| DECEMBER 23 - BIRTHS | |
| Robert E(lliot) Kahn | |
(source) |
 Born 23
Dec 1938
American computer scientist who co-created the packet-switching protocols that enable computers to exchange information on the Internet. In the late 1960s Kahn realized that a packet-switching network could effectively transmit large amounts of data between computers. Along with fellow computer scientists Vinton Cerf, Lawrence Roberts, Paul Baran, and Leonard Kleinrock, Kahn built the ARPANET, the first network to successfully link computers around the country. Kahn and Cerf also developed the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and the Internet Protocol (IP), which together enable communication between different types of computers and networks; TCP/IP is the standard still in use today.« |
| Harold Masursky | |
(source) |
Born 23
Dec 1923; died 24 Aug 1990
American geologist and senior scientist at the U.S. Geological Survey's astrogeology branch supporting space exploration. Starting in the mid 1960s, he helped analyze the photographs from the Ranger, Lunar Orbiter, and Surveyor lunar missions. In mapping the moon, suitable landing spots were being sought for the unmanned Surveyor 5 spacecraft (1967) and the manned Apollo landings (1969-72). Masursky headed the group that interpreted television transmissions from Martian satellite Mariner 9 (1971), producing maps to plan the landing of unmanned Viking spacecraft on Mars (1976). He analyzed data on the geological origins and evolution of the planets. He collaborated in foreign projects such as the Soviet Venus probes.« |
| Niels K. Jerne | |
(source) |
Born 23
Dec 1911; died 7 Oct 1994.
British-Danish immunologist who (with César Milstein and Georges Köhler) received the 1984 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. Jerne has provided three important theories of immunology. (1) Natural selection theory of anti-body formation (1955) which initiated modern cellular immunology since the1960s. (2) Somatic generation theory of the generation of antibody diversity (1968) which brought together molecular and cellular immunology in the 1970s. (3) Network theory (1974), which explains a complex system of interactions when the immune system is activated to counteract disease and then is shut down after the need passes. The principles of this theory are beginning to be exploited in prevention, diagnosis and treatment of disease.«  Science
As Autobiography: The Troubled Life of Niels Jerne, by
Thomas Soderqvist. |
| Sebastian Wilhelm Valentin Bauer | |
(source) |
Born 23
Dec 1822; died 20 Jun 1875.
German pioneer inventor of submarines. On 1 Feb 1851, in Kiel Harbour, he made a test-dive in his first submarine, Le Plongeur-Marin ("The Marine Diver"), only to sink 50-ft due to water leaks in the hull. He survived by waiting for the inside air pressure, compressed as more water leaked in, to match the water pressure outside. Seven hours later, he and his crew opened the hatch and rose to the surface to find funeral services in progress. In 1855, Bauer built a treadmill-powered, 52-ft iron submarine, Le Diable-Marin ("The Marine Devil") carrying 11 crew. The photographs Bauer made through its windows are probably the first taken underwater. He also experimented on air purification and underwater sound signals.« |
| Karl Richard Lepsius | |
(source) |
Born 23
Dec 1810; died 10 Jul 1884.
German Egyptologist, a founding father of scientific methods in archaeology whose plans, maps and drawings of tomb and temple walls are of high accuracy and reliability. In 1842, he headed a team of carefully chosen specialists on a four year expedition to the Nile Valley sponsored by King Fredrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia. Lepsius explored Khartoum and Sennar, during which he collected 15,000 artifacts and dispatched for display in Berlin. In winter 1844-45, Lepsius travelled throughout the Valley of the Kings, recording numerous scenes and inscriptions. He returned in 1866 and found the Canopus decree at Tanis. Being written in two languages, it was a valuable cross-reference for the prior interpretation of the Rosetta stone by Champollion.« |
| Jean-François Champollion | |
(source) |
Born 23
Dec 1790; died 4 Mar 1832
French Egyptologist who established scientific methods in archaeology and pioneered in deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphics. He was well prepared, with a genius for languages, having by age 13 mastered Latin, Greek, Arabic, Syrian, and Chaldean and later Hebrew, Persian, Chinese, and Coptic, an old Egyptian language written in Greek letters. He started interpreting Egyptian hieroglyphics, building on the earlier efforts of Thomas Young. Champollion succeeded in deciphering the Rosetta Stone, a stone slab unearthed (1799) at Rosetta (near Alexandria, Egypt) inscribed in two languages and three scripts: Egyptian hieroglyphic and demotic, and Greek, each recording.a decree (196 BC) of Ptolemy V Epiphanes (reigned 205-180).« [Image right: Rosetta Stone (source)] The
Rosetta Stone: The Story of the Decoding of Hieroglyphics,
by Robert Sole, et al. |
| Sir Richard Arkwright | |
(source) |
Born 23
Dec 1732; died 3 Aug 1792.
English industrialist and inventor whose introduction of power-driven mechanization of textile factory production methods were enormously successful. The Spinning-Frame machine he invented (1769, British patent No. 931) to spin cotton yarn used multiple sets of paired rollers that turned at different speeds able to draw out yarn of the correct thickness, and a set of spindles to twist the fibres firmly together. It produced a far stronger thread that that made by the Spinning-Jenny of James Hargreaves. Arkwright's machine was too large to be manually driven, so he powered it with a water-wheel (1771) when it became known as the Water Frame. Arkwright's textile business expanded, he built more factories, and later adopted steam power.« The
Arkwrights: Spinners of Fortune, by R.S Fitton. |
| Axel Fredrik Cronstedt | |
(source) |
Born 23
Dec 1722; died 19 Aug 1765.
Swedish chemist and metallurgist who was the first to isolate nickel (1751) and notice its slight magnetic properties. A new chemical classification of minerals he made was translated to several languages. Patterns he found in the internal structure of minerals enabled him to distinguish between simple one-compound minerals and those comprised of a mixture of several minerals. He discovered zeolite, a water-softening silicate and analysed the high-density mineral calcium tungstate. By adept use of the blowpipe to intensify a flame and burn a small quantity of a mineral he could make an identification of its chemical composition based on the colouring of the flame. He did not invent the instrument, but founded systematic blowpipe analysis technique.« |
|
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| DECEMBER 23 - DEATHS | |
| Gerard Peter Kuiper | |
(source) |
 Died
23 Dec 1973 (born 7 Dec 1905)
Dutch-born American astronomer, who discovered Miranda, a moon of Uranus, and Nereid, a moon of Neptune. The Kuiper Belt is so-named after his original suggestion of its existence outside the orbit of Neptune before it was confirmed as a belt of small bodies. He measured the diameter of Pluto. In the Martian atmosphere Kuiper detected carbon dioxide, but the absence of oxygen (1947). In the 1960s, Kuiper pioneered airborne infrared observing using a Convair 990 aircraft and served as chief scientist for the Ranger spacecraft crash-landing probes of the moon. By analyzing Ranger photographs, he identified landing sites on the lunar surface most suitable for safe manned landings.« |
| Anthony Herman Gerard Fokker | |
(source) |
Died
23 Dec 1939 (born 6 Apr 1890)
Dutch-American airman and pioneer aircraft manufacturer who, having seen an airplane flight at age 16, was inspired to build his first airplane by age 20. This was a braced monoplane, the Spider he put assembled in an empty Zeppelin hangar in Baden-Baden, and flying it gained his pilot's licence. His first factory built many of Germany's WW I pursuit aircraft, and gained recognition, but at the end of the war was put out of business there by the treaty of Versailles. On 21 Jul 1919, he established a company for civil aircraft, in the Netherlands and subsequently started manufacturing in the U.S. He continued to influence airplane construction techniques, and adopted welded-steel tubing fusulage construction.« Fokker
Dr.I Triplane: A World War One Legend, by Paul Leaman. |
| Georg Elias Müller | |
(source) |
Died
23 Dec 1934 (born 20 Jul 1850)
Georg Elias Nathanael Müller was a German psychologist whose research work encompassed four principal areas: psychophysical method, memory, thought psychology, and color perception theory. The psychophysics anticipated the color theory, which was founded on Hering. The memory work led into the thought psychology, which was founded on Herbart and Külpe. Whereas earlier in his career his published works lacked original data, he sharpened his approach and became known as the methodologist of psychological experimentation. The experiments carried out in his lab were the gold standard of experimental results. He was directed one of the major centres of psychological research at the University of Göttingen (1881-1921).« |
| Pierre Janssen | |
(source) |
Died
23 Dec 1907 (born 22 Feb 1824)
Pierre (-Jules-César) Janssen was a French astronomer who in 1868 devised a method for observing solar prominences without an eclipse (an idea reached independently by Englishman Joseph Norman Lockyer). Janssen observed the total Sun eclipse in India (1868). Using a spectroscope, he proved that the solar prominences are gaseous, and identified the chromosphere as a gaseous envelope of the Sun. He noted an unknown yellow spectral line in the Sun in 1868, and told Lockyer (who subsequently recognized it as a new element he named helium, from Greek "helios" for sun). Janssen was the first to note the granular appearance of the Sun, regularly photographed it, and published a substantial solar atlas with 6000 photographs (1904).« |
| Sir (Joseph) Henry Gilbert | |
(source) |
Died
23 Dec 1901 (born 1 Aug 1817)
English chemist who as co-director with John Bennet Lawes of the Rothamsted Experimental Station, Hertfordshire, for over 50 years established a premier reputation for research at the first organized agricultural experimental station in the world. Their work applied skills in chemistry, meteorology, botany, animal and vegetable physiology, and geology to determine practical improvements for agricultural methods. They studied the nitrogen requirements of plants, how the element was taken up by plants, and the effects of nitrogen fertilizers on grain production and quality. In the 1840s, they initiated the manufacture of superphosphate fertilizer, one of their inventions.« |
| James Cowles Prichard | |
(source) |
Died 23 Dec 1848 (born 11 Feb 1786)
English physician and ethnologist who was among the first to argue that a single human species embraces all the world's races in Researches Into the Physical History of Man (1813). He was able to study sailors of many different races because his home was in the port town of Bristol. He later proposed a theory in a Treatise on Insanity and other Disorders affecting the Mind (1835) that moral insanity (psychopathic personality) was a distinct disease. Later he published on the legal questions of insanity (1842) was in 1845 moved to London as a commissioner of lunacy.« [Image right: Muck-a-tah-mish-a-kah-kaik, illustration by George Catlin, from Prichard's The Natural History of Man] James
Cowles Prichard's Anthropology: Remaking the Science of Man in Early
Nineteenth Century Britain, by H. F. Augstein. |
| DECEMBER 23 - EVENTS | |
| Smallpox virus | |
(source) |
In 1993, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, Atlanta, Georgia,
announced that the smallpox
virus stockpile would now not be destroyed. The last specimens of the
virus to exist on Earth had been secured in storage in 600 frozen vials
in Atlanta and Russia, ready to make vaccine should it ever again be necessary.
This reversed an earlier decision for final destruction of the last remnants
of smallpox
with heat on 31 Dec of the same year.
Scientists who wanted to continue
research on the virus stopped the destruction plan. Smallpox (variola)
had been one of the world's most dreaded plagues until 1977, when it was
declared eradicated. Its name comes from the pockmarks on the skin that
it caused. |
| Voyager | |
(source) |
In 1986, the experimental airplane
Voyager, piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, completed the first
non-stop, round- the- world flight without refueling which began 14 Dec.
It returned safely to Edwards Air Force Base in California after travelling
24,986 miles in 216 hours, at an average speed of 115.8 mph. For nine days
they piloted the aircraft from a cramped 7.5-ft tall , 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. Their flight nearly doubled
the previous distance record set in 1962 by a USAF Boeing B-52H. |
| Times Beach dioxin | |
(source) |
In 1982, it was announced
that the soil on unpaved roads of Times
Beach, Missouri, USA contained dangerous levels of poisonous dioxin
and its 2,800 residents were recommended to relocate. The dioxin came from
industrial waste oil sprayed on the roads for dust control in 1972-73.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) issued the health advisory report
only a few weeks after the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had started
to sample the soil. Analyses found dioxin at levels up to 127 parts per
billion. By 22 Feb 1983, the EPA pledged $33 million from the government's
Superfund for hazardous chemical cleanup to purchase
the Times Beach property. The city was subsequently bulldozed and decontaminated.«
[Image:
Aerial view of Times Beach and the Meramec River.] |
| World Trade Center | |
(source) |
In 1970, the construction of the World Trade Center in New York City reached
1353 feet high (411 m), its highest point. This was a complex
of
7 buildings
including twin 110-story towers, with 9 million sq.ft. of office space.
The towers' design by architect
Minoru Yamasaki used a steel frame with glass curtain walls. Observation
decks at the top of the towers gave a view of 45 miles. The building had
three vertical zones served by express elevators to skylobbies at the 41st
and 74th floors and local elevators within the three zones. Once the highest
skyscrapers in the world (until surpassed by the Sears
Tower, Chicago), the twin towers were totally destroyed by fire 11
Sep 2001 by terrorists who crashed hijacked airliners into them. |
| U.S. astronauts orbit the Moon | |
(source) |
In 1968, American astronauts on Apollo
8 became the first men to orbit the Moon. The three-man crew was Frank
Borman (Commander), James A. Lovell, Jr. (Command Module Pilot) and William
Anders (Lunar Module Pilot). Not only was this the first manned flight
to and from the Moon, but Apollo 8 served to validate many of the technical
procedures necessary to support upcoming lunar missions. During ten lunar
orbits, the astronauts took star sightings to pinpoint landmarks, surveyed
landing sites, took both still and motion pictures and made two television
transmissions to Earth. It was also the world's first manned flight to
escape the influence of Earth's gravity. Launched on 21 Dec 1968, the mission
lasted 6 days 3 hours until recovery on 27 Dec 1968. |
| Kidney transplant | |
(source) |
In 1954, the first successful kidney
transplant was carried out between identical twins by surgeons at Peter
Bent Hospital, Boston, Mass. The kidney was donated to Richard
Herrick, 23, by his identical twin, Ronald. The operation was led by
Dr. John P. Merrill who had previously completed a series of nine kidney
transplants, only to find they failed. He suspected they were rejected
by the recipients' immune system. The identical twins presented an opportunity
to test the hypothesis. Merill's team carried out an exchange of skin grafts
between Richard and his twin brother. Finding the grafts were successful,
the way was clear to carry out the kidney transplant. This time the surgery
was successful, and Richard lived until 1962. [Image:
Richard Herrick (right) and Ronald ten months after their surgery] |
| Oppenheimer security clearance suspended | |
 |
In 1953, Dr. Robert Oppenheimer was notified that his security clearance
had been suspended. (He had directed the Manhattan Project that produced
the atomic bombs used during WW II). There were allegations questioning
his trustworthiness for association with Communists. By telegram dated
29 Jan 1954, he requested a hearing. On 4 Mar 1954, he submitted his answer
to the original notification. Within two weeks, the Commisssion informed
him who would conduct the hearing, to be led by Gordon Gray. The hearing
before the Gray Board began 12
Apr 1954. It returned a result on 29 Jun 1954 that by a vote of 4 to1,
it had made a decision
against reinstating Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer's access to classified information. |
| Atlantic solo boat crossing | |
(source) |
In 1952, 27-yr-old Frenchman Alain
Bombard completed a single-handed sea voyage
across the Atlantic Ocean to test his theory that a shipwrecked person
could survive without provisions. He reached Barbados after a 65 day journey
during which he had eaten raw fish speared with a home-made harpoon, netted
surface plankton. and drank seawater, limited to occasional sips. He had
lost about 25-kg (55-lb) in weight. His Zodiac inflatable boat, l'Hérétique,
was just 4.5 m (15-ft) long and fitted with a sail. Bombard, a biologist
and physician (27 Oct 1924 - 19 Jul 2005), began
from the Canary Islands on 19 Oct 1952.«  [Image
right: l'Hérétique boat.]
The
Voyage of the Heretique, by Alain Bombard. |
| Transistor | |
(source) |
In 1947, the transistor was first demonstrated by Walter
H. Brattain and John Bardeen
to their higher-ups at Bell Laboratories. A microphone and headphones were
connected to the transistor, and the device was actually spoken over "with
no noticeable change in quality" as Brattain wrote in his notes
about that day. The name transistor came from its electrical property
known as trans-resistance. The original device, which the researchers
first had working
on 16 Dec 1947 was a point-contact
version, which was later improved by William Schockley as a junction transistor.
The inventors shared the 1956 Nobel prize in physics for their work. The
transistor replaced the bulkier vacuum tube, and was referred to as the
electronic engineer's dream. Image:
the first point contact transistor. |
| Australopithecus skull | |
(source) |
In 1924, Raymond Dart completed his work removing the first fossil skull
of Australopithecus from its matrix of rock. Being one of "missing
links" in man's evolution, Dart had taken exquisite care during 73 days
to separate skull and stone, at work in his laboratory in Johannesburg,
South Africa. Dart with his students made the find in the Taung limestone
works in the Harts Valley of Bechuanaland. When an endocranial cast was
found, at first it seemed to be just another primate skull. Then, Dart
noticed how amazingly close to human it looked. Dart had discovered the
Taung child, who was only three years old at the time of death. He named
it Australopithecus africanus. (Australis means "south" and
pithecus
means "ape"). |
| Steel railroad coach | |
|
In 1907, the first U.S. all-steel passenger railroad coach was completed
in Altoona, Pa. by the Pennsylvania Railroad Co. in its shop at Altoona,
Pa. A previous design built there (1902-03) had a steel underframe and
superstructure, a composite roof, and wooden window frames and sills.* |
|
| Edison patent | |
(source) |
In 1870, Thomas A. Edison was issued a U.S. patent
for an "Improvement in Magneto Electric Machines" (No. 222,881). The object
of his improvement was to increase the effectiveness and cheapen the construction
of the revolving armature. He designed the armature of a cylinder of wood
with two iron heads between which fine iron wire was wound on the cyclinder.
At the ends of the cylinder, outside the iron heads there were disks of
hard rubber or other insulating material, and the wires forming the induction
helix are wound lengthwise of the cyclindres into notches in the edges
of the disk. |
| Tsunami | |
(source) |
In 1854, a tsunami
struck the coast of Japan. In the harbor of Simoda the water was agitated
so that its depth varied between 8 and 40 feet. Twelve hours later this
giant tidal wave reached the Pacific coast of the U.S. Notice of the earthquake
waves was observedon
newly installed self-registering tide gauges, a new technology at the time.
The information derived from this event enabled Alexander D. Bache, Superintendent
of the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, to apply a newly derived law relating
ocean depth to wave speed and provide the first relatively accurate scientific
estimate of the depth of an ocean between Japan and the Pacific coast of
the U.S. The velocity of the sea wave from Simoda to San Francisco was
369 mph. |
| Bellows | |
|
In 1834, the first U.S. patent for bellows was issued to J.R. Morrison
of Springfield, Ohio (no patent number was assigned on patents of this
time). The bellows were designed for smiths and furnace fires.* |
|
| Benjamin Franklin experiment | |
|
In 1750, Benjamin Franklin was severely shocked
while electrocuting a turkey. |
|
| Moon of Saturn | |
(source) |
In 1672, astronomer Giovanni Cassini discovered Saturn's moon Rhea, the
fifth major satellite of Saturn, which may be one of the most heavily cratered
satellites in the solar system. Its surface appears to be saturated with
craters, but long, bright linear features can be seen on the trailing hemisphere
and linear ridges can be seen in the leading hemisphere. These ancient
features may record changes in Rhea's shape due to internal heating or
cooling. Rhea is 950 miles (1500 km) in diameter. Its largest crater is
190 miles (300 km) in diameter. Cassini also discovered three more of Saturn's
major moons -- Iapetus, Tethys, and Dione. In 1675, he discovered that
Saturn's rings are split largely into two parts by a narrow gap - known
since as the "Cassini Division." Image:
photograph of Rhea taken by Voyager 1 in Nov 1980. |
