| NOVEMBER 2 - BIRTHS | |
| Melvin Schwartz | |
(source) |
 Born 2
Nov 1932
American physicist and entrepreneur who, along with Leon M. Lederman and Jack Steinberger, received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1988 for their research concerning neutrinos (subatomic particles that have no electric charge and virtually no mass). Using a beam of neutrinos, the team discovered a new kind of neutrino called a muon, and new information about the structure of particles called leptons. Neutrinos are produced when unstable atomic nuclei or subatomic particles disintegrate. Schwartz and his team wanted to study the "weak" nuclear force that creates certain kinds of radioactivity. The team used a particle accelerator to create a high-intensity beam of neutrinos. They studied the reactions produced when this beam hit other matter.  Principles
of Electrodynamics, by Melvin Schwartz. |
| Richard E. Taylor | |
(source) |
Born 2
Nov 1929
Canadian physicist who in 1990 shared the Nobel Prize for Physics with Jerome Friedman and Henry Kendall for his collaboration in pioneering investigations concerning deep inelastic scattering of electrons on protons and bound neutrons, which have been of essential importance for the development of the quark model in particle physics. The team performed a series of experiments that confirmed the hypothesis that protons and neutrons are made up of quarks. This discovery was crucial to the formulation of the currently accepted theoretical description of matter and its interactions, known as the standard model. |
| Alexander M. Lippisch | |
(source) |
Born 2
Nov 1894; died 11 Feb 1976
Alexander M(artin) Lippisch was a German-American aerodynamicist whose designs of tailless and delta-winged aircraft in the 1920s and 1930s were important in the development of high-speed jet and rocket airplanes. Lippisch based his tailless arrow shaped aircraft on this example from nature - a flying seed of a tropical plant sent to him by a friend. He felt that the wing near the body should be thicker so that it could be utilized for additional storage, made possible by making the wing near the body longer. This is how he arrived at the delta shaped wing. His first motorized delta wing flew in 1931. |
| Harlow Shapley | |
 |
Born 2
Nov 1885; died 20 Oct 1972
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." |
| Lajos Lóczy | |
(source) |
Born 2
Nov 1849; died 13 May 1920
Hungarian geologist who first scientifically described the mountains bordering the Tibetan Plateau that connect the Kunlun Mountains with the north-south-oriented belt of mountains and gorges in central China. In 1878, with the Hungarian Count Széchenyi Béla and Gustav Kreitner, he was the first western visitor to remote ancient Buddhist sites such as the oasis town of Dunhuang, situated at the edge of the Gobi desert, in the west of the present-day Chinese province of Gansu. He wrote many accounts his discoveries, and during his expeditions made many pictures for documentation. |
| George Boole | |
(source) |
Born 2
Nov 1815; died 8 Dec 1864
English mathematician who helped establish modern symbolic logic and an algebra of logic, now called Boolean algebra. By replacing logical operations by symbols, Boole showed that the operations could be manipulated to give logically consistent results. Boole's logical algebra is essentially an algebra of classes, being based on such concepts as complement and union of classes.The study of mathematical or symbolic logic developed mainly from his ideas, and is basic to the design of digital computer circuits. Boolean also algebras find important applications in such diverse fields as topology, measure theory, probability and statistics.Boole also wrote important works on differential equations and other branches of mathematics. An
Investigation of the Laws of Thought, by George Boole. |
|
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| NOVEMBER 2 - DEATHS | |
| Kenneth (Page) Oakley | |
(source) |
 
Died 2 Nov 1981 (born 7 Apr 1911)
English physical anthropologist, geologist, and paleontologist who developed a method to date fossils bones by measuring their fluoride levels, based on a French minerologist's theory that bones would gradually absorb fluoride from surrounding soil. While working for the British Natural History Museum, Oakley become famous in 1953 for exposing a forgery. A "Piltdown Man" skull had been "unearthed" in 1912, in Piltdown, England, and had for decades been said to represent the "missing link" in human evolution. With his fluoride and other tests he proved the true age of the bones to be a modern human braincase and an orangutan jawbone. The bones of the forgery had been chemically stained to appear ancient. [Image right: The Piltdown skull as reconstructed by J. H McGregor]  The
Piltdown Forgery by J. S. Weiner |
| Peter Debye | |
(source) |
Died
2 Nov 1966 (born 24 Mar 1884)
Petrus (Peter) Josephus Wilhelmus Debye was a Dutch physical chemist whose investigations of dipole moments, X rays, and light scattering in gases brought him the 1936 Nobel Prize for Chemistry. Most of his work was in chemical-physics with special interest in electrolytes and dipolar momentum analysis. He established a theory of specific heat with some improvements on that proposed by Einstein. Debye performed important work in the analysis of crystalline powders using X-ray diffraction techniques. He also determined the dimensions of gaseous molecules and the interatomic distances using X-rays. |
| Thomas Midgley, Jr | |
(source) |
Died
2 Nov 1944 (born 18 May 1889)
American engineer and chemist who discovered the effectiveness of tetraethyl lead (C2H5)4Pb in 1921 as an antiknock additive for gasoline. Knocking jars the wall of the automobile cylinders by the explosion instead of steadily pushing the cylinder back. This wastes a large percentage of the energy and damages the engine. He also developed carbon tetrafluoride (CF4) a cleaning agent and in 1930 dichlorofluoromethane (CCl2F2) later called “Freon”. This is a non-toxic and non-flammable gas, unreactive at normal temperatures but able to be easily liquified by pressure alone. It replaced toxic gases previously used in home refrigeration. From
the Periodic Table to Production: The Life of Thomas Midgley, Jr.by
Thomas Midgley. |
| Oliver Perry Hay | |
(source) |
Died
2 Nov 1930 (born 22 May 1846)
American paleontologist whose catalogs of fossil vertebrates greatly organized existing knowledge and became standard references. From 1912, he conduct his research at the United States National Museum where he assisted in working up and describing the museum's collections in vertebrate paleontology. Hay's primary scientific interest was the study of the Pleistocene vertebrata of North America. He is renowned for his work on skull and brain anatomy. His first major work was his Bibliography and Catalogue of the Fossil Vertebrata of North America (1902), supplemented by two more volumes (1929-30). Hay also wrote on the evidence of early humans in North America.« [Image: Diplodocus is portrayed as a slithering sauropod by Oliver P. Hay, 1910. From Oliver P. Hay, Proceedings of the Washington Academy of Sciences, vol. 12, 1910, pp. 1-25] Bibliography
and Catalogue of the Fossil Vertebrata of North America,
by Oliver P. Hay. |
| Rudolf Albert von Kölliker | |
(EB) |
Died
2 Nov 1905 (born 6 July 1817)
Swiss embryologist and histologist, one of the first to interpret tissue structure in terms of cellular elements. Celebrated for his microscopic work on tissues, he provided much evidence to show that cells cannot arise freely, but only from existing cells. He was the first to isolate the cells of smooth muscle (1848). He showed that nerve fibers are elongated parts of cells, thus anticipating the neuron theory, and demonstrated the cellular nature of eggs and sperm, showing for example that sperm are formed from the tubular walls of the testis, just as pollen grains are formed from cells of the anthers. Kölliker believed the cell nucleus carried the key to heredity. His pioneering studies of cellular embryology mark him as one of the founders of the science. |
| Thomas Anderson | |
| Died
2 Nov 1874 (born 1819)
Scottish organic chemist who discovered pyridine and other constituents of bone oil. His other interests included agricultural chemistry, and research on anthracene.« |
|
| NOVEMBER 2 - EVENTS | |
| International Space Station | |
(source) |
In 2000, an American astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts became the first
permanent residents of the international space station, at the start of
their four-month mission. After their Soyuz spacecraft linked up at 11:00am
GMT, William Shepherd, Sergei Krikalev and Yuri Gidzenko entered
the station, turned on the lights and life support systems, and proceeded
to set up a live television link with the Russian mission control to confirm
that the move-in was going well. They were confined to two of the space
station’s three rooms until space shuttle Endeavor arrived in early
Dec. with giant solar panels that would provide all the necessary power. |
| Computer "worm" | |
(source) |
In 1988, a computer "worm"
unleashed by a Cornell University graduate student, Robert T. Morris, began
replicating wildly, clogging thousands of computers around the country.
Intended as an experimental, self-replicating, self-propagating program,
Morris
soon discovered that the program was infecting machines at a much faster
rate than he had anticipated. Computers were affected at many universities,
military sites, and medical research facilities. When Morris realized what
was happening he sent an anonymous message, instructing programmers how
to kill the worm and prevent reinfection. However, because the network
route was clogged, this message did not get through until it was too late.
Morris, was later tried, fined and given probation. |
| Methanogens | |
(source) |
In 1977, the identification of methanogens, a form of life dating back
some 3.5 billion years, was reported by scientists at the University and
Illinois. Microbiologist
Carl R. Woese had long studied the evolutionary track of DNA and RNA. In
1976, he was approached by his colleague Ralph Wolfe, who presented a group
of methane producing organisms. Woese
studied their RNA and recognized their lack of the entire oligonucleotide
sequences. He discovered the organisms were so different from bacteria,
they deserved their own branch of the family tree as the third domain of
life, Archaea. Methanogens
are found in oxygen-deficient environments, and mostly obtain their
energy by reducing carbon dioxide and oxidizing hydrogen, with the production
of methane. |
| M1 motorway | |
(source) |
In 1959, the first 72-mile stretch
of England's first intercity Motorway, the M1, was opened
by Transport Minister Ernest Marples It ran from junction 5 (Watford) and
junction 18 (Crick/Rugby), and included two spurs, the M10 and M45. It
was built at a rate of about a mile every 8 day, and cost £16 million.
This, the first of four construction phases, was part of a planned 400-mile
network of motorways. (The Preston
Bypass had earlier been built to motorway standards, but later was
named part of the M6.) When the M1 opened,
many cars travelled at 90 to 100 mph. Others ran out of fuel or broke down.
By 6 Nov, two lorry drivers had died.With extensions,
it is the major north-south London to Yorkshire route. « [Image:
(left) Marples on a police car radio performed the opening with a “calling
all cars” message to remove the barriers at all motorway junctions; (right)
Construction at junction 14, 9 May 1959 showing bridges 43 and 44.] |
| Titanium mill | |
(source) |
In 1957, the first titanium mill was opened in Toronto, Ohio by the Titanium
Metals Corp. of America (TIMET). The
birth of a tonnage structural metal industry is an unusual event. Only
three such births have occurred in the past 100 years - aluminum, magnesium,
and titanium.
This mill was the first in the U.S. for rolling and forging titanium. The
same company had previously opened a titanium plant on 1 Jun 1951 which
was the first U.S. fully self-contained and fully integrated producer of
titanium metal ingots from titanium ore. In Toronto, Ohio the ingots are
forged into slabs, billets and bars. Slabs are subsequently hot rolled
to sheet and plate or cold rolled for strip and welded tube applications,
bar, rod, and wire. Image: Titanium
hip and knee bone implants. |
| Polio virus | |
|
In 1955, American investigators Carlton Schwerdt and F.L. Schaffer crystallized
the polio virus. This was the first animal virus to be obtained in crystalline
form. (The first plant virus, tobacco mozaic virus, had been crystallized
in 1935 by W.M. Stanley.) Each virus crystal is composed of many thousands
of virus particles. Virus preparations pure enough to crystallize usually
provide the best material for chemical studied. This was used to split
the polio virus into infectious and non-infectious parts. Their research
laid the groundwork for the polio vaccine. (Reference:
Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 41:1020-1023) |
|
| Concentrated milk | |
(source) |
In 1950, concentrated milk was first test-marketed in the U.S. in Wilmington,
Delaware. The Sealtest brand was produced by the Clover Dairy Company (a
division of National Dairy Products Corporation). Fresh milk contains about
88% water. Partial water removal concentrates
the milk to one-third of its original volume yielding a a heavy, creamy-looking
milk. This gives benefits including improved shelf-life, reduced storage
space, and lower weight saving transportation cost. The high-temperature
processing of evaporated or condensed milk results in changed taste. Concentrated
milk, however, is made
at lower pressures and temperatures so that when water is added, it tastes
like fresh whole milk with the same food values.« [Image:
promotional pin-on button.] |
| Spruce Goose | |
(source) |
In 1947, Howard Hughes piloted his huge wooden airplane,
known as the Spruce Goose on its only flight, which lasted about
a minute over Long Beach Harbor in California. It was the first test of
a U.S. plane with eight engines. Wing span was 319 feet, 11 inches. Originally
conceived
by Henry J. Kaiser, a steelmaker and builder of Liberty ships, the aircraft
was designed and constructed by Hughes and his staff. The original proposal
for the enormous, 400,000-pound wooden flying boat, with its spectacular
320-foot wingspan, came from the U.S. government in 1942. The entire airframe
and surface structures are composed of laminated wood (primarily birch,
not spruce). |
| Television | |
(source) |
In 1936, the world's first high-definition television service began by
the BBC from studios and transmitters at Alexandra
Palace, in north London. Its range was about 35 miles, though only
25 had been predicted. For a trial period, the 405-line Marconi-EMI system
and the 240-line Baird system were used during alternate weeks, the aerial
having to switch between them. By the toss of a coin, the Baird transmitting
system was used first. The service was opened by a televised ceremony.
Regular programmes thereafter were given twice a day, from 3-4 pm, and
from 9-10 pm except on Sundays. With a system that was more mobile, flexible
and easy to use, Marconi-EMI won the contract in February 1937. |
| DuPrene | |
(source) |
In 1931, The DuPont company, of Wilmington, Delaware, announced the first
synthetic
rubber this day. It was known as DuPrene, now renamed neoprene. Many
scientists were trying to make natural rubber in the 1920s and 30s. One
of the Carothers team, Gerard Berchet, happened to leave a sample of vinyl
acetylene in a jar with hydrochloric acid (HCl) for about five weeks. Then
another member of team, Arnold M. Collins happened to look in that jar
and found a rubbery white material. The HCl had reacted with the vinylacetylene,
making chloroprene, which then polymerized to become polychloroprene. The
new rubber was expensive, but resisted oil and gasoline, which natural
rubber didn't. It was the first good synthetic rubber. [Image:
Wallace Carothers showing the new DuPrene product] |
