| NOVEMBER 24 - BIRTHS | |
| Veerabhadran Ramanathan | |
(source) |
 Born 24
Nov 1944
Indian atmospheric scientist who in 1999 discovered the "Asian Brown Cloud" - wandering layers of air pollution as wide as a continent and deeper than the Grand Canyon. The dark particles in these brown clouds may reduce rainfall, dry the planet’s surface, cool the tropics and reduce sunlight - Global Dimming. In 1975, Ramanathan was the first to demonstrate that CFCs are major greenhouse gases. His calculations showed each CFC molecule in the atmosphere contributes more to the greenhouse effect that over 10,000 molecules of carbon dioxide. In the 1980s, he led a study discovering numerous trace gases contributing to global warming, and a NASA study that demonstrated that clouds had a net global cooling effect on the planet.« |
| Tsung Dao Lee | |
(source) |
Born 24
Nov 1926
Chinese-born American physicist who received (with Chen Ning Yang) the 1957 Nobel Prize for Physics for their "penetrating investigation" of violations of the principle of parity conservation (the quality of space reflection symmetry of subatomic particle interactions), which has led to important discoveries regarding the elementary particles. Conservation of parity had previously been regarded as a "law" of nature. (Parity holds that the laws of physics are the same in a right-handed system of coordinates as in a left-handed system.) The theory was subsequently confirmed experimentally by Chien-Shiung Wu in observations of beta decay. |
| Simon van der Meer | |
(source) |
Born 24
Nov 1925
Dutch engineer and physicist who along with Italian physicist Carlo Rubbia, discovered the W particle and the Z particle by colliding protons and antiprotons, for which both men shared the Nobel Prize for Physics. These subatomic particles (units of matter smaller than an atom) transmit the weak nuclear force, one of four fundamental forces in nature. The discovery supported the unified electroweak theory put forward in the 1970's. Working at CERN in Switzerland, Van der Meer improved the design of particle accelerators used produce collisions between beams of subatomic particles. He invented a device that would monitor and adjust the particle beam with correcting magnetic fields by a system of 'kickers' placed around the accelerator ring. |
| Herbert F(rank) York | |
(source) |
Born 24
Nov 1921
American nuclear physicist whose scientific research in support of national defense began in 1943 when he began work at Oak Ridge, Tenn., on the electromagnetic separation of Uranium 235 as part of the Manhattan Project during WW II. In 1952, he became the first director of Lawrence Livermore Laboratory. He left in Mar 1958 to join the Department of Defense as chief scientist of the Advanced Research Projects Agency, and shortly became the Department of Defense's director of research and engineering (Dec 1958). He returned to the University of California in 1961 as chancellor and professor of physics. He was chief negotiator for the comprehensive test ban during the Carter administration.«  Arms
and the Physicist, by Herbert F. York |
| Robert L. Banks | |
(source) |
Born 24
Nov 1921; died 3 Jan 1989.
American chemist who co-discovered crystalline polypropylene polymer, with J. Paul Hogan. They were assigned by Phillips Petroleum, in 1946, to research ways to take the natural gas products propylene and ethylene and turn them into useful gasoline components. On 5 Jun 1951, their experiments using catalystsyielded polypropylene - now used in fibers for rope, indoor-outdoor carpeting and plastics. Banks and Hogan also found how to make a new high-density polyethylene which was more heat resistant than the previously existing polyethylene. Further, their catalysts produced the new polyethylene at only a few hundred psi pressure instead of the existing free radical process which required pressures of up to 30,000 psi.« |
| Lyle B. Borst | |
(source) |
Born 24
Nov 1912; died 30 Jul 2002.
American nuclear physicist who led the construction of the Graphite Research Reactor (BGRR), at Brookhaven National Laboratory. After work on the Manhattan Project in WW II. he organized about 1,300 scientists, and spoke before Congress to keep atomic research under civilian control, to avoid a worldwide nuclear arms race. In 1946, with Karl Morgan, he developed a film badge to measure worker exposure to fast neutrons. BGRR, completed in 1949, was the first reactor built solely to research peacetime uses of atomic energy. In its first year of operation, Borst announced the production of radioactive iodine suitable for treating thyroid cancer. In 1952, he explained how beryllium-7 from helium fusion triggers supernovae.« |
| Hideyo Noguchi | |
(source) |
Born 24
Nov 1876; died 21 May 1928.
Japanese bacteriologist who was the first to obtain pure cultures of Trepanema pallidum, the spirochete that causes syphilis, which he found in the brains of persons who had died of paresis. He demonstrated the syphilitic origin of certain forms of general paralysis, developed one of the first tests to diagnose syphilis and proved that both Oroya fever and verruga peruana could be produced by Bartonella bacilliformis, now known to be different phases of Carrion's disease (bartonellosis). He found ways to cultivate microorganisms that had never before been grown in the test tube. Noguchi studied poliomyelitis, and trachoma and worked on a vaccine and serum for yellow fever. He died of yellow fever, while researching the disease in Africa. Noguchi
and His Patrons, by Isabel Rosanoff Plesset. |
| Edwin Grant Conklin | |
(source) |
Born 24 Nov 1863; died 21 Nov 1952.
American biologist and embryologist. In 1905, when working with a small marine creature called a tunicate, Conklin made a striking observation: the contents of the tunicate egg weren’t uniform. Different parts of it were differently colored. When the mother egg began to divide, the new daughter cells that came from different colored areas became, as they split away, different types of tissue. The yellow stuff in the egg produced muscle cells, for instance, and the grayish stuff became the gut. Conklin also published a number of works on evolution, and he estimated he made a thousand public lectures interpreting evolution to religious and lay groups. He was a leading critic of society's response to advanced technology. [Image: embryo] |
| Percy Gardner | |
Parthian coin (source) |
Born 24
Nov 1846; died 17 Jul 1937.
English classical archaeologist and historian of Greek antiquities and numismatics. In 1871, he joined the British Museum as assistant in the department of coins and metals. He acted as field assistant for W. M. Flinders Petrie in the excavation of the Greek settlement of Naucritus in Egypt. In 1883, his Types of Greek Coins, the first of the modern accounts of classical numismatics, Gardner demonstrated how the history and art of a period is shown by its coinage. While professor of archaeology at Oxford University, (1887-1925), Gardner actively expanded its archaeology library and built a collection of classical sculpture busts. He supervised repair of inept prior restorations of the Arundel marbles held by the University Galleries.« Archaeology
and the types of Greek coins, by Percy Gardner
 Booklist
for Percy Gardner |
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| NOVEMBER 24 - DEATHS | |
| Sir Hiram Maxim | |
(source) |
 Died
24 Nov 1916 (born 5 Feb 1840)
Sir Hiram (Stevens) Maxim was an American-born prolific inventor best known for the Maxim machine gun. His first patent was for a hair-curling iron (1866), followed by a device for generating illuminating gas and a locomotive headlight. In 1878, he was hired as chief engineer of the United States Electric Lighting Company, the first such company in the United States. In that post he produced a basic invention, a method of manufacturing carbon filaments. In 1881 he exhibited an electric pressure regulator at the Paris Exposition. Among his hundreds of other patents in the U.S. and Great Britain are a mousetrap, an automatic sprinkling system, an automatic steam-powered water pump, vacuum pumps, engine governors, and gas motors. Amazing
Hiram Maxim, an Intimate Biography, by Arthur Hawkey
Booklist
for Hiram Maxim |
| Benjamin Silliman | |
(source) |
Died
24 Nov 1864 (born 8 Aug 1779)
American geologist and chemist who founded the American Journal of Science and wielded a powerful influence in the development of science in the U.S. He was Yale's first professor of chemistry and natural history (1802). He is best known for researching the chemical composition of a meteorite that fell in 1807, his report being the first scientific account of any American meteor, showed that meteorites are made of materials that exist on the earth. The mineral sillimanite was named after Silliman. In 1811, while experimenting with the oxy-hydric blow-pipe, he reduced many minerals previously considered as elements. His son, also named Benjamin Silliman, became a chemist who recognized that petroleum could be distilled into separate fractions. Booklist
for Benjamin Silliman |
| NOVEMBER 24 - EVENTS | |
| Wright brothers incorporate | |
 |
In 1909, the Wright brothers formed a million-dollar corporation for the
commercial manufacture of airplanes. The brothers found themselves immersed
in business affairs, manufacturing and selling planes, arranging flying
exhibitions, training pilots, and engaging in patent suits against Glenn
Curtiss and others. The courts decided the suits in favor of the Wrights,
but worn out by the long patent struggle, Wilbur died of typhoid fever
in Dayton, 30 May 1912, at the height of his career. He had made his last
flights in May 1910. Orville continued flying actively until 1915 when
he sold his interest in the Wright Company. His last flight was in 1918.
The Curtiss
Wright Corporation was formed in 1929 with the merger of the Wright
and Curtiss companies.
Booklist
for Wright Brothers |
| Automobile starter | |
(USPTO) |
In 1903, the first U.S. patent for an automobile electric self-starter
was issued to Clyde J. Coleman of New York City (No. 745,157). He invented
the self-starter in 1899, but the invention was impractical. The license
was purchased by the Delco Company, which was taken over by the General
Motors Corporation. Charles Kettering at General Motors perfected the self-starter,
which was first installed
on Cadillac cars in 1911. This was a response to the death of a friend,
who had died from injuries suffered when a car hand-crank recoiled against
him. Having eliminated the dangerous job of cranking the engine, it put
women behind the wheel in greater numbers. |
| Barbed wire | |
(source) |
In 1874, the first U.S. patent for barbed
wire was issued to Joseph
F. Glidden of DeKalb, Illinois (No. 157,124). Having filed his application
on 27 Oct 1873, Glidden began manufacturing on 1 Nov 1873, in DeKalb. The
barbs were cut from sheet metal and were inserted between two wires which
were twisted considerably more than with today's common design. This product
would transform
the West. Before this innovation,
settlers on the treeless plains had no easy way to fence livestock away
from cropland, and ranchers had no way to prevent their herds from roaming
far and wide. Glidden’s barbed wire opened the plains to large-scale farming,
and closed the open range, bringing the era of the cowboy and the round-up
to an end. [Image: detail from
patent application diagram]
Booklist
for Barbed Wire |
| The Origin of Species | |
(source) |
In 1859, The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, Darwin's
groundbreaking book,
was published
in England to great acclaim. The British naturalist, Charles
Darwin detailed the scientific evidence he had collected since his
voyage on the Beagle in the 1830's. He presented his idea that species
are the result of a gradual biological evolution in which nature encourages,
through natural selection, the propagation of those species best suited
to their environments. He had been prompted to publish at this time by
Charles
Lyell, who advised him that
Alfred
Russel Wallace, a naturalist working in Borneo, was approaching the
same conclusions. Lyell believed Darwin should publish without further
delay to establish priority.  [Image:
Title page from 1859 edition]
Origin
of Species, by Charles Darwin
Booklist
for Charles Darwin |
| First observed transit of Venus | |
(source) |
In 1639, Jeremiah Horrocks, an English astronomer
and clergyman,
measured a transit of Venus, the first ever to be observed. Applying Kepler's
prediction that in 1631, Venus would transit the Sun, Horrocks calculated
that these transits occurred not singly but in pairs eight years apart.
Thus, Horrocks
prepared his equipment for the next transit he had thus predicted for this
day. His simple telescope was mounted on a wooden beam, so he could project
a solar image onto a piece of paper marked with a six inch graduated circle.
From this, he made measurements and calculated that the value for the solar
parallax was smaller than previously recorded, and so concluded that the
Sun was further away from the Earth than previously thought. [Image
right: Projection apparatus (source)]
Booklist
for Venus In Transit |
