| DECEMBER 14 - BIRTHS | |
| Nikolay Gennadiyevich Basov | |
(source) |
 Born 14
Dec 1922
Soviet physicist, best known for the development of the maser, the precursor of the laser. In 1955, while working as a research student with Aleksandr Prokhorov (1916- ) at the Soviet Academy of Sciences, he devised a microwave amplifier based on ammonia molecules. The two scientists shared the 1964 Nobel Prize (with American Charles Townes (1915- ), who independently developed a maser), for basic research in quantum electronics that led to the development of both the maser and the laser. These devices produce monochromatic, parallel, coherent beams of microwaves and light, respectively. Basov went on to develop the laser principle, and introduced the idea of using semiconductors to achieve laser action (1958). |
| Solomon Spiegelman | |
(source) |
Born 14
Dec 1914; died 21 Jan 1983.
American microbiologist and geneticist who discovered that only one of two strands of molecules that make up DNA, carried the genetic information to produce new substances. The carrier was called ribonucleic acid (RNA). In 1962, he developed a technique that allowed the detection of specific RNA and DNA molecules in cells. This technique, called nucleic acid hybridization, is credited for helping to lay the groundwork for current advances in recombinant DNA technology. Much earlier, his Ph.D. thesis (1944) was the first work to establish that genes are activated and deactivated by compounds that he called inducers, which thus radically affect the pattern of proteins that a cell fabricates without actually altering the genes themselves. |
| Hans Joachim Pabst von Ohain | |
(source) |
Born 14
Dec 1911; died 13 Mar 1998.
German aeronautical engineer who designed the first operational jet engine. Ohain, at age 22, conceived his theory of jet propulsion (1933) because to fly faster, airplanes could fly higher for lower air resistance, but there, propellers and piston engines worked badly. He saw turbojets as a solution, and took out his first patent on the gas-turbine jet engine in 1935, four years after Frank Whittle. By Sep 1937, Ohain had a hydrogen-fueled bench model producing a 250-km thrust. He designed the HeS3b turbojet engine that powered the first experimental jet aircraft, the He178, on its historic maiden flight at a top speed of about 350 mph on 27 Aug 1939, near Rostock, Germany. Whittle's first jet flew later, in 1941. After WW II, Ohain worked for the U.S. airforce (1947-79).  Hans
Von Ohain: Elegance in Flight, by Margaret Conner. |
| Edward L. Tatum | |
(source) |
Born 14
Dec 1909; died 5 Nov 1975.
American biochemist whose research helped create the field of molecular genetics. With George Beadle and Joshua Lederberg, he won the 1958 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. Tatum began research with Beadle in 1940. They irradiated spores of bread moulds, allowed them to germinate, and discovered three mutant strains that had lost the ability to synthesize specific vitamins, implying that in each case the necessary enzyme was missing or nonfunctional. The mutants differed from normal by only a single gene, which showed that specific genes determine the structure of particular enzymes or otherwise act by regulating specific chemical processes in living things. Tatum and Lederberg discovered genetic recombination in certain bacteria (1946). |
| Sir William Watson Cheyne | |
(source) |
Born 14
Dec 1852; died 19 Apr 1932.
(1st Baronet) surgeon and bacteriologist who was a pioneer of antiseptic surgical methods in Britain. Educated at Aberdeen University, then as an assistant to Lord Lister, one of the foremost surgeons of his day, he helped to formulate antiseptic techniques which revolutionised 19th century surgery. In 1885, he defined the four operational principles to respect to avoid the infection: surgical washing of the hands of the surgeon, sterilization of the instruments, disinfection of the operational site and protection by fields, and reduction of the number of germs present in the environment. During the Boer War in South Africa, he was Consultant Surgeon to Lord Roberts and wrote extensively on the problems of surgery in warfare. |
| Abram Lyle | |
(source) |
Born 14 Dec 1820; died 30 Apr 1891.
Scottish shipowner and sugar refiner, known for Lyle's Golden Syrup. Lyle began in his father's cooperage business, but later extended into shipping with John Kerr. Their fleet grew from 161 tons in 1849 to 22,000 tons in 1870. As a cooper, Lyle supplied casks to ship Caribbean sugar and molasses. This led them to join with other partners to operate the Glebe Sugar Refinery (1865). Lyle moved the shipping operation in 1881 to wharves in East London where he built a refinery specialising in the production of golden syrup. When the price of raw sugar collapsed in 1882, Lyle suffered huge losses forcing reduction of his business holdings, yet his golden syrup product eventually thrived. Sugar refiner Henry Tate amalgamated with Lyle in 1921.« [Image right: Lyle's Golden Syrup tin showing the original motif of a sleeping lion surrounded by bees.] |
| John Bloomfield Jervis | |
(source) |
Born 14
Dec 1795; died 12 Jan 1885.
American civil engineer who made outstanding contributions in construction of canals, railroads, and water-supply systems for the expanding United States. Jervis began his career in Rome as an Axeman for an Erie Canal survey party in 1817. By 1823 he was superintendent of a 50-mile section of the Erie Canal. After appointment in 1827 as its Chief Engineer, he won approval of his idea that a railroad be incorporated into the Delaware and Hudson Canal project, at a time there were no railroads in America. Jervis even designed its locomotive, the Stourbridge Lion, the first locomotive to run in America. He designed and built the 41-mile Croton Aqueduct (New York City's water supply for fifty years: 1842-91), and the Boston Aqueduct. |
| Tycho Brahe | |
(source) |
Born 14
Dec 1546; died 24 Oct 1601.
Danish astronomer whose work in developing astronomical instruments and in measuring and fixing the positions of stars paved the way for future discoveries. He studied the nova of 1572 ("Tycho's star") showed that it was a fixed star. His report, De nova...stella (1573), was taken by many as proof of the inadequacy of the traditional Aristotelian cosmology. In 1577, he moved to his own observatory on Hven Island (financed by King Frederick II). Before the invention of the telescope, using his nine-foot armillary sphere and his fourteen-foot mural quadrant, he charted the positions of 777 stars with an unparallelled accuracy. In 1599 he moved to Prague, with Johannes Kepler as his assistant. |
|
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| DECEMBER 14 - DEATHS | |
| Andrey Dmitriyevich Sakharov | |
(source) |
 Died
14 Dec 1989 (born 21 May 1921)
Soviet nuclear physicist, an outspoken advocate of human rights in the Soviet Union. At the end of World War II, Sakharov returned to pure science and the study of cosmic rays. Two years later, he began work with a secret research group on the development of the hydrogen bomb, and he is believed to have been principally responsible for the Soviets' success in exploding their first thermonuclear bomb (1954). With I.E. Tamm, he proposed controlled thermonuclear fusion by confining an extremely hot ionized plasma in a torus-shaped magnetic bottle, known as a tokamak device. He became politically more active in the 1960s, campaigned against nuclear proliferation, and from 1980 to 1986, he was banished and kept under police surveillance. |
| Donald Menzel | |
(source) |
Died
14 Dec 1976 (born 11 Apr 1901)
Donald H(oward) Menzel was an American astronomer best known for his arguments against the existance of extraterrestrial UFO's. Menzel was one of the first practitioners of theoretical astrophysics in the United States and pioneered the application of quantum mechanics to astronomical spectroscopy. An authority on the sun's chromosphere, he discovered with J. C. Boyce (1933) that the sun's corona contains oxygen. With W. W. Salisbury he made (1941) the first of the calculations that led to radio contact with the moon in 1946. He supervised the assignment of names to newly discovered lunar features. "Mathematical
Physics" by Donald H. Menzel |
| Sir James Gray | |
(source) |
Died
14 Dec 1975 (born 14 Oct 1891)
English zoologist who played a leading part in changing the main objective of 20th-century zoological research from evolutionary comparative anatomy to the functional analysis of living cells and living animals, particularly through his editorship (1925-54) of the Journal of Experimental Biology. He authored How Animals Move (1953), and Animal Locomotion (1968). Gray applied mechanical principles to the analysis of animal movement. In 1936, his calculations started a controversy, called Gray's paradox, concerning comparisons of swimming efficiency in fish and in submarines. Energetics calculations suggest that fish and other ocean denizens are much more efficient swimmers than subs, while theoretical hydrodynamic calculations suggest they are not. |
| John J. Bittner | |
| Died
14 Dec 1961 (born 25 Feb 1904)
John J(oseph) Bittner was an American geneticist who isolated a "Bittner milk factor" (1949) from the milk of certain mice, which strongly suggested that at least some viruses can cause cancer. Using carefully bred strains of mice, he compared the role of the mother's genetic disposition to be either prone to cancer or resistant. By having the mice of one disposition act as foster mothers and nurse the babies of the other disposition, he showed that cancer-prone young could grow to be cancer resistant. The opposite was also true: babies originally cancer-resistant became cancer prone. He published this observation (1936), and went on to isolate particles of a virus-like size from the milk of cancer-prone mice that were not present in the milk of cancer-resistant mice. |
|
| Herman Haupt | |
(source) |
Died
14 Dec 1905 (born 26 Mar 1817)
American civil engineer, manufacturer and inventor, known especially for his work on the Hoosac Tunnel in Massachusetts. He designed and patented his Haupt Truss configuration in 1839. His greatest achievement came as Chief of construction and transportation for the military railroad system for the Union Army in the Civil War. Haupt supervised the rebuilding of bridges, restoration of track, integration of the railroad network, and the scheduling of shipments, He facilitated the rapid movement of troops and supplies that gave the Federal government a vitally important strategic advantage over the Confederacy. The systemization of the military railroads also provided an impetus for their postwar unification.. |
| John Harvey Kellogg | |
(source) |
Died
14 Dec 1943 (born 26 Feb 1852)
American physician and health-food pioneer whose development of dry breakfast cereals was largely responsible for the creation of the flaked-cereal industry. In 1876, at age 24, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg became the staff physician at the Battle Creek Sanitarium, a position he would hold for 62 years. His surgical skill was admired by the Doctors Mayo. A vegetarian, he advocated low calorie diets and developed peanut butter, granola, and toasted flakes. He warned that smoking caused lung cancer decades before this link was studied. Kellogg was an early advocate of exercise. It was his brother, William K. Kellogg sweetened the flakes with malt, and began commercial production as the Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Company (1906). |
| Andrey Dmitriyevich Sakharov | |
|
(source) |
Died
14 Dec 1989 (born 21 May 1921)
Soviet nuclear physicist, an outspoken advocate of human rights in the Soviet Union. At the end of World War II, Sakharov returned to pure science and the study of cosmic rays. Two years later, he began work with a secret research group on the development of the hydrogen bomb, and he is believed to have been principally responsible for the Soviets' success in exploding their first thermonuclear bomb (1954). With I.E. Tamm, he proposed controlled thermonuclear fusion by confining an extremely hot ionized plasma in a torus-shaped magnetic bottle, known as a tokamak device. He became politically more active in the 1960s, campaigned against nuclear proliferation, and from 1980 to 1986, he was banished and kept under police surveillance. |
| Louis Agassiz | |
(source) |
Died
14 Dec 1873 (born 28 May 1807)
(Jean) Louis (Rodolphe) Agassiz was a Swiss-born U.S. naturalist, geologist, and teacher who made revolutionary contributions to the study of natural science with landmark work on glacier activity and extinct fishes. Agassiz began his work in Europe, having studied at the University of Munich and then as chair in natural history in Neuchatel in Switzerland. While there he published his landmark multi-volume description and classification of fossil fish. In 1846 Agassiz came to the U.S. to lecture before Boston's Lowell Institute. Offered a professorship of Zoology and Geology at Harvard in 1848, he decided to stay, becoming a citizen in 1861. His innovative teaching methods altered the character of natural science education in the U.S. |
| DECEMBER 14 - EVENTS | |
| Millau Viaduct opened | |
(source) |
In 2004, the Viaduc de Millau (Millau Viaduct) was opened, bridging
the River Tarn in Southern France. The Millau Viaduct, designed
by Sir Norman Foster, is the longest cable-stayed bridge in the world.
Taller than the Eiffel Tower, the tallest pylon is 340m high, making it
the world's highest road bridge. The roadway carries the A75 motorway from
Clermont-Ferraud south to Beziers, crosses
2.5-km and rises 270m above the valley. Before the bridge, the motor route
through the town of Millau suffered continual traffic jams, but the bridge
shortened the journey by 100 km and saved 4 hours of driving time. Construction
began 10 Oct 2001. It has a steel deck, rather than concrete roadbed.« |
| Voyager aircraft | |
(source) |
In 1986, Voyager, the experimental aircraft
piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, took off from Edwards Air Force
Base in California on the first non-stop, non-refueled flight around the
world. The trip took nine days. They piloted the aircraft from a cramped
7.5-ft long , 3.3-ft wide and under 3-ft. tall cockpit. Voyager's takeoff
weight was more than 10 times the structural weight, but its drag was lower
than almost any other powered aircraft. The aircraft's design and light-weight
structural materials allowed it to carry an unprecedented amount of fuel.
During its 25,000 mile flight, Voyager flew at an average speed
of 115.8 mph. This flight nearly doubled the previous distance record set
in 1962 by a USAF/Boeing B-52H. |
| DNA | |
 |
In 1967, the first synthesis of biologically active DNA in a test tube
was announced at a press conference by Arthur Kornberg who had worked with
Mehran Goulian at Stanford and Robert L. Sinsheimer of MIT. Kornberg chose
to replicate the relatively simple DNA chain of the Phi X174 virus, which
infects bacteria (a bacteriophage). It has a single strand of DNA only
about 5500 nucleotide building blocks long, and with about 11 genes, it
was easier to purify without breaking it up. Having isolated the Phi X174
DNA, they used the DNA from E. coli, a common bacterium in the human
intestine that could copy a DNA template from any organism. The viral DNA
template thus copied was found to be able to infect bacteria - it was error-free,
active DNA.* |
| Venus | |
(source) |
In 1962, the U.S. space probe Mariner
2 approached within about 34,000 kilometers (21,600 miles) of Venus,
transmitting first time information about this planet. Launched 27 Aug
1962 from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on an Atlas- Agenda rocket, the Mariner
2 was the world's first successful interplanetary spacecraft. It sent back
new information about interplanetary space and the very hot, heavy, mostly
carbon dioxide atmosphere. The temperature was found to be about 500 ºC
(900 ºF). Also for the first time, the spacecraft's solar wind experiment
measured the density, velocity, composition and variation over time of
the solar wind. It
discovered that Venus lacks a strong magnetic field and radiation belts. Contact was lost 3 Jan 1963. |
| Deuterium | |
 |
In 1933, Rutherford suggested the names diplogen for the newly discovered
heavy hydrogen isotope and diplon for its nucleus. He presented
these ideas in the Discussion on Heavy Hydrogen at the Royal Society. For
ordinary hydrogen, the lightest of the atoms, having a nuclues of a sole
proton, he coined a related name: haplogen. (Greek: haploos,
single; diploos, double.) In 1931, Harold Urey had discovered small
quantities of atoms of heavy hydrogen wherever ordinary hydrogen occurred.
The mass of its nucleus was double that of ordinary hydrogen. This hydrogen-2
is now called deuterium, as named by Urey (Greek: deuteros, second).
Its nucleus, named a deuteron, has a neutron in addition to a proton.
[ref:
Proc.
Roy. Soc. A, vol. 144 (1934)] |
| Transpacific cable | |
(source) |
In 1902, laying down the first cable
across the Pacific Ocean began as the British Cable
Ship Silvertown left San Francisco, California, headed for Hawaii.
(A few prior days were spent establishing the shore end.) With one-third
greater cable capacity than the former Great
Eastern, the CS
Silverton (built 1873, then named CS
Hooper) had laid many cables in different parts of the world. Night
and day, cable was laid
across 2,277 nautical miles in two weeks. It was landed near Honolulu on
1 Jan 1903. The first test message was sent that same day. Transmission
of public messages through the cable began a few days later, on 5 Jan 1903.
Later in 1903, cables
were laid from Honolulu to Midway, Midway to Guam, and Guam to Manila.
[Image
right: source] |
| Quantum physics | |
 |
In 1900, German physicist Max Planck made public his ideas on quantum physics
at a meeting of the German Physics Society, revolutionizing scientists'
understanding of physics. Planck demonstrated that in certain situations
energy exhibits characteristics of physical matter, something unthinkable
at the time. He suggested
the explanation energy exists in discrete packets, which he called "quanta." |
| Screw pointing and threading machine patent | |
(USPTO) |
In 1852, Cullen Whipple, of Providence,
R.I., patented his "Mechanism for Pointing and Threading Screw-Blanks in
the Same Machine" (U.S. No. 9477). His new design incorporated additional
cutters in the same threading machine he had patented on 18 Aug 1842 (No.
2754, reissued 5 Mar 1850). Before machines provided a point on screws,
they had blunt ends, and it was necessary to drill a starter hole. In Oct
1840, he was one of ten incorporators
of The New England Screw Co. After his original thread-cutting machine,
he invented another for shaving the heads of screws (patented 6 Apr 1843)
and one for removing the burs left in cutting the slots in the heads (patented
19 Apr 1843). He patented seven other screw-manufacturing devices.« |
| Meterorite | |
 |
In 1807, a meteorite
to be recorded in the U.S. fell at Weston (now called Easton), Conn., at
6:30 a.m., making a hole 5-ft long and 4.5-ft wide. This was the New World's
first witnessed fall
of a meteorite, with subsequent recovery of specimens, since the arrival
of the European settlers. Yale Professor Benjamin Silliman's description
of the fall and his chemical analysis of the stone meteorite, the first
performed in the U.S., received much attention in the national and international
press. A thirty-pound fragment of this Chondrite H4 became the nucleus
of Yale University’s Peabody Museum. This meteorite collection,
the oldest in the country, was begun by Silliman. Image:
The Fireball of 18 Aug 1873, near Newark-on-Trent, England. Etching by
Henry Robinson. |
| Screw machine | |
 |
In 1798, the first U.S. patent for a nut and bolt machine was issued to
inventor David Wilkinson of Rhode Island. His machine for cutting screw
threads incorporated a slide-rest, with a heavy carriage supported on three
rollers. 
Afterwards, his machine was operated by water power at Pawtucket Falls,
RI. Wilson was a machinist who also produced iron forgings and castings
for the cotton industry industry there, such as Slater's Mill. Wilkinson
later produced a large general purpose lathe (1806), a pioneering advance
that founded the American machine tool industry. [The first machine of
importance for trimming the heads of nuts and bolts was invented
later by Micah Rugg, who was issued U.S. patent No. 2,766 on 31 Aug 1842.]« |
| Imitation pearls | |
 |
In 1656, modern-day imitation pearls were first manufactured by the Frenchman
Jacquin, a rosary-bead maker. He coated the inside surface of a hollow
glass bead with a mixture made of fish scales, made centuries ago by groups
as diverse as ancient Egyptians and native Americans. Natural pearls have
been considered extremely valuable for millennia. |
