| DECEMBER 11 - BIRTHS | |
| John W. Macklin | |
(source) |
 Born 11
Dec 1939
African-American analytical chemist who refined the technique of Raman spectrometry to test very small sample sizes. Raman spectroscopy, named after its Indian inventor, uses a laser beam passed through a sample of material to determine the identity of the atoms in its molecules and how they combine. In the 1980's, Macklin collaborated with NASA scientists to analyze meteorites and cosmic dust particles looking for complex carbon-based molecules to elucidate the evolution of Earth's carbon-based life. He showed that tiny crystals in clay could adsorb carbon molecules and facilitate the action of the sun's energy to combine into them into larger ones. Macklin has also extended Raman spectrometry to the study environmental pollution. |
| Paul Greengard | |
(source) |
Born 11
Dec 1925
American neurologist who was awarded a share of the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (with Arvid Carlsson of Sweden and Austrian-American Eric R. Kandel) for their discoveries concerning how drugs affect the brain and recognizing drug addiction as a brain disease. Greengard traced the biochemical reactions that occur in nerve cells in response to neurotransmitters such as dopamine. Abused stimulants, such as methamphetamine, alter nerve cells' exposure or reactions to neurotransmitters, which produces feelings of pleasure and leads to addiction. Greengard's continuing research on how cocaine and amphetamine change neurotransmitter function may make possible medications to prevent or treat the addictive effect. |
| William J. Hamilton | |
(source) |
Born 11
Dec 1902; died 27 Jul 1990.
William J(ohn) Hamilton, Jr. was an American mammalogist and environmentalist who stressed the vital ecological role of predators and the importance of conserving fur-bearing populations. His interest in plants and animals began in childhood, and working while a teenager for three summers for Daniel C. Beard (a naturalist, artist, and cofounder of the Boy Scouts of America). Hamilton's research dealt with mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and horticulture, with a major interest was in life histories and ecology. He wrote books, including American Mammals (1939), and over 200 papers. He also made some pioneering studies of microtine life cycles.« |
| Max Born | |
(source) |
Born 11
Dec 1882; died 5 Jan 1970.
German physicist who shared the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1954 (with Walther Bothe), for his statistical formulation of the behaviour of subatomic particles. Born's studies of the wave function led to the replacement of the original quantum theory, which regarded electrons as particles, with a mathematical description. |
| James Lewis Kraft | |
(source) |
Born 11
Dec 1874; died Feb 1953.
Canadian-born manufacturer and inventor of the pasteurizing process for cheese. Founder of the Kraft Co. In 1903, J.L. Kraft established a wholesale cheese business in Chicago. Kraft had a vision of supplying America with nutritious, low-cost cheese products. In 1916, Kraft patented a processed cheese formula, based on milk solids, that would not spoil. He called it "American Cheese." The general public found it bland, but Kraft remained undaunted. He took his formula to the U.S. Army, and sold them 6 million pounds of the processed cheese product. Soldiers developed a taste for Kraft's creation. When the great depression came, the processed cheese was a boon to everyone: real cheese became hard to get and it was expensive. |
| Annie Jump Cannon | |
(source) |
Born 11
Dec 1863; died 13 Apr 1941.
American, deaf astronomer who specialized in the classification of stellar spectra. In 1896 she was hired at the Harvard College Observatory, remaining there for her entire career. The Harvard spectral classification system had been first developed by Edward C. Pickering, Director of the Observatory, around the turn of the century using objective prism spectra taken on improved photographic plates. In conjunction with Pickering Cannon was to further develop, refine, and implement the Harvard system. She reorganized the classification of stars in terms of surface temperature in spectral classes O, B, A, F, G, K, M, and catalogued over 225,000 stars for the monumental Henry Draper Catalogue of stellar spectra, (1918-24). |
| Robert Koch | |
(source) |
Born 11
Dec 1843; died 27 May 1910.
(Heinrich Hermann) Robert Koch was a German physician, one of the founders of the science of bacteriology, who discovered the tubercle bacillus (1882) and the cholera bacillus (1883). He won the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1905 for his investigations and discoveries in relation to tuberculosis. In addition Koch made important investigations concerning plague in humans, malaria, tropical dysentery, and the Egyptian eye disease (trachoma), and typhus recurrens in tropical Africa. He also carried out work of exceptional importance concerning destructive tropical cattle diseases, such as rinderpest, Surra disease, Texas fever, coast fever in cattle and the trypanosome disease carried by the tsetse fly. |
| Emil Rathenau | |
(source) |
Born 11
Dec 1838; died 20 Jun 1915.
German industrialist and a leading figure in the early European electrical industry. In 1881, he met Thomas Edison in Paris at the international electricity exhibition. After lengthy negociations, in 1882, he purchased the rights for the economic use of Edison's patents in Germany. He founded a company to manufacture them (which became one of the two largest German electrical enterprises, Allgemeine Elektrizitats Gesellschaft (AEG)-the German General Electric Company). The product range included power stations, railways as well as electrical machines and devices. Rathenau was also the first to produce aluminium in Germany for industrial use. |
| Otto von Abich | |
(source) |
Born 11
Dec 1806; died 1 Jul 1886.
Otto Wilhelm Hermann von Abich was a German geologist. His early work was on spinels and other minerals. Later, he made special studies of fumaroles, of the mineral deposits around volcanic vents, and of the structure of volcanoes. He was a supporter of volcanistic theory, and was noted for his explorations in Asia. After moving to Russia in 1843, until his retirement, he made studies that ranged among minerology, petrography, paleontological stratigraphy, tectonics, and economic geology. He developed the anticlinal theory of oil prospecting. The mineral now called clinoclasite (basic copper arsenate) was originally named Abichite after him. |
| Sir David Brewster | |
(source) |
Born 11
Dec 1781; died 10 Feb 1868.
Scottish physicist noted for his experimental work in optics and polarized light (light in which all waves lie in the same plane.) He is known for Brewster's Law, which relates the refractive index of a material to its polarizing angle (which is the incident angle at which reflected light becomes completely polarized. He patented the kaleidoscope in 1817. Later, he used lenses to improve three-dimensional images viewed with a stereoscope. Brewster also recommended the use of the lightweight, flat Fresnel lens in lighthouses. |
| Francesco Algarotti | |
| Born 11
Dec 1712; died 3 May 1764.
Italian connoisseur of the arts and sciences, recognized for his wide knowledge and elegant presentation of advanced ideas. At age 21, he wrote Il Newtonianismo per le dame (1737; "Newtonianism for Ladies"), a popular exposition of Newtonian optics. He also wrote upon architecture, opera and painting. |
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| DECEMBER 11 - DEATHS | |
| George Harold Brown | |
(source) |
 Died
11 Dec 1987 (born 14 Oct 1908)
American electrical engineer, a pioneer in radio-thermics, who made major contributions to the development of radio and television broadcast antennas. In 1936, Brown invented the so-called turnstyle antenna for television broadcasting. Because of this, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) adopted a TV system of 441 lines. In 1938, Brown developed the vestigial sideband filter for use in television transmission, doubling the horizontal resolution of television pictures at any given bandwith. During WW II, with RCA’s researchers, George Brown’s group used radio–frequency heating in the bulk dehydration of penicillin at E. R. Squibb, a "sewing machine" for thermoplastics, and more consistent riveting and welding techniques. Image: Modern weather satellite receiving turnstyle antenna. |
| Krafft Arnold Ehricke | |
(source) |
Died
11 Dec 1984 (born 24 Mar 1917)
German-born American physicist; rocketry engineer and space-travel theorist. During WW II, he was a key member of the famed Peenemunde Rocket Development team, specializing in the propulsion system for the German V-2 rocket (1942-45). He moved to the U.S. with Wernher Von Braun's rocket team in 1945. Entering the U.S. private industry in 1953, he helping develop the Atlas missile at General Dynamics. Subsequently, he invented the first liquid hydrogen propelled upper stage launch vehicle, the Centaur which enabled the U.S. to explore the solar system by launching planetary probes. A vial of his cremated remains accompany those of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry and others in space orbit, launched 20 Apr 1997. |
| Harold Stephen Black | |
(source) |
Died
11 Dec 1983 (born 14 Apr 1898)
American electrical engineer who discovered and developed the negative-feedback principle, in which amplification output is fed back into the input, thus producing nearly distortionless and steady amplification. In 1921, Black joined the forerunner of Bell Labs, in New York City, working on elimination of distortion. After six years of persistence, Black conceived his negative feedback amplifier in a flash commuting to work aboard the ferry. Basically, the concept involved feeding systems output back to the input as a method of system control. The principle has found widespread applications in electronics, including industrial, military, and consumer electronics, weaponry, analog computers, and such biomechanical devices as pacemakers. |
| Vincent du Vigneaud | |
(source) |
Died
11 Dec 1978 (born 18 May 1901)
American biochemist and winner of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1955 for his work on biochemically important sulphur compounds, especially for the first synthesis of a polypeptide hormone. Underneath the brain, the pituitary gland is well-protected and, in man about as big as a bean. It secretes several hormones, that is, substances which regulate important physiological functions. These are built up from amino acids in the same way as proteins, but with a far lower molecular weight. Vigneaud isolated and synthesized two pituitary hormones: vasopressin, which acts on the muscles of the blood vessels to cause elevation of blood pressure; and oxytocin, the principal agent causing contraction of the uterus and secretion of milk. |
| Benton MacKaye | |
(source) |
Died
11 Dec 1975 (born 6 Mar 1879)
American forester and conservationist and regional planner, who was as "father of the Appalachian Trail" was instrumental in creating a 2,000-mile footpath from Maine to Georgia. As a government planner, he spearheaded the idea of the "townless highway." Early on, he advocated preserving cultural and recreational areas in an increasingly urbanized environment. He proposed the Appalachian Trail in an Oct 1921 article. He was one of the founders of the Regional Planning Association of America (1923), through which he held a two-day "Appalachian Trail Conference" in Washington, D.C. (Mar 2-3, 1925). By 1934, 1,937 miles of the trail had been blazed through the efforts of volunteers.«  Benton
MacKaye: Conservationist, Planner, and Creator of the Appalachian Trail,
by Larry Anderson. |
| Albert Hoyt Taylor | |
(source) |
Died 11 Dec 1961 (born 1 Jan 1879)
American physicist and radio engineer, known as the "father of navy radar" whose work laid the foundation for U.S. radar development. In Sep 1922, with Leo C. Young, he proposed the detection of intruding ships by transmitting a curtain of high-frequency radio waves across harbour entrances, or between ships, with a receiver to detect disturbances caused by ships moving in the electromagnetic field. Taylor became superintendent of the Radio Division at the newly-established Naval Research Laboratory (1923-45). In 1934, he directed Robert Page to experiment with pulsed high-frequency radio signals for aircraft detection. In 1937, the first 200-MHz shipboard radar was installed. He also investigated ionospheric effects. The
Invention That Changed the World: How a Small Group of Radar Pioneers
Won the Second World War, by Robert Buderi. |
| William Cecil Dampier | |
| Died
11 Dec 1952 (born 27 Dec 1867)
British scientist, agriculturist, and science historian who developed a method of extracting lactose (milk sugar) from the surplus whey. His invention, which was later put to use on a commercial scale, was prompted by the cheese shortage in Britain during WW I. From 1917, he conducted experiments for more efficient means of production on farm land with an estate inherited from one of his uncles. He was instrumental in the formation of the Agricultural Research Council, serving as its first secretary (1931-35). In A History of Science and Its Relations with Philosophy and Religion, he surveyed scientific breakthroughs from ancient Babylonia and Egypt, through to the early twentieth century. He was knighted (1931) for public service in agriculture.« 
A
history of science and its relations with philosophy & religion,
by Sir William Cecil Dampier. |
|
| Leslie Comrie | |
(source) |
Died
11 Dec 1950 (born 15 Aug 1893)
Leslie (John) Comrie was a New Zealand astronomer and pioneer in the application of punched-card machinery to astronomical calculations. He joined HM Nautical Almanac Office (1926-36), where he replaced the use of logarithm tables with desk calculators and punched card machines for the production of astronomical and mathematical tables. This made scientific use of these machines, made originally for only business uses. In 1938, he founded the Scientific Computing Service Ltd., the first commercial calculating service in Great Britain, to further his ideas of mechanical computation for the preparation of mathematical tables. His use of card processing systems prepared the way for electronic computers.« |
| Charles Fabry | |
(source) |
Died
11 Dec 1945 (born 11 Jun 1867)
French physicist who specialized in optics, devising methods for the accurate measurement of interference effects. He worked with Alfred Pérot, during 1896-1906, on the design and uses of a device known as the Fabry-Pérot interferometer, specifically for high-resolution spectroscopy, composed of two thinly silvered glass plates placed in parallel, producing interference due to multiple reflections. In 1913, Fabry demonstrated that ozone is plentiful in the upper atmosphere and is responsible for filtering out ultraviolet radiation from the Sun, protecting life on the surface of Earth from most of its harmful effects. |
| Franz C. Schmelkes | |
| Died
11 Dec 1942 (born 19 Aug 1899)
Franz C(arl) Schmelkes was a chemist who was best known for his discovery of azochloramid, used to sterilize wounds and burns. |
|
| Frank Conrad | |
Station 8XK, 1920 (source) |
Died
11 Dec 1941 (born 4 May 1874)
American electrical engineer whose interest in radiotelephony led to the establishment of the first commercial radio station. Conrad worked for Westinghouse as assistant chief engineer at its East Pittsburgh Works and acquired over 200 patents in his lifetime. As an amateur, having built a transmitting station on the second floor of the garage behind his home in Wilkinsburg, Pa., when he substituted a phonograph for his microphone, he discovered a large audience of listeners who had built their own crystal radio sets and who, upon hearing the music, wrote or phoned requests for more music and news. When he became swamped with these requests, he decided to broadcast regular, scheduled programs to satisfy his listeners. He coined the term "broadcast." |
| Émile Picard | |
(image) |
Died
11 Dec 1941 (born 24 Jul 1856)
(Charles-) Émile Picard was a French mathematician whose theories did much to advance research into analysis, algebraic geometry, and mechanics. He made his most important contributions in the field of analysis and analytic geometry. He used methods of successive approximation to show the existence of solutions of ordinary differential equations. Picard also applied analysis to the study of elasticity, heat and electricity. |
| Georges Friedel | |
(source) |
Died
11 Dec 1933 (born 19 July 1865)
French crystallographer who formulated basic laws concerning the external morphology and internal structure of crystals. He was the son of Charles Friedel (1832-99), French mineralogist and organic chemist. He recognized, in 1892, that liquid crystals had three types of organisation (mesophases). In 1893, he became professor at the National School of the Mines in Saint-Etienne. After the First World War, he moved to the University of Strasbourg. Illness caused his premature retirement in 1930. |
| Lewis Latimer | |
(source) |
Died
11 Dec 1928 (born 4 Sep 1848)
Lewis Howard Latimer was a Black-American inventor who contributed to electrical technology. After joining a Boston firm of patent solicitors as an office boy, he taught himself drafting and eventually rose in the mid-1870's to the position of chief draftman. Meanwhile, he was issued his first patent for his invention of a water-closet for railroad cars. In 1880, he moved to be draftsman and private secretary to Hiram Stevens Maxim of the U.S. Lighting Co. where he took charge of the installation of commercial incandescent lighting systems. He patented his carbon filament lamp improvements and other inventions. By 1883, he was working for the Edison Electric Light Co., where his expertise with patents was recognised with a position with its new legal department in 1889.« |
| Ludwig Mond | |
(source) |
Died 11 Dec 1909 (born 7 Mar 1839)
German-born British chemist and industrialist who perfected a method of soda manufacture by improving the Solvay alkali process. Mond devised a process for the extraction of nickel when with his assistants, he accidentally discovered metal carbonyl compounds while investigating why nickel valves were corroded by carbon monoxide. Further research led to the synthesis of more metal carbonyls, which Lord Kelvin described as "metals with wings" and to the Mond nickel carbonyl process for refining nickel. The term “fuel cell” was coined in 1889 by Ludwig Mond and Charles Langer, who attempted to build the first practical device using air and industrial coal gas, to generate electricity by reacting hydrogen with oxygen. Image right: tetracarbonynickel (source) |
| Johann Daniel Titius | |
(source) |
Died
11 Dec 1796 (born 2 Jan 1729)
Prussian astronomer, physicist, and biologist whose formula (1766) expressing the distances between the planets and the Sun was confirmed by J.E. Bode in 1772, when it was called Bode's Law. Titius suggested that the mean distances of the planets from the sun very nearly fit a simple relationship of A=4+(3x2n) giving the series 4, 7, 10, 16, 28*, 52, 100, corresponding to the relative distance of the six known planets, up to Saturn, and an unassigned value (*) between Mars and Jupiter. Olbers searched for a planetary object at this empty position, thus discovering the asteroid belt. However, since the discovery of Neptune, which did not fit the pattern, the "law" is regarded as a coincidence with no scientific significance. |
| Georg von Kleist | |
Leyden Jar, c.1885 (source) |
Died
11 Dec 1748 (born c. 1700)
German physicist, E(wald) Georg von Kleist was dean of the Cathedral of Kamin. Kleist experimented to store electric charge efficiently, and discovered (1745) the Leyden jar, a fundamental electric circuit element for storing electricity, now usually referred to as a capacitor. The first Leyden jar was a stoppered glass jar partially filled with water with a wire or nail extending through the cork into the water. While holding the jar in one hand, the jar was charged by placing the end of the wire into contact with a static electricity producer, then removed. When Kleist touched the wire with his other hand, a discharge took place, giving himself a violent shock. The device was more thoroughly investigated by Pieter van Musschenbroek (1946). |
| DECEMBER 11 - EVENTS | |
| Genetic blueprint | |
(source) |
In 1998, scientists announced
in the Dec 11 issue of the journal Science that they have deciphered
the entire genetic blueprint of an animal - the tiny nematode worm, Caenorhabditis
elegans. This is the first time genetic instructions have been
spelt out for an animal that, like humans, has a nervous system, digests
food, and has sex. The worm's genetic code is spelt out by 97 million genetic
letters corresponding to 20,000 genes. This work is a milestone in global
efforts to unravel the entire human genetic code - or genome - which is
expected to be completed in 2003. The research grew into a collaboration
between 1,500 scientists in 250 laboratories worldwide. The efforts were
led by John Sulston, in England and Dr Bob Waterston in the U.S. |
| Mars Climate Orbiter | |
(source) |
In 1998, the Mars Climate Orbiter was successfully launched
on a Delta II rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Station in Florida. However,
the probe disappeared
on 23 Sep 1999, apparently
destroyed because scientists had failed to convert English measures to
metric values. The orbiter's instruments
would have monitored
the Martian atmosphere and image the planet's surface on a daily basis
for one Martian year (1.8 Earth years) with observations of the appearance
and movement of atmospheric dust and water vapor, as well as characterizing
seasonal changes on the surface. Images of the surface features could provide
important clues to the planet's early climate history and possible subsurface
liquid water reserves. |
| Global warming | |
|
In 1997, more than 150 countries agreed
at a global warming conference in Kyoto, Japan to control the Earth's greenhouse
gases. After nearly two weeks of negotiations, delegates to the conference
in Kyoto, Japan announced they had reached a deal
to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases produced world wide. |
|
| Last moon landing | |
(source) |
In 1972, Apollo
XVII astronauts Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt landed on the moon
for a three-day exploration, which would be the final Apollo mission to
the moon. |
| The Concorde | |
(source) |
In 1967, the Concorde, a joint British-French venture and the world’s first
supersonic airliner, was unveiled in Toulouse, France. |
| American Nuclear Society | |
(source) |
In 1954, the American Nuclear Society was founded
as a non-profit, educational organization by a group of individuals who
recognized the need to bring together professional activities within the
fields of nuclear science and technology. The mission of the society is
through its members to develop and safely apply nuclear science and technology
for public benefit through knowledge exchange, professional development,
and enhanced public understanding.« |
| Marie Curie's second Nobel Prize | |
 |
In 1911, at Stockholm, Sweden, Marie Curie became the first person to be
awarded
a second Nobel
prize. She had isolated radium by electrolyzing molten radium chloride.
At the negative electrode the radium formed an amalgam with mercury. Heating
the amalgam in a silica tube filled with nitrogen at low pressure boiled
away the mercury, leaving pure white deposits of radium. This second prize
was for her individual achievements in Chemistry, whereas her first prize
(1903) was a collaborative effort with her husband, Pierre, and Henri Becquerel
in Physics for her contributions in the discovery of radium and polonium. |
| Black American patent | |
|
In 1888, black American inventor, H. Creamer was issued a U.S. patent for
a Steam Trap Feeder (No. 394,463). He also patented five steam traps between
1887 and 1893.
Great
Discoveries and Inventions by African-Americans, by David
M. Foy |
|
| Dental anesthetic | |
Wells (source) |
In 1844, the first dental anaesthetic, nitrous oxide ("laughing
gas") was used by Dr. John M. Riggs for a tooth extraction on Dr. Horace
Wells. The previous day, Wells had attended a demonstration
of the effects of inhaling nitrous oxide gas, that was being conducted
by a travelling lecturer, Gardner Quincy
Colton. At this demonstration, Horace wells noticed that a man intoxicated
by the nitrous oxide suffered a laceration to his leg, and claimed to feel
no pain. To test the potential of nitrous oxide as an anaesthetic,
Wells arranged for Colton to administer nitrous oxide to Wells himself,
while one of Wells' associates (John M. Riggs) successfully extracted one
of his teeth. |
| Venetian blinds | |
(source) |
In 1769, Venetian blinds were patented in London by Edward Bevan in England. |
| Aurora Borealis | |
(source) |
In 1719, the first recorded sighting of the Aurora Borealis took place
in New England. The report said that a mysterious face seemed to appear
in the atmosphere. It caused considerable alarm, as being regarded by many
as a precursor of the last judgment. Most aurora borealis displays occur
in September and October and again in March and April. The green, red,
and frost-white light displays occur most frequently when there is a great
deal of sunspot activity. "This evening, about eight o'clock there arose
a bright and red light in the E.N.E. like the light which arises from a
house on fire ... which soon spread itself through the heavens from east
to west, reaching about 43 or 44 degrees in height, and was equally broad." |
