummy used to test the safety of cars, parachutes and other devices. From the 1930's, when safety of cars during a crash was tested, cadavers had been used. When he started a company in 1952, Alderson Research Laboratories, which designed an anthropomorphic dummy, the first application was for testing jet ejection seats. In 1968, he produced a dummy (called the V.I.P.) built specifically for automotive testing with built-in instruments for collecting data. It had articulated joints with dimensions and weight distribution like an average adult man. His company later also made medical phantoms for simulations such as synthetic wounds that oozed mock blood.« |
| William A. Mitchell | |
(source) |
Born 21
Oct 1911; died 26 July 2004.
American food scientist who invented Pop Rocks candy, Cool Whip, the orange drink mix Tang, and quick-set Jell-O Gelatin. He developed a tapioca substitute during WW II since tapioca itself was limited in supply. For 35 years, he worked worked as a chemist for General Foods Corp, and held more than 70 patents. Pop Rocks - exploding candy - was patented in 1956, but not marketed until 1975. Its novelty quickly caught the public's attention. It was an accidental discovery while experimenting to produce an instant soft drink. It is a hard candy manufactured by pressurizing carbon dioxide at 600 psi in a candy syrup at 150 °C. When cooled and solidified it traps small pockets of carbon dioxide that "explode" in a person's mouth. |
| Oswald Avery | |
(source) |
Born 21
Oct 1877; died 20 Feb 1955.
Oswald (Theodore) Avery was a bacteriologist whose research on pneumococcus bacteria made him one of the founders of immunochemistry. While Avery is not a scientific household name, his research laid the groundwork for modern genetics and molecular biology. Avery spent most of his research life at Rockefeller Institute where he made important contributions to the understanding of the pneumococcus organism, a particularly virulent bacterium that caused lobar pneumonia.Prior to Avery's work, genetic material was assumed to be protein. At age 67, Avery made his most important discovery when he proved conclusively that DNA from the nucleus of the cell is the genetic material, in a seminal 1944 paper co-authored by Colin MacLeod and Maclyn McCarty. 
Oswald
Avery and the Story of DNA, by Vesta-Nadine Severs and
Jim Whiting. |
| Alfred Nobel | |
 |
Born 21
Oct 1833; died 10 Dec 1896.
Alfred Bernhard Nobel a Swedish chemist and inventor of dynamite and other, more powerful explosives, was born in Stockholm. An explosives expert like his father, in 1866 he invented a safe and manageable form of nitroglycerin he called dynamite, and later, smokeless gunpowder and (1875) gelignite. He helped to create an industrial empire manufacturing many of his other inventions. Nobel amassed a huge fortune, much of which he left in a fund to endow the annual prizes that bear his name. First awarded in 1901, these prizes were for achievements in the areas of physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature, and peace. The sixth prize, for economics, was instituted in his honour in 1969.
Alfred
Nobel: A Biography, by Kenne Fant. |
| Enrico Betti | |
(source) |
Born 21
Oct 1823; died 11 Aug 1892.
Mathematician noted for his contributions to algebra and topology. His early work is in the area of equations and algebra. He wrote the first rigorous exposition of the theory of equations, previously given without proofs, developed by the noted French mathematician Évariste Galois (1811-32). Betti extended and gave proofs relating to the algebraic concepts of Galois, published in several works from 1851. Betti thus made an important contribution to the transition from classical to modern algebra. He was the first to give a proof that the Galois group is closed under multiplication. Betti also wrote a pioneering memoir on topology, the study of surfaces and space. Betti did important work in theoretical physics, in particular in potential theory and elasticity.` |
| George Combe | |
(source) |
Born 21 Oct 1788; died 14 Aug 1858.
Scottish lawyer who turned to the promotion of phrenology and published several works on the subject. He followed Johann Spurzheim who coined the word "phrenology" and promoted it in Europe and Britain, elaborating on "cranioscopy" he learned from Franz Josef Gall in Paris. Gall was a French physician who identified a number of areas on the surface of the head that he linked with specific localizations of cerebral functions and the underlying attributes of the human personality. Combe established the first infant school in Edinburgh and gave evening lectures. He studied the criminal classes and lunatic asylums wishing to reform them. Andrew Combe, physiologist, was his younger brother.« [Image right: Diagram of the Craniometer from Elements of Phrenology, by Combe, 1834.] Reminiscences
of Dr. Spurzheim and George Combe and ...Phrenology...,
by Nahum Capen. |
| Henry Miller Shreve | |
(source) |
Born 21
Oct 1785; died 6 Mar 1851.
American steamboat designer and builder who helped develop the commercial potential of the inland waterways of the Mississippi River system. Within a few years of Robert Fulton's successful steamboat experiment (1807), Shreve had built his own, the Enterprise (1813), which made the first complete upriver trip from New Orleans to Pittsburgh. He fought legal battles against Fulton's monopoly on river routes. By 1821, Shreve addressed the need to make navigation safer by clearing the river of obstructions. He created snag-boats with a jaw-like bow able to pull up snags (tree trunks), and put them through a sawmill on their deck. Shreve's work was a major contribution to the great era of steamboat traffic prior to the Civil War.« |
| William Shippen, Jr. | |
(source) |
Born 21
Oct 1736; died 11 Jul 1808.
First systematic teacher of anatomy, surgery, and obstetrics in the United States. In addition to pictures and casts of the human body, he was also one of the first to use dissected human bodies in the teaching of anatomy in America. This aroused the animosity of the populace - his dissecting rooms were mobbed on several occasions, and once he narrowly escaped with his life - but his courses were very successful, and the number of students increased year by year. He lectured on both anatomy and midwifery. In 1762 he established the first American maternity hospital in Philadelphia. |
| Georg Ernst Stahl | |
(EB) |
Born 21
Oct 1660; died 14 May 1734.
German physician and chemist, born in Ansbach, Germany, who developed the phlogiston theory of combustion and of such related biological processes as respiration, fermentation, and decay. Combustible objects, he said, were rich in phlogiston, and during combustion is lost. The remaining ash, now having no phlogiston, could no longer burn.The theory dominated chemical thought for almost a century. He extended the idea to the rusting of metals: metal had phlogiston, rust did not. Air was only indirectly involved in his idea of combustion. It was a carrier of phlogiston, as when charcoal burns phlogiston could be transferred to a metal ore which then converts to metal. At times, Stahl believed in alchemy and animism, though he had rational views on mental disease. |
| OCTOBER 21 - DEATHS | |
| Ejnar Hertzsprung | |
(source) |
 Died
21 Oct 1967 (born 8 Oct 1873)
Danish astronomer who classified types of stars by relating their surface temperature (or colour) to their absolute brightness. A few years later Russell illustrated this relationship graphically in what is now known as the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram, which has become fundamental to the study of stellar evolution. In 1913 he established the luminosity scale of Cepheid variable stars. |
| James Henry Greathead | |
(source) |
Died
21 Oct 1896 (born 6 Aug 1844)
English civil engineer, born in South Africa, who improved tunneling shield methods which he applied during construction of the London Underground. The technique was originated by Marc Brunel and subsequently modified by Peter W. Barlow as a smaller shield of circular cross section. Having learned its use from Barlow, Greathouse utilised the shield with his own further improvements to complete the Tower Subway (1869) under the River Thames near the Tower of London. He adopted screw jacks to push the shield forward while the tunnel behind it was lined with cast-iron rings, and pioneered the use of compressed air to prevent flooding during the lining installation. His statue beside the Royal Exchange was erected in 1994.« |
| Sir Benjamin Collins Brodie | |
(source) |
Died
21 Oct 1862 (born 8 Jun 1783)
(1st Baronet) British physiologist and surgeon whose name is applied to certain diseases of the bones and joints. In his book Pathological and Surgical Observations on the Diseases of the Joints (1818), he traced the beginnings of disease in the different tissues that form a joint and to give an exact value to the symptom of pain as evidence of organic disease. This work led to conservative measures in the treatment of diseases of the joints, with a consequent reduction in the number of amputations and the saving of many limbs and lives. |
| OCTOBER 21 - EVENTS | |
| Nobel Prizes | |
In 1976, the United States made a clean sweep of the Nobel Prizes, winning
or sharing awards in chemistry, physics, medicine, economics, and literature.
(No peace prize was awarded.) |
|
| Trimline telephone | |
(source) |
In 1963, the first trimline telephone in the U.S. was placed in service
by the Michigan Bell Telephone Company. It was commercially available throughout
its service area on 2 Aug 1965 for an optional additional monthly charge
of $1. A dial and hang-up button were integrated into the handpiece midway
between the microphone and speaker. This design made it unnecessary to
reach for a remote base in order to dial a call. |
| Photoelectric cell | |
|
In 1925, the first U.S. photocell or tube which was publicly demonstrated
was shown by the Westinghouse Electric and Mfg Co at the Electrical Show
at Grand Central Palace in New York. The sensitivity of the photocell to
light was used to count objects as they passed through and interrupted
a beam of light. It was also shown applied to open doors as a person or
car approached. |
|
| Radiotelephone | |
NAA 1922 (source) |
In 1915, the first experimental transatlantic radiotelephone speech communication
was made. Taking advantage of the recently developed
vacuum-tube transmitters and receivers, AT&T conducted radiotelephony
tests from NAA, the U.S. Navy station in Arlington. B. Webb of AT&T
in Arlington, VA.Virginia talks
to Lt. Col. Ferries of the French Government using relay points in Canada
and at the Eiffel Tower in Paris.His voice was heard as far away as Honolulu,
HI., which clearly showed how advanced the vacuum-tube equipment was, since
the "somewhat over 10 miles" (16-km) range of Fessenden's groundbreaking
alternator-transmitter tests (1906). President Vail announced that AT&T
was planning to add radiotelephone links to the Bell system. |
| Air liquefaction machinery | |
|
In 1895, liquid air for refrigeration and other purposes largely produced
by machinery, invented by Herr Linde, was reported. [*
p.30] |
|
| Lightbulb demonstration | |
(source) |
In 1879, Thomas A. Edison successfully demonstrated the first durable and
commercially practical electric light bulb at his laboratory in Menlo Park,
New Jersey. This model lasted 40 hours before burning out. The idea of
electric lighting was not new; several people had worked on and even developed
forms of electric lighting. However, nothing had been developed that was
practical for home use. The difficulty
was finding a suitable material for the filament. He tested over 6,000
vegetable growths (baywood, boxwood, hickory, cedar, flax, bamboo) as filament
material. After one and a half years of work, after spending $40,000, and
performing 1,200 experiments, success was achieved when an incandescent
lamp
with a filament of carbonized sewing thread. |
| Fowler plough patent | |
Fowler (source) |
In 1852, a Royal Letters Patent (No.480)
was given to John Fowler of Temple
Gate, Bristol for "Improvements in Machinery for Draining Land." This is
believed
to be his first patent for steam cultivation of the land. In 1847 he had
joined an engineering firm manufacturing locomotives and colliery winding
equipment. While on company business in Ireland, he saw the results of
the great potato famine. Driven by his Quaker beliefs, he returned to England
determined
to mechanise land drainage. His first patent was for a horse-drawn drainage
plough. The Mole Drainage Plough he displayed at the great exhibition of
1851 won national awards, and helped the Irish peasants drain their peat
bogs. Shortly thereafter, he applied steam power to the task. [Image:
right: balance plough model] |
| Portland cement | |
(source) |
In 1824, in Yorkshire, England, Joseph
Aspdin, a stone mason, patented Portland cement, made
by burning finely pulverized lime and clay at high temperatures in kilns
(UK patent No. 5022). Thus Aspdin had made a manufactured
counterpart to natural or Roman cement - a crude formulation of lime and
volcanic ash used as early as 27 BC. Aspdin produced a hydraulic cement
that would harden with the addition of water. He named his invention "Portland
cement" not only to distinguish it from Roman cement, but also as a marketing
tool: concrete made from his new cement resembled a highly prized building
stone quarried on the Isle of Portland off the British coast. Like flour
in a fruit cake, cement glues aggregate (sand or gravel) together to make
a "rock" (concrete). |
| USS Constitution launched | |
(source) |
In 1797, the USS Constiution - nicknamed "Old Ironsides" - was launched
in Boston, Mass. The oak-wood hulled, three-masted frigate
was one of several 44-gun frigates authorized by Congress in 1794 to protect
commerce at sea. The vessel was designed by for the U.S. Navy by Joshua
Humphreys and built by George Claghorn.
Its copper sheathing protecting the hull was manufactured by Paul Revere,
along with the copper spikes and bolts securing the planks. In the over
200 years since it was built the USS Constiution has been refitted
and restored, and it remains active in the U.S. Navy as a "ship of state."
With its crew of 55 modern-day sailors, it remains the oldest commissioned
warship afloat in the world.« |
