| DECEMBER 9 - BIRTHS | |
| Henry Way Kendall | |
(source) |
 Born 9
Dec 1926; died 15 Feb 1999.
American nuclear physicist who shared the 1990 Nobel Prize for Physics with Jerome Isaac Friedman and Richard E. Taylor for obtaining experimental evidence for the existence of the subatomic particles known as quarks. To study the internal structure of the proton, they worked with the 3-km linear accelerator recently opened at Stanford (SLAC). Electrons were accelerated to an energy of 20,000 million electronvolts and directed against a target of liquid hydrogen. In 1969 Kendall helped found the Union of Concerned Scientists. In 1997, in connection with the Kyoto Climate Summit, he helped produce a statement signed by 2,000 scientists calling for action on global warming. |
| William Nunn Lipscomb, Jr. | |
(source) |
Born 9
Dec 1919
American physical chemist who won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1976 for his research on the structure of boranes (boron hydride compounds), work which also answered general questions about chemical bonding. Boranes became important in chemical research in the 1940s and ‘50s because of the need to find volatile uranium compounds (borohydrides) for isotope separation, as well as the need to develop high-energy fuels for rockets and jet aircraft. To map the molecular structures of boranes, Lipscomb also developed x-ray techniques that later found application in many other areas of chemical research. Lipscomb's research interests included the relationship of three-dimensional structure and mechanisms of enzymes and other proteins. |
| James Rainwater | |
(source) |
Born 9
Dec 1917; died 31 May 1986.
Leo James Rainwater was an American physicist who won a share of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1975 for his part in determining the asymmetrical shapes of certain atomic nuclei. During WW II, Rainwater worked on the Manhattan Project to develop the atomic bomb. In 1949 he began formulating a theory that not all atomic nuclei are spherical, as was then generally believed. The theory was tested experimentally and confirmed by Danish physicists Aage N. Bohr and Ben R. Mottelson. For their work the three scientists were awarded jointly the 1975 Nobel Prize for Physics. He also conducted valuable research on X rays and took part in Atomic Energy Commission and naval research projects. |
| Grace Murray Hopper | |
(source) |
Born 9
Dec 1906; died 1 Jan 1992.
née Grace Brewster Murray) American mathematician and rear admiral in the U.S. Navy. She pioneered the development of computer technology. Her ideas contributed to the first commercial electronic computer, Univac I, and naval applications for COBOL (co-mmon b-usiness o- riented l-anguage). With a Ph.D. in Mathematics from Yale University (1934), she taught mathematics (Vassar, 1931-43), before she joined the Naval Reserve. In 1944, she was commissioned as a Lieutenant (Junior Grade) 1944, assigned to the Bureau of Ordnance where she became involved in the early development of the electronic computer. For more than four decades, she was a leader in computer applications and programming languages.  Grace
Hopper: Admiral Of The Cyber Sea, by Kathleen Broome
Williams. |
| George Wallace Kidder | |
 |
Born 9
Dec 1902; died 1996.
American biochemist who demonstrated that a chemical distinction exists between tumorous and normal cells. He was a protozoologist for a number of years in his early career. His study of tetrahymena, a one-cell, pond ciliate with a basic biochemical pattern in most respects resembling that of human cells, led to his discoveries in abnormal growths and, ultimately, in cancerous cells. In spring of 1949, Kidder and his associates discovered that azaguanine, a metabolic analog of guanine, would inhibit the growth of certain forms of cancer and leukemia in mice without injuring the normal cells of the host. (Subsequently, other researchers found to be unsuccessful in cancer treatment of humans, even toxic.) |
| Joseph Needham | |
(source) |
Born 9
Dec 1900; died 24 Mar 1995.
(Noël) Joseph (Terence Montgomery) Needham was an English biochemist, embryologist, and historian of science who wrote and edited the landmark history Science and Civilisation in China, a remarkable multivolume study of nearly every branch of Chinese medicine, science, and technology over some 25 centuries. As head of the British Scientific Mission in China (1942-46) he worked to assure adequate liaison between Chinese scientists and technologists and their colleagues in the West. As an historian of science and technology he wanted to break through the parochial, Europe-centred views of most of his colleagues by disclosing the achievements of traditional China and the contributions made by China leading up to the scientific revolution. |
| Clarence Birdseye | |
(source) |
Born 9
Dec 1886; died 7 Oct 1956.
Inventor of the deep freezing food method and co-founder of General Foods Corp. On Arctic trips as a field naturalist for the United States government, he noticed that freshly caught fish, when placed onto the Arctic ice and exposed to the icy wind and frigid temperatures, froze solid almost immediately. He learned, too, that the fish, when thawed and eaten, still had all its fresh characteristics. He concluded that quickly freezing certain items kept large crystals from forming, preventing damage to their cellular structure. In Sep 1922, Clarence organized his own company, Birdseye Seafoods, Inc., New York City, where he began processing chilled fish fillets. In 1924, he developed an entirely new type of process to freeze dressed fish packed in cartons.  |
| Fritz Haber | |
(source) |
Born 9
Dec 1868; died 29 Jan 1934.
German physical chemist, winner of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry (1918) for his development of a method of synthesizing ammonia (1909) directly from nitrogen and hydrogen. This led to commercial large-scale production of nitrogen fertilizer.With the expertise of Carl Bosch, a chemist working at the Badische Anilin- und Soda- Fabrik (BASF), obstacles which hindered the large-scale adoption of the process were overcome and the Haber-Bosch process was born. The Haber-Bosch high pressure process followed in the 1920s. Haber was also responsible for introducing poison gases for chemical warfare in WW I. Being a Jew, he left Germany in 1933 to go into exile in Britain, working in Cambridge at the Cavendish Laboratory.
"Fritz
Haber: Chemist, Nobel Laureate, German, Jew: A Biography" by
Dietrich Stoltzenberg |
| Claude Louis Berthollet | |
(source) |
Born 9
Dec 1748; died 6 Nov 1822.
(Count) French chemist who was the first to note that the completeness of chemical reactions depends in part upon the masses of the reacting substances (1803); he thus came close to formulating the law of mass action. Though he incorrectly concluded that elements unite in all proportions, his resulting controversy with the chemist Joseph-Louis Proust led to the establishment of the law of definite proportions. He continued Scheele's research on chlorine, showing in 1785 how it could be used for bleaching. He continued Priestley's investigation of ammonia, and was the first to show it was a compound of hydrogen and nitrogen. He discovered potassium chlorate. |
| Carl Wilhelm Scheele | |
(source) |
Born 9
Dec 1742; died 21 May 1786.
(also Karl) Swedish chemist who discovered oxygen in 1772. Scheele, a keen experimenter, worked in difficult and often hazardous conditions. In his only book, Chemical Observations and Experiments on Air and Fire (1777), he stated that the atmosphere is composed of two gases, one supporting combustion, which he named "fire air" (oxygen), and the other preventing it, which he named "vitiated air" (nitrogen). Due to delay in his publication, he lost priority to Priestley's discovery of oxygen in 1774. Scheele discovered many substances, such as chlorine (1774), manganese (1774), tungsten (1781), molybdenum (1782), glycerol, hydrocyanic (prussic) acid, citric acid, hydrogen sulphide and hydrogen fluoride. He also discovered a process resembling pasteurization. |
| William Whiston | |
(source) |
Born 9
Dec 1667; died 22 Aug 1752.
Anglican priest and mathematician who sought to harmonize religion and science, and who is remembered for reviving in England the heretical views of Arianism. He attended Newton's lectures while at Cambridge and showed great promise in mathematics. While chaplain to the bishop of Norwich (1694-98), he wrote A New Theory of the Earth (1696), in which he claimed that the biblical stories of the creation, flood etc. could be explained scientifically as descriptions of events with historical bases. The Flood, he believed, was caused by a comet passing close to the Earth on 28 Nov 2349 BC. This put stress on the Earth's crust, causing it to crack and allow the water to escape and flood the Earth. William
Whiston: Honest Newtonian, by James E. Force. |
|
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| DECEMBER 9 - DEATHS | |
| Mary Douglas Leakey | |
(source) |
 Died
9 Dec 1996 (born 6 Feb 1913)
(née Nicol) English-born archaeologist and paleoanthropologist who made several of the most important fossil finds subsequently interpreted and publicized by her husband, the noted anthropologist Louis Leakey. For every vivid claim made by Louis about the origins of man, the supporting evidence tended to come from Mary's scrupulous scientific approach. As "the woman who found our ancestors", Mary's work in East Africa shed new light on human evolution. After Louis' death in 1972, she enjoyed her most spectacular find: three trails of fossilised hominid footprints 3.6 million years old, which she discovered at Laetoli in Tanzania (1978-9) showing man's ancestors were walking upright at a much earlier period than previously believed. Ancestral
Passions: The Leakey Family and the Quest for Humankind's Beginnings,
by Virginia Morell. |
| Joseph G(ilbert) Hoffman | |
 |
Died
9 Dec 1974 (born 19 Aug 1909)
American physicist and biophysicist who brought atomic isotopes into the battle against cancer. During WW II, he developed a radio proximity fuse and later was a health-physics scientist with "Manhattan Project." Hoffman studied nine accident victims of radiation disease at Los Alamos in Aug 1945 and May 1946. This research revealed for the first time that atoms of living human tissue could be transformed into radioactive atoms. He recognized "a completely new approach to studying the metabolism of atoms in living tissue and a new way of probing the complicated system of gene cells that determine heredity," and such knowledge was indispensable to understanding the mysteries of cancer research in which he engaged for the rest of his life.« The
life and death of cells, by Joseph G Hoffman. |
| G. Kingsley Noble | |
 |
Died
9 Dec 1940 (born 20 Sep 1894)
Gladwyn Kingsley Noble was an American biologist and zoologist. After WW I, he began his life's work at the American Museum of Natural History, specializing in herpetology (the study of reptiles and amphibians) and experimental biology investigations using techniques of endocrinology and neurology. In an article published in Nature on 7 Aug 1926, Noble debunked Kammerer's claim that he had induced nuptial pads on midwife toads that were hereditary. After Noble examined preserved a specimen, he revealed the pad was simulated with injected Indian ink. This set off an academic bombshell. He died at the very height of his ability, at age 47, from a streptococcus infection of the throat. |
| Nils Dalén | |
(source) |
Died
9 Dec 1937 (born 30 Nov 1869)
Swedish engineer who won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1912 for his invention of the automatic sun valve, or Solventil, which regulates a gaslight source by the action of sunlight, turning it off at dawn and on at dusk or at other periods of darkness. It rapidly came into worldwide use for buoys and unmanned lighthouses. While recovering from an accident, convalescing at home, he noticed how much time his wife spent caring for their wood-burning stove. He decided to invent a more efficient and cost-effective stove. In 1922, Dalen's Amalgamated Gas Accumulator Co. patented his design and put the first AGA stoves into production. These stoves produced a radiant heat that kept the kitchen warm. The AGA remains popular today. |
| Lafayette Benedict Mendel | |
(source) |
Died
9 Dec 1935 (born 5 Feb 1872)
American biochemist whose discoveries concerning the value of vitamins and proteins helped establish modern concepts of nutrition. Collaborating with Thomas Osborne, together they published more than 100 papers on various aspects of nutrition (1909-28). In 1913, they showed that rats developed xerophthalmia on diets in which lard supplied the fat. The condition was cured by substitution of butterfat. Thus, they discovered butterfat contained a growth- promoting factor necessary for development, soon known as fat-soluble vitamin A, (co-discovered simultaneously by Elmer McCollum). Mendel also contributed to discovery of B complex vitamins (1915) and linked the nutritive value of proteins to their amino acids. |
| Théodule-Armand Ribot | |
(source) |
Died
9 Dec 1916 (born 18 Dec 1839)
French psychologist who pioneered in experimental psychology and conducted influential psychpathological studies. His endeavour to account for memory loss as a symptom of progressive brain disease was published in his Les Maladies de la mémoire (1881; Diseases of Memory), constitutes the most influential early attempt to analyze abnormalities of memory in terms of physiology. Ribot was instrumental in introducing dynamic psychology in France. In 1885 Ribot was appointed to teach the first course in experimental psychology offered by the Sorbonne, at the University of Paris. |
| Carl Culmann | |
(source) |
Died
9 Dec 1881 (born 10 Jul 1821)
German bridge and railway engineer whose graphic methods of structural analysis have been widely applied to engineering and mechanics. He wrote the first book on graphic statics, published in 1866. Stress trajectories are one of the original topics presented in this book. In 1849-1850, Culmann spent two years traveling in England and the United States to study bridges, which he later wrote about in Germany. He designed numerous bridge structures at the newly organized Zürich Polytechnicum. The works of Culmann, among other things, have been taken up for the design of the central arched bridges of the Eiffel Tower, and were also quoted by Pier Luigi Nervi in his patent on the construction of reinforced concrete-slab floors. |
| Joseph Bramah | |
1778 (source) |
Died
9 Dec 1814 (born 13 Apr 1748)
English engineer and inventor whose lock manufacturing shop was the cradle of the British machine-tool industry. Central in early Victorian lockmaking and manufacturing, he influenced almost every mechanical trade of the time. Like Henry Ford, his influence was probably greater for the manufacturing processes he developed, than the product itself. He took out his first patent on a safety lock (1784) and in 1795 he patented his hydraulic press, known as the Bramah press, used for heavy forging. He devised a numerical printing machine for bank notes and was one of the first to suggest the practicability of screw propellers and of hydraulic transmission. He invented milling and planing machines and other machine tools, a beer-engine (1797), and a water-closet. [left] |
| DECEMBER 9 - EVENTS | |
| Computer mouse | |
(source) |
In 1968, the first demonstration
of the use of a computer mouse
was given
at the American Federation of Information
Processing Societies' Fall Joint Computer Conference at Stanford
University, California. The mouse's inventor, Doug
Engelbart and a small team of researchers from the Stanford Research Institute
stunned the computing world with an extraordinary demonstration at a San
Francisco computer conference. They debuted the computer mouse, graphical
user interface, display editing and integrated text and graphics, hyper-documents,
and two-way video-conferencing with shared workspaces. These concepts and
technologies were to become the cornerstones of modern interactive computing. |
| Thin-film memory | |
(source) |
In 1960, the first electronic computer to employ thin-film memory was announced
when Sperry Rand Corporation, of St. Paul, Minn., unveiled a new computer,
known as Univac 1107
[left]. Thin film magnetic memory technology was developed by Sperry Rand
through government funded research. A thin film (4 millionths of an inch
thick) of iron-nickel alloy was deposited on small glass plates. This provided
very fast access times in the range of 0.67 microseconds, but was very
expensive to produce. The Univac 1107, intended for the civilian marketplace,
used thin film memory only for its 128-word general register stack. Military
computers, where money was less of a concern, used larger amounts of thin
film memory. |
| Leaded gasoline | |
(source) |
In 1921, tetraethyl lead was first
given a laboratory test as an anti-knock additive to gasoline fuel. The
knock in the one-cylinder laboratory engine was utterly silenced. Even
at a strength of only 2-3g grams per gallon (1000 to 1 dilution), it had
a remarkable ability to quiet the relentless knocking. This invention
of Thomas Midgley, Jr., of the General Motors Research Laboratories, located
in Dayton, Ohio, was first put on public sale as ethyl gasoline in the
same city on 2 Feb 1923. This invention of
leaded gasoline came after seven years of testing at least 33,000 compounds.
Previously, on hard acceleration, an engine sometimes made knocking, popping
or crackling sounds, which sapped power and could damage the engine.
From
the Periodic Table to Production: The Life of Thomas Midgley, Jr.by
Thomas Midgley. |
| First bicycle on U.S. stamp | |
(source) |
In 1902, the first U.S. stamp to show a bicycle in its design was issued.
This blue 10-cent Special Delivery "Messenger on Bicycle" stamp showed
in a small way how technology was coming in America's future, because it
replaced earlier issues of a design showing a "running" messenger.
When the special delivery service was initiated with its own 10-cent stamp
the earliest known use of that stamp was on 6 Sep 1888 (which is used to
date the stamp as in earlier times there was no formal day-of-issue.) A
few varieties of the same running messenger were issued in the years prior
to the 1902 Messenger on Bicycle stamp.« |
| Roller skates | |
(source) |
In 1884, the first U.S. patent for ball-bearing roller
skates was issued to Levant M. Richardson of the Richardson Skate Company,
Chicago, Illinois. This design allowed until then unseen speed. (No. 308,990) |
| Silver suture | |
(source) |
In 1845, J. Marion Sims (1813-83) began his experiments (1845-50) to use
a fine silver wire for sutures. In his era, the suture materials used for
vaginal tears, mostly silk and catgut, absorbed bodily fluid, caused inflammation
around the wounds, promoting horrible infections that would never heal.
So he used a fine silver wire he had drawn by a jeweller. Sims successfully
performed
a vesico-vaginal fistula operation on 21 Jun 1849 in Montgomery, Ala. The
suture was removed on the eight day after the operation. He reported his
technique in an article "On the Treatment of Vesico-vaginal Fistula" in
the American Journal of the Medical Sciences. For his development
of techniques and instruments, Sims is known
as the "Father of Modern American Gynecology." |
