| DECEMBER 2 - BIRTHS | |
| Isabella Karle | |
(source) |
 Born 2
Dec 1921
(née Lugoski) American chemist who notable achievements include the development of her "Symbolic Addition Procedure", which has become the method of choice for structure determination from X-ray diffraction data on crystalline materials, even in computerized programs. It dramatically increased the speed and accuracy of chemical and biomedical analysis. Her work has had a significant impact on the fields of molecular biology, chemistry, physics, metallurgy, geology, genetics, and pharmacology, contributing to the discoveries of new drugs to combat many diseases. In 1969 she determined the crystal structure of toxins found in the venom of frogs in South America, which are used in the study of nerve transmission. |
| Peter Carl Goldmark | |
(source) |
Born 2
Dec 1906; died 7 Dec 1977.
American engineer (naturalized 1937). While working for Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), he developed the first commercial color television system (1936), which used a rotating three-color disk. Although initially approved by the Federal Communications Commission, it was later superseded by an all-electronic color system that was compatible with black-and-white sets. Goldmark also developed the 33-1/3 LP phonograph that greatly increased the playing time of records, which revolutionized the recording industry. He also pioneered in video cassette recording, and developed a scanning system used by the Lunar Orbiter spacecraft in 1966 to transmit photographs to the earth from the moon. |
| S. Joseph Begun | |
(source) |
Born 2
Dec 1905; died 5 Jan 1995.
Semi Joseph Begun was a German-American inventor who built the first tape recorder for broadcasting (1934), which was later used in the 1936 Olympics. After WW II, he continued to work on magnetic recording media based on coating paper and plastic tape with ferrmagnetic powder suspensions. Begun developed the first consumer tape recorder in the U.S. under the trade name Sound Mirror. He also negotiated the first sourcing agreement for magnetic tape with 3M - which became a major product line. He also invented the Mail-A-Voice, which magnetically recorded on one side of a paper disk for letter correspondence. |
| George Richards Minot | |
(source) |
Born 2
Dec 1885; died 25 Feb 1950.
American physician who received (with George Whipple and William Murphy) the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1934 for the introduction of a raw-liver diet to regenerate blood hemoglobin in the treatment of pernicious anemia, which was previously an invariably fatal disease. Later, he helped develop liver extract for oral use (now replaced by vitamin B12 injections). Earlier, during WW I, at the suggestion of Alice Hamilton, pioneer in industrial medicine at Harvard, Minot had investigated the anemia occurring among New Jersey ammunition workers. From studies of their blood, he found that the trinitrotoluene (TNT) used to fill shells acted as a poison, causing destruction of red cells, often producing anemia. |
| Heinrich Georg Barkhausen | |
(source) |
Born 2
Dec 1881; died 20 Feb 1956.
German physicist who discovered the Barkhausen effect (1919), a principle concerning changes in the magnetic properties of metal. His work in acoustics and magnetism led to the discovery that magnetization affects whole domains of a ferromagnetic material, rather than individual atoms alone. He discovered that a slow, smooth increase of a magnetic field applied to a piece of ferromagnetic material, such as iron, causes it to become magnetized, not continuously but in minute steps. With Karl Kurz, he developed the Barkhausen- Kurz oscillator (1920) for ultrahigh frequencies (forerunner of the microwave tube), leading to understanding of the principle of velocity modulation. He is also known for experiments on shortwave radio transmissions. |
| Friedrich Daniel von Recklinghausen | |
(source) |
Born 2
Dec 1833; died 26 Aug 1910.
German pathologist, known by descriptions of two disorders, each called Recklinghausen's disease: multiple neurofibromatosis (1882), an inheritable disease characterized by café au lait spots combined with multiple peripheral nerve tumours and a variety of others dysplastic abnormalities of the skin, nervous system, bones, endocrine organs and blood vessels; and osteitis fibrosa cystica (1891), a now mostly historical term for a generalized rarefying bone disorder with skeletal deformation, seen in advanced hyperparathyroidism. He was a traditional histopathologist of his time, resistant to changes such as the use of the microtome or the results of the new science of bacteriology. He taught and remained active as a researcher until shortly before his death. |
| Nicolas Louis Robert | |
(source) |
Born 2 Dec 1761; died 8 Aug 1828
French inventor of the continuous paper-making machine, while working at Essonnes, France, papermill of the Didot family of printers and publishers. He made his first model for the process in 1797, a prototype by 1798, and secured a patent on 18 Jan 1799. Paper was formed and carried on a moving belt of wire gauze. Didot was at first sceptical, then encouraged Robert to improve the as yet imperfect invention. After Robert became dissatisfied with the financial arrangements for his efforts, he left and tried to set up his own paper mill. When this venture failed for lack of capital, he sold the patent rights to Didot. Eventually his idea was more successfully developed in England by the Fourdrinier brothers assisted by mechanic Bryan Donkin.« [Image right: model of Robert's machine showing vat containing pulp, and delivery belt at top left.] |
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| DECEMBER 2 - DEATHS | |
| Maria Telkes | |
(source) |
 Died
2 Dec 1995 (born 12 Dec 1900)
Hungarian-born American physical chemist who pioneered in the application of solar energy to water distillation and home heating. She immigrated to the U.S. in 1925, worked as a biophysicist (1926-37), and naturalized in 1937. As a civilian adviser to the U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development during WW II, she worked out a solar heated water distillation system to make sea water potable. In the late 1940's, she designed a system of chemical storage of solar energy for the first solar-heated house, a project of MIT constructed t in Dover, Massachusetts. She developed a solar-powered stove, and in the 1970s, experimented with an air-conditioning system that stored cool night air for use during the heat of the next day. |
| Luis Federico Leloir | |
(source) |
Died
2 Dec 1987 (born 6 Sep 1906)
Argentine biochemist who won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1970 for "his discovery of sugar nucleotides and their role in the biosynthesis of carbohydrates" (investigations of the processes by which carbohydrates are converted into energy in the body). Leloir, working in simple circumstances, isolated uridine diphosphate glucose and showed that it was incorporated into glycogen in the presence of a liver enzyme. He also worked out the mechanism of synthesis of starch. Leloir's discoveries - that the sugar nucleotides are principal actors in interconversion of sugars and polysaccharide formation - led to additional research in carbohydrate metabolism and on the medical implications of the discoveries. |
| L.E.J. Brouwer | |
(source) |
Died
2 Dec 1966 (born 27 Feb 1881)
L(uitzen) E(gbertus) J(an) Brouwer was a Dutch mathematician who founded mathematical Intuitionism (a doctrine that views the nature of mathematics as mental constructions governed by self-evident laws). He founded modern topology by establishing, for example, the topological invariance of dimension and the fixpoint theorem. (Topology is the study of the most basic properties of geometric surfaces and configurations.) The Brouwer fixed point theorem is named in his honor. He proved the simplicial approximation theorem in the foundations of algebraic topology, which justifies the reduction to combinatorial terms, after sufficient subdivision of simplicial complexes, the treatment of general continuous mappings. |
| Hugh L. Dryden | |
1976 (source) |
Died
2 Dec 1965 (born 2 Jul 1898)
Hugh L(atimer) Dryden was a U.S. physicist and deputy administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA, 1958) for 7 years. He made pioneering studies in the aerodynamics of high speed and some of the earliest studies of air flow around wing surfaces at the speed of sound. During WW II he headed the Washington Project of the National Defense Research Committee, which developed the Bat radar-homing missile, the first successful U.S. guided missile, which was used by the navy against the Japanese during WW II. In 1962, he led negotiations for joint U.S.-Soviet space projects. He was instrumental in achieving the exchange of weather-satellite data and operation of cooperative communications satellite tests. |
| Manfred J. Sakel | |
(source) |
Died
2 Dec 1957 (born 6 Jun 1900)
Manfred Joshua Sakel was a Polish neurophysiologist and psychiatrist who introduced insulin-shock therapy for schizophrenics and other mental patients in 1927, while a young doctor in Vienna. Insulin-induced coma and convulsions, due to the low level of glucose attained in the blood (hypoglicemic crisis) improved the mental state of drug addicts and psychotics, sometimes dramatically. His findings indicated that up to 88% of his patients improved with insulin shock therapy. His method became widely applied for many years in mental institutions worldwide. He immigrated to the U.S. ahead of WW II. in 1936. "Sakel's Therapy" is still used in Europe, but in the U.S. it has been superceded by electroconvulsive therapy and other means of treatment. |
| James Henry Breasted | |
(source) |
Died
2 Dec 1935 (born 27 Aug 1865)
American Egyptologist, archaeologist, and historian who promoted research on ancient Egypt and the ancient civilizations of western Asia. He was the first scholar in America to hold a professorship in Egyptology when he was appointed at at the University of Chicago in 1905. From 1919 to 1920 he headed the University’s first archaeological survey of Egypt and western Asia. He also led several other later expeditions. The institute, under his leadership, became one of America’s leading centers of archaeological study and Middle Eastern scholarship. Breasted wrote numerous books that include A History of Egypt (1905) and Ancient Times: A History of the Early World (1916, revised in 1944). 
A
Brief History of Ancient Times, by James Henry Breasted. |
| Philippe Lebon | |
(source) |
Died
2 Dec 1804 (born 29 May 1767)
French engineer and chemist, inventor of illuminating gas. He was born in the charcoal-burning town of Bruchay, France. In 1797 he began work that led to his invention of the first gas lighting. Heating sawdust in a glass tube over a flame produced a flammable gas. It smelled badly, and was smoky. He used the gas distilled from wood in his Thermolampe ("heat lamp") which he patented and exhibited in 1799. For several months he exhibited in 1801 a large version of the lamp in a Paris hotel. On the day of the ceremony for Napoleon's coronation in 1804, Lebon was robbed and fatally stabbed. William Murdoch, working independently in Scotland at the same time, produced, purified and stored gas; and more successfully introduced gas lighting. |
| Gerardus Mercator | |
(source) |
Died
2 Dec 1594 (born 5 Mar 1512)
Flemish cartographer whose most important innovation was a map, embodying what was later known as the Mercator projection, on which parallels and meridians are rendered as straight lines spaced so as to produce at any point an accurate ratio of latitude to longitude. He also introduced the term atlas for a collection of maps. |
| DECEMBER 2 - EVENTS | |
| Jarvik artificial heart | |
(source) |
In 1982, Dr. William C. DeVries
replaced the diseased heart of Barney Clark with the Jarvik-7, the first
permanent artificial heart ever used for a human patient. This was
the first of a series of five implants of the Jarvik total artificial heart
during the next three years. The first patient, 61-year-old Barney Clark,
survived for 112 days. Only four others received the Jarvik as a permanent
replacement heart. The second, William Schroeder, lived 620 days, dying
in Aug 1986 at age 54. Further patients received the artificial heart designed
by Robert K. Jarvik only as a
temporary device while awaiting heart transplants. [Image:
May 1985 LIFE magazine cover showing Bill Schroeder with Dr/ William
DeVries.]
After
Barney Clark: Reflections on the Utah Artificial Heart Program,
by Margery W. Shaw. |
| Atomic power station | |
(source) |
In 1957, the first full-scale atomic electric generating station
in the U.S. began operation in Shippingport, Pennsylvania -15 years to
the day after Fermi's experiment at the University of Chicago. The plant
reached full power 21 days later, generating 60 megawatts of power for
Pittsburgh. The Duquesne Light Co. of Pittsburgh built and operated the
Shippingport plant on a site it owned on the Ohio River 25 miles away from
Pittsburgh. The reactor plant was designed by the Westinghouse Electric
Corporation in cooperation with the Division of Naval Reactors of the Atomic
Energy Commission. President Dwight D. Eisenhower opened it on 26 May 1958,
as part of his "Atoms for Peace" program. The Shippingport nuclear powerplant
was retired
in 1982. |
| Atomic chain reaction | |
 |
In 1942, the first self-sustained nuclear chain reaction was demonstrated
in Chicago, Illinois. At the University of Chicago, Enrico
Fermi and his team achieved the world's first artificial nuclear chain
reaction, in a makeshift lab underneath the University's football
stands at Stagg Field. Work on the experimental pile had begun on 16
Nov 1942. It was a prodigious effort. Physicists and staffers, working
around the clock, built a lattice of 57 layers of uranium metal and uranium
oxide embedded in graphite blocks. A wooden structure supported the graphite
pile. The chain reaction was part of the Manhattan Project, a secret wartime
project to develop nuclear weapons, which initiated the modern nuclear
age. This was a discovery that changed the world. |
| Telescope 200-inch lens | |
(source) |
In 1934, the molten glass was poured
in the Corning, N.Y. for the first 200-inch diameter telescope mirror.
Pyrex glass at 2,700 degrees Fahrenheit was poured
into a ceramic mold. The mold had been constructed over a period of several
months. The temperature of the glass was lowered during 11 months, a degree
or two a day. It was then allowed to cool to room temperature. The 20-ton
disk was shipped 26 Mar 1936 for grinding and polishing at the California
Institute of Technology, which spanned 11 years, completed on 3 Oct 1947.
It was installed in a telescope
at the Mount Palomar Observatory on Palomar Mountain, San Diego County,
California, which was named the Hale telescope in honour of Dr
George Hale who had conceived and promoted it. Image:
With the same size and weight as the 200 inch mirror, this cement disk
was used while the telescope was built to test the mount. |
| Liquid air | |
(source) |
In 1895, James Dewar exhibited his new apparatus for the production of
liquid
air at the Royal Institution. *[p.30] |
| Liquid oxygen | |
(source) |
In 1877, Louis-Paul Cailletet (1832-1913) became the first to liquefy
oxygen. Shortly after, he also was first to liquefy nitrogen, hydrogen,
nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide, and acetylene. Cailletet realized
that the failure of others to liquefy the permanent gases, even under enormous
pressures, was explained by Thomas Andrews's concept of critical temperature.
He succeeded in producing
liquid oxygen by allowing the cold, compressed gas to expand, depending
on the effect discovered by Joule and Thomson, that cooled the gas to below
its critical temperature. In later experiments he liquefied nitrogen and
air. Raoul Pictet, working independently, used a similar technique. He
also invented the altimeter and the high-pressure manometer. Image:
Cailletet's Liquefier. |
