| DECEMBER 1 - BIRTHS | |
| Stephen A. Benton | |
(source) |
 
Born 1 Dec 1941; died 9 Nov 2003.
American physicist who was a pioneer in medical imaging and fine-arts holography. His fascination with optical phenomena began with the 3-D glasses he used as an 11-year-old to watch te 1953 movie "House of Wax." In 1968, he invented the "rainbow holograms" as seen on credit cards while working for Polaroid Corporation. He turned to academia as an assistant professor at Harvard (1968) and later a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1985 where he helped set up the Spatial Imaging Group and headed the M.I.T. media art and sciences program. Benton was a pioneer in natural light holography as a artistic medium, and was a curator at the Museum of Holography in Manhanttan until it closed in 1992.«[Image right: Benton hologram used on a credit card.] |
| Martin Rodbell | |
(source) |
Born 1
Dec 1925; died 7 Dec 1998.
American biochemist who was awarded the 1994 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for his discovery in the 1960s of natural signal transducers called G-proteins that help cells in the body communicate with each other. He shared the prize with Alfred G. Gilman, who later proved Rodbell's hypothesis, by isolating the G-protein, which is so named because it binds to nucleotides called guanosine diphosphate and guanosine triphosphate, or GDP and GTP. Prior to Rodbell's research, scientists believed that only two substances--a hormone receptor and an interior cell enzyme--were responsible for cellular communication. Rodbell, however, discovered that the G-protein acted as an intermediate signal transducer between the two. |
| Christine Ladd-Franklin | |
 |
Born 1
Dec 1847; died 5 Mar 1930.
(née Ladd) American scientist and logician known for contributions to the theory of colour vision accounting for the development of man's color sense which countered the established views of Helmholtz, Young, and Hering. Her position was that color-sense developed in stages. Ladd- Franklin's conclusions were particularly useful in accounting for color-blindness in some individuals. In logic, she published an original method for reducing all syllogisms to a single formula (1883) |
| William Henry Holmes | |
1884 (source) |
Born 1
Dec 1846; died 20 Apr 1933.
American archaeologist, artist, and museum director who helped to establish professional archaeology in the United States. He was a geologist and outstanding illustrator who turned to archaeology while working for the U.S. Geological Survey (1875) and became an expert on southwestern Indian art and prehistoric ceramics and stone implements. His knowledge of geology, archaeology, anthropology, and ethnology made him a master in the scientific documentation of landscapes. His achievements included important publications on Indian cultures in prehistory and on Mayan civilization at Chichen Itza. He was chief of the Bureau of American Ethnology (1902-09) and director of the National Gallery of Art (1920-32). |
| Sir Dominic John Corrigan | |
(source) |
Born 1
Dec 1802; died 1 Feb 1880.
(baronet) Irish physician and author of several reports on diseases of the heart. His paper on aortic insufficiency (1832) is generally regarded as the classic description of the condition. Many medical eponyms come from his diverse studies: Corrigan's respiration (a shallow respiration in fever), Corrigan's pulse (also called waterhammer pulse; a jerking pulse-beat associated with disease of one of the heart valves) and Corrigan's cirrhosis. His published material was based on observation of patients at various Dublin hospitals. His better-known studies were on cirrhosis of the lung (1838), aortitis as a cause of angina pectoris (1837), and mitral stenosis (1838). Corrigan also supported making a distinction between typhus and typhoid fever. |
| Nikolay Ivanovich Lobachevsky | |
(source) |
Born 1
Dec 1792; died 24 Feb 1856.
Russian mathematician who, with János Bolyai of Hungary, is considered the founder of non-Euclidean geometry. Lobachevsky constructed and studied a type of geometry in which Euclid's parallel postulate is false (the postulate states that through a point not on a certain line only one line can be drawn not meeting the first line). This was not well received at first, but his greatest vindication came with the advent of Einstein's theory of relativity when it was demonstrated experimentally that the geometry of space is not described by Euclid's geometry. Apart from geometry, Lobachevsky also did important work in the theory of infinite series, algebraic equations, integral calculus, and probabilty. |
| Martin Heinrich Klaproth | |
(source) |
Born 1
Dec 1743; died 1 Jan 1817.
German chemist who as a founder of analytical chemistry discovered uranium (1789), zirconium (1789), cerium (1803), and contributed to the identification of others. Although he did not isolate them as pure metal samples, he was able to recognize them as new elements. He apprenticed at age 16, to an apothecary. After reading chemistry at Hanover, he settled in Berlin (1771) and started his own apothecary shop (1780). By the late 1780, he was Europe's leading analytical chemist. Klaproth found ways of treating particularly insoluble compounds, took care to avoid contamination from his apparatus, and significantly insisted on reporting "small" weight discrepancies in analytical work as consistent results. He spread the ideas of Antoine Lavoisier.  The
Formation of the German Chemical Community, 1720-1795, by
Karl Hufbauer. |
| John Keill | |
(source) |
Born 1
Dec 1671; died 31 Aug 1721.
Scottish mathematician and natural philosopher, who was a major proponent of Newton’s theories. He began his university education at Edinburgh under David Gregory, whom he followed to Oxford, where Keill lectured on Newton's work, and eventually became professor of astronomy. In his book, An Examination of Dr. Burnett's Theory of the Earth (1698), Keill applied Newtonian principles challenging Burnett's unsupportable speculations on Earth's formation. In 1701, Keill published Introductio ad Veram Physicam, which was the first series of experimental lectures and provided a clear and influential introduction to Isaac Newton’s Principia. He supported Newton against priority claims by Leibnitz for the invention of calculus. (James Keill was his younger brother.)« |
|
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| DECEMBER 1 - DEATHS | |
| J.B.S. Haldane | |
(source) |
 Died
1 Dec 1964 (born 5 Nov 1892)
John Burdon Sanderson Haldane, was a British geneticist and biometrician who opened new paths of research in population genetics and evolution. He began studying science at the age of eight, as assistant to his father (the noted physiologist John Scott Haldane). J.B.S. Haldane also worked in biochemistry, and on the effects of diving on human physiology. A Marxist from the 1930s, Haldane was well known for his outspoken Marxist views.He resigned from the Communist Party c. 1950 on the issue of Lysenko's claims to have manipulated the genetic structure of plants and "Stalin's interference with science". He became known to a large public as a witty popularizer of science with such works as Daedalus (1924), and Possible Worlds (1927). |
| Sir Peter Buck | |
(source) |
Died
1 Dec 1951 (born 1879)
Sir Peter (Henry) Buck (original name Te Rangi Hiroa) was a Maori anthropologist, physician, scholar, writer, and politician. He was born the son of a Maori chiefess and an Irish father in Urenui, New Zealand. He practised medicine, was a member of parliament (1909-14), served in WW I, then became an anthropologist. In 1927, he joined the Bishop Museum in Honolulu, Hawaii, becoming its director from 1936 until his death. He made major contributions to Maori public health and became one of the world's leading Polynesian studies scholars. His initial interest in Maori arts and crafts expanded to other Polynesian island cultures, including Samoa, the Cook Islands, Kapingamarangi, and Hawaii. He was knighted in 1946.« Vikings
of the Pacific, by Peter Buck. |
| Godfrey Harold Hardy | |
(source) |
Died
1 Dec 1947 (born 1877)
English mathematician known for his work in number theory and mathematical analysis. Hardy's interests covered many topics of pure mathematics - Diophantine analysis, summation of divergent series, Fourier series, the Riemann zeta function, and the distribution of primes. Although Hardy considered himself a pure mathematician, early in his career, he nevertheless worked in applied mathematics when he formulated a law that describes how proportions of dominant and recessive genetic traits will propagate in a large population (1908). Hardy considered it unimportant but it has proved of major importance in blood group distribution. As it was also independently discovered by Weinberg, it is known as the Hardy-Weinberg principle.« A
Mathematician's Apology, by G. H. Hardy. |
| Frederick Mark Becket | |
(source) |
Died
1 Dec 1942 (born 11 Jan 1875)
Canadian metallurgist who held more than one hundred patents, covering a wide range of electric furnace and chemical products, notably ferro-alloys, calcium carbide, and special chromium steels. He developed a process of using silicon instead of carbon as a reducing agent in metal production, thus making low-carbon ferroalloys and certain steels practical. His processes for the production of low carbon ferro-alloys had world-wide application. |
| Bernhard Voldemar Schmidt | |
(source) |
Died
1 Dec 1935 (born 30 Mar 1879)
Astronomer and optical instrument maker who invented the telescope named for him. In 1929, he devised a new mirror system for reflecting telescopes which overcame previous problems of aberration of the image. He used a vacuum to suck the glass into a mold, polishing it flat, then allowing in to spring back into shape. The Schmidt telescope is now widely used in astronomy to photograph large sections of the sky because of its large field of view and its fine image definition. He lost his arm as a child while experimenting with explosives. Schmidt spent the last year of his life in a mental hospital. |
| Sir George Everest | |
(source) |
Died
1 Dec 1866 (born 1790)
British military engineer and geodesist, born in Gwernvale, Powys, Wales, UK. He worked on the trigonometrical survey of India (1818-43), providing the accurate mapping of the subcontinent. For more than twenty-five years and despite numerous hardships, he surveyed the longest arc of the meridian ever accomplished at the time. Everest was relentless in his pursuit of accuracy. He made countless adaptations to the surveying equipment, methods, and mathematics in order to minimize problems specific to the Great Survey: immense size and scope, the terrain, weather conditions, and the desired accuracy. Mount Everest, formerly called Peak XV, was renamed in his honour in 1865. The
Great Arc: The Dramatic Tale of How India Was Mapped and Everest Was Named,
by John Keay. |
| DECEMBER 1 - EVENTS | |
| Planets align | |
(source) |
In 1997, eight planets from our Solar System lined
up from West to East beginning with Pluto, followed by Mercury, Mars,
Venus, Neptune, Uranus, Jupiter, and Saturn, with a crescent moon alongside,
in a rare alignment
visible from Earth that lasted until Dec 8. Mercury, Mars, Venus, Jupiter
and Saturn are visible to the naked eye, with Venus and Jupiter by far
the brightest. A good pair of binoculars is needed to see the small blue
dots that are Uranus and Neptune. Pluto is visible only by telescope. The
planets also aligned in May 2000, but too close to the sun to be visible
from Earth. It will be at least another 100 years before so many planets
will be so close and so visible. |
| Channel tunnel | |
(source) |
In 1990, British and French workers digging the Channel
Tunnel between their countries finally met in the service tunnel after
knocking out a passage large enough to walk through and shake hands, 22.3
km from the UK and 15.6 km from France. When British construction worker
Graham Fagg and his French counterpart, Philippe Cozette, drilled through
the final piece of rock, the United Kingdom and France were now linked
for the first time in 8,000 years. The event was witnessed photographers,
reporters, and a small handful of privileged spectators. The tunnelling
began three years earlier, on this same day in 1987. |
| Legionnaire's disease | |
(source) |
In 1977, the isolation of the bacterium Legionella pneumophila
that
was the cause of Legionnaire's Disease, was described in a scientific paper
published in The New England Journal of Medicine by scientists at
the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia, USA*.
They had first announced that they had sufficient laboratory evidence to
implicate a bacterium on 18 Jan 1977 as responsible for an outbreak of
this disease
in Philadelphia in 1976, largely among people attending a state convention
of the American Legion, which led to the name "Legionnaires' Disease."
After the bacterium causing the illness was named, the name of the illness
was changed to legionellosis. [Image:
Legionella
pneumophila multiplying inside a cultured human lung fibroblast. Multiple
intracellular bacilli, including dividing bacilli, are visible in longitudinal
and cross section. Transmission electron micrograph.] |
| Earth photograph | |
|
In 1959, the first colour photograph of the earth from outer space was
taken from the nose of a Thor
missile launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The data capsule containing
the camera was recovered 16 Feb 1960 on the beach of Mayaguana Island,
Bahama Islands, approximately 1,700 miles from the take-off point. |
|
| Commercial soiless culture of plants | |
(USPTO) |
In 1936, the first U.S. patent was issued for the soiless
culture of plants in a large commercial hydroponicum (No. 2,062,755)
to Ernest Walfrid Brundin and Frank Farrington Lyon as a "system of water
culture." Their installation, the first on a large scale in the U.S., was
established on 5 Dec 1935 in Montebello, California, with a circulating
system. They incorporated as the Chemi-Culture Company on 19 Oct 1937.
The word hydroponics
was coined in the early 1930s, by Professor Gericke at the University of
California at Los Angeles to describe the growing of plants with their
roots suspended in water containing mineral nutrients. It comes from two
Greek words: "hydro" (water) and "ponos" (to work, labor). |
| Assembly line | |
(source) |
In 1913, the continuous moving assembly
line introduced by Ford in his Highland Park, Detroit, Michigan, factory
was capable
of delivering a car
every 2-min 38-sec. By the summer of 1913, three subassemblies (magnetos,
motors, and transmissions) were assembled
on moving lines using conveyor belts. Because these moving lines produced
subassemblies faster than the main production line could take them, a moving
chassis line was added to replace his "push" assembly line. The method
was so successful that the Ford Motor Co. became the world's largest car
manufacturer. Business men the world over flocked to Detroit to glean the
secrets of the moving assembly line. |
| Service station | |
(source) |
In 1913, the first U.S. drive-in automobile service station opened at the
high traffic intersection of Baum Boulevard and St. Clair Street, Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania, operated by the Gulf Refining Company. The brick, pagoda-style
station
featured free air, water, crankcase service, restrooms and a lighted sign
for "Good Gulf Gasoline." It was open all night. Opening-day sales amounted
to just 30 gallons, at 27 cents each. By the first Saturday, however, the
word had spread: Gulf sold over 350 gallons that day. (The Standard Oil
Company of California opened the first
service station, little more than a shed, in 1907, near its Seattle
kerosene refinery.) |
| White house telephone | |
President Hayes |
In 1878, the White House, Washington, DC, had its first telephone installed
by Alexander Graham Bell himself, during the President Rutherford
B. Hayes administration. It is reported
that the first outgoing call went to Bell, thirteen miles away. Hayes first
words instructed Bell to speak more slowly. President Hayes did not use
it very often, however, because there were not many other telephones in
Washington. |
| Mower patent | |
In 1857, a U.S. patent was issued to Ephraim
Ball for his mower design, which became the first widely successful
of the two-wheeled flexible or hinged bar mowers. This "Ball's Ohio Mower"
greatly influenced the change from single driving-wheel machines to those
with double drivers. Ball began inventing with a turn-top stove. Then in
1840 he established a foundry for making ploughs. His invention of the
"Ball's Blue Plough" sold well, and in 1851 he joined with others to expand
with a larger company with factories in Canton, Ohio. After his "Ohio Mower"
he continued inventing farm machinery. The "World Mower and Reaper," and
"Buckeye Machine" (1858) sold extensively. He followed these with the "New
American Harvester," of which to10,000 were produced annually (1865).«  |
|
| Steamboat | |
|
In 1841, the first steamboat engine built in America for a screw-propelled
vessel, installed on the Vandalia,
was launched*. It was designed
by John Ericsson
and built by Captain
Sylvester Doolittle. The engine had two vertical cylinders with a diameter
of 14-in and a stroke of 22-in. Ericsson had previously built two engines
for British ships. The Vandalia
was the first screw-propelled vessel on the Great Lakes. Unlike the pioneer
screw-steamers in England, which were towing vessels, the Vandalia was
built to carry passengers and freight through the canals. The Vandalia,
demonstrated that propellers could pass easily through the narrow locks
where side-wheelers could not. |
|
| Hydrogen balloon | |
(source) |
In 1783, the first manned voyage
of a hydrogen balloon left Paris carrying Professor Jacques Alexander Cesar
Charles and Marie-Noel Robert to about 600 m and landed 43 km away after
2 hours in the air. Robert then left the balloon, and Charles
continued the flight briefly to 2700 m altitude, measured by a barometer.
This hydrogen-filled balloon
was generally spherical and used a net, load ring, valve, open appendix
and sand ballast, all of which were to be universally adopted later. His
hydrogen generator
mixed huge quantities of sulfuric acid with iron filings. On 27 Aug 1783,
Charles had launched
an unmanned hydrogen balloon, just before the Montgolfiers' flight. [Image:
from 1897 Encyclopedia Britannica] |
