| FEBRUARY 11 - BIRTHS | |
| Richard Hamming | |
(source) |
 Born 11
Feb 1915 (died 7 Jan 1998).
Richard Wesley Hamming was an American mathematician who devised computer Hamming codes - error-detecting and correcting codes (1947). These add one or more bits to the transmission of blocks of data, used for a parity check, so that errors can be corrected automatically. By making a resend of bad data unnecessary, efficiency improved for modems, compact disks and satellite communications. He also worked on programming languages, numerical analysis and the Hamming spectral window (used to smooth data before Fourier analysis is carried out). He taught at University of Louisville, then during WW II worked (1945) on computers with the Manhattan Project creating the atomic bomb. From 1946, he spent 30 years with Bell Telephone Labs, eventually becoming head of computing science research.«  |
| Sir Vivian Ernest Fuchs | |
(source) |
Born 11
Feb 1908; died 13 Nov 1999.
English geologist and explorer who initiated and led (with Sir Edmund Hillary) the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1957-58. In 1929 and 1930-31, Fuchs participated as a geologist on expeditions to East Greenland and the East African lakes. In 1958 Fuchs's 12-man party completed the first land journey across Antarctica in 99 days despite severe hardships, travelling 2,500 miles (4,000 kilometres) from the Filchner Ice Shelf to McMurdo Sound. Along the way a substantial scientific programme had been accomplished, including seismic soundings and a gravity traverse. The findings of the expedition confirmed earlier theories that a single continent exists beneath the Antarctic polar ice sheet. |
| Leo Szilard | |
(source) |
Born 11
Feb 1898; died 30 May 1964.
Hungarian-born American physicist who, with Enrico Fermi, designed the first nuclear reactor that sustained nuclear chain reaction (2 Dec 1942). In 1933, Szilard had left Nazi Germany for England. The same year he conceived the neutron chain reaction. Moving to N.Y. City in 1938, he conducted fission experiments at Columbia University. Aware of the danger of nuclear fission in the hands of the German government, he persuaded Albert Einstein to write to President Roosevelt, urging him to commission American development of atomic weapons. In 1943, Major General Leslie Groves, leader of the Manhattan Project designing the atomic bomb, forced Szilard to sell his atomic energy patent rights to the U.S. government. |
| Thomas Alva Edison | |
1931 |
Born 11
Feb 1847; died 18 Oct 1931.
American inventor who, singly or jointly, held a world record 1,093 patents. In addition, he created the world's first industrial research laboratory. He showed an early curiosity for explanations of how everything worked and was especially interested in chemistry. He began selling newspapers on the railroad at age 12, and learned how to operate a telegraph. In 1868, his first invention was an electric vote-recording machine. In 1869, he made improvements on the stock-ticker. In 1876 he moved his laboratory to Menlo Park, N.J., where he invented the first prototype of a commercially practical incandescent electric light bulb (1879). By the late 1880s he made motion pictures. Edison developed electric power from central generating stations. |
| J. Willard Gibbs | |
(source) |
Born 11
Feb 1839; died 28 Apr 1903.
J(osiah) Willard Gibbs was an American mathematical physicist and chemist known for contributions to vector analysis and as one of the founders of physical chemistry. In 1863, He was awarded Yale University's first engineering doctorate degree. His major work was in developing thermodynamic theory, which brought physical chemistry from an empirical enquiry to a deductive science. In 1873, he published two papers concerning the fundamental nature of entropy of a system, and established the "thermodynamic surface," a geometrical and graphical method for the analysis of the thermodynamic properties of substances. His famous On the Equilibrium of Homogeneous Substances, published in 1876, established the use of "chemical potential," now an important concept in physical chemistry.«  The
Scientific Papers of J. Willard Gibbs, Vol. 1: Thermodynamics,
by J. Willard Gibbs. |
| Auguste Mariette | |
(source) |
Born 11
Feb 1821; died 19 Jan 1881.
Auguste (-Ferdinand-François) Mariette was a French archeologist who conducted major excavations throughout Egypt, revealing much about the earlier periods of Egyptian history. Sent by the Louvre, in 1850, to purchase papyruses, at Saqqara he discovered the Serapeum. Its rockcut corridors and burial chambers were excavated for the Apis bulls which were sacred to god Ptah. The corridors form a virtual underground extending for hundreds of metres. The stone sarcophagi weigh as much as 70 tonnes and average some 4 metres long and 3.3 metres high. Twenty chambers still contain sarcophagi. This was the start of French archaeology in Egypt. He won renown too, for his battle against looting and the illicit export of antiquities. |
| William Henry Fox Talbot | |
(source) |
Born 11
Feb 1800; died 17 Sep 1877.
English mathematician, physicist, chemist who invented the negative-positive photographic process. He improved on Thomas Wedgewood's discovery (1802) that brushing silver nitrate solution onto paper produces a light-sensitive medium able to record negative images, but Wedgewood was unable to control the darkening. In February 1835, Fox Talbot found that a strong solution of salt fixed the image. Using a camera obscura to focus an image onto his paper to produce a negative, then - by exposing a second sheet of paper to sunlight transmitted through the negative - he was the first to produce a positive picture of which he was able to make further copies at will. In 1844 he published Pencil of Nature the first photographically illustrated book. First
Photographs: William Henry Fox Talbot and the Birth of Photography,
by William Henry Fox Talbot, Michael Gray. |
| James Cowles Prichard | |
(source) |
Born 11 Feb 1786; died 23 Dec 1848.
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. |
| Henry Fourdrinier | |
(source) |
Born 11
Feb 1766; died 3 Sep 1854
English inventor of paper-making machinery known by his name. He and his brother Sealy (d. 1847) spent a fortune over their lifetime perfecting a machine capable of producing paper of unlimited length, beginning with pulp fed at the beginning, to finished paper rolled on a drum at the other end. The pulp was carried on a wire-mesh belt and squeezed between rollers to remove the water. They were assisted by mechanic Bryan Donkin. Despite holding patents, the cost and effort involved to defend them left the brothers without any substantial return on their investment, and they died having obtained a small grant of compensation from Parliament. The principles developed in their machine are still in use in modern paper-making.«  [Image:
detail showing delivery end of a Fourdrinier machine, c.1850.] |
| Bernard Le Bovier, sieur de Fontenelle | |
(source) |
Born 11
Feb 1657; died 9 Jan 1757.
(sire of) French scientist and author, whose Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds (1686), was one of the first works to present science for the lay reader. He popularized the astronomical theories of Descartes. Many of the characteristic ideas of the Enlightenment are found in embryonic form in his works. From 1697 he became permanent secretary to the Académie des Sciences. He held the office for 42 years, and in this official capacity, he wrote the Histoire du renouvellement del Académie des Sciences (Paris, 3 vols., 1708, 1717, 1722) containing extracts and analyses of the proceedings, written with great simplicity and delicacy. Fontenelle presented many obituary notices to the Académie, including those of Newton and Leibniz. |
|
Today in Science History Science Store Browse a selection of Bargain Science and Nature Books |
| FEBRUARY 11 - DEATHS | |
| Reinhold Rau | |
(source) |
 Died
11 Feb 2006 (born 1932)
German taxidermist who attempted to resurrect the quagga by selective breeding. The quagga, related to the zebra, had been hunted into extinction (1883). Rau took a taxidermy post at the South Africa Museum in 1959. He found there a quagga hide with tissue traces remaining on it. By 1983, Californian geneticists extracted mitochondrial DNA which showed that quagga genes still existed in a living sub-species - the Plains or Burchell's zebra. In 1987, Rau founded the Quagga Project to locate Plains zebras with quagga-like markings and isolate them in breeding herds. He predicted that a full quagga would emerge in four generations, and saw the third generation with stripes approaching those of a quagga before his death.«
Quaggas
and Other Zebras, by David Barnaby. |
| Samuel W. Alderson | |
(source) |
Died
11 Feb 2005 (born 21 Oct 1914)
American physicist and engineer who invented the crash-test dummy used to test the safety of cars, parachutes and other devices. From the 1930's, when safety of cars during a crash was tested, cadavers had been used. When he started a company in 1952, Alderson Research Laboratories, which designed an anthropomorphic dummy, the first application was for testing jet ejection seats. In 1968, he produced a dummy (called the V.I.P.) built specifically for automotive testing with built-in instruments for collecting data. It had articulated joints with dimensions and weight distribution like an average adult man. His company later also made medical phantoms for simulations such as synthetic wounds that oozed mock blood.« |
| Sir Vincent (Brian) Wigglesworth | |
c.1980s (source) |
Died
11 Feb 1994 (born 17 Apr 1899)
English entomologist, who contributed in the study of insect physiology. His investigations of the living insect body and its tissues and organs revealed much about the dynamic complexity of individual insects and their interactions with the environment. He was particularly respected for his research into the role of hormones in insect growth, metamorphosis, and reproduction and for his insights into simple mechanisms, such as how insects walk upside down. Wigglesworth's most important contribution may have been his recognition that insects could be used - instead of mice or other laboratory animals - for the fundamental investigation of animal physiology and function. His Insect Physiology (1934) is a principle work in this subject.  Insect
Physiology by Vincent B. Wigglesworth |
| Robert William Holley | |
(source) |
Died
11 Feb 1993 (born 28 Jan 1922)
U.S. biochemist, who was a co-winner ofthe 1968 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine (with H. Gobind Khorana and Marshall W. Nirenberg) for research that helped to decipher the genetic code chemically and explain how the genetic information stored in the DNA of a cell controls the synthesis of proteins, the building blocks of cells. |
| Ben L. Abruzzo | |
Double Eagle II (source) |
Died
11 Feb 1985 (born 9 Jun 1930)
American balloonist who, with three crew mates, made the first transpacific balloon flight hat was also the longest nonstop balloon flight, in the Double Eagle V. Thirteen-stories high, helium filled Double Eagle V, piloted by Ben Abruzzo, Larry Newman, Ron Clark and Rocky Aoki of Japan, launched from Nagashimi, Japan on 10 Nov 1981. When it landed 84 hours, 31 minutes later in Mendocino National Forest, Cal., the new distance record was set at 5,768 miles. He also accompanied Maxie Anderson and Larry Newman on the first tranatlantic balloon flight in the Double Eagle II (11 Aug 1978). Abruzzo died when his twin-engine airplane crashed in Albuquerque. See National Geographic, 4/82, "First Across the Pacific: Flight of Double Eagle V" pp. 513-521. Double
Eagle, by Charles McCarry. |
| Nathan Kline | |
(source) |
Died
11 Feb 1983 (died 11 Feb 1983)
Nathan Schellenberg Kline was an American psychiatrist who is credited with founding the field of psychopharmacology. In 1953, he began investigating the use of a new drug, reserpine, to treat schizophrenia. He continued to pioneer in the biochemical treatment of mentally ill patients by introducing the use of such drugs as the antidepressants lithium and iproniazid and the tranquilizer resperine. Because these drugs so successfully drugs treated two of the major categories of psychiatric illness, thousands of patients - formerly considered untreatable - were able to leave institutions and to rejoin society. By 1957, iproniazid, first in the class of monoamine oxidase (MAO) inhibitors, was treating an estimated 400,000 people in the U.S.« |
| James B. Conant | |
(source) |
Died
11 Feb 1978 (born 26 Mar 1893)
James Bryant Conant was an American educator and scientist. After earning his PhD at Harvard (1916), Conant spent a year in the research division of the chemical warfare service during World War I, then returned to Harvard as a chemistry instructor. In research, he made important findings on the chemistry of chlorophyll and hemoglobin. In 1933, Conant became president of Harvard University. An early advocate of aid to the Allies, Conant became a central figure in organizing American science for WW II, including the development of the atomic bomb. Following WW II, he became a diplomat, as U.S. high commissioner for western Germany (1953). From 1957, he was an education reformer. |
| Alexander M. Lippisch | |
(source) |
Died
11 Feb 1976 (born 2 Nov 1894)
Alexander M(artin) Lippisch was a German-American aerodynamicist whose designs of tailless and delta-winged aircraft in the 1920s and 1930s were important in the development of high-speed jet and rocket airplanes. Lippisch based his tailless arrow shaped aircraft on this example from nature - a flying seed of a tropical plant sent to him by a friend. He felt that the wing near the body should be thicker so that it could be utilized for additional storage, made possible by making the wing near the body longer. This is how he arrived at the delta shaped wing. His first motorized delta wing flew in 1931. |
| J. Hans D. Jensen | |
(source) |
Died
11 Feb 1973 (born 25 Jun 1907)
Johannes Hans Daniel Jensen was a German physicist who proposed the shell theory of nuclear structure of protons and neutrons grouped in onion-like layers of concentric shells. He suggested that the nucleons (protons and neutrons) spun on their own axis while they moved in an orbit within their shell and that certain patterns in the number of nucleons per shell made the nucleus more stable. Scientists already knew that the electrons orbiting the nucleus were arranged in different shells. Jensen's model of the nucleus won him a share of the 1963 Nobel Prize in physics (with Maria Goeppert- Mayer, who arrived at the same hypothesis independently in the U.S.; and Eugene P. Wigner for unrelated work.) Throughout the 1950s, Jensen worked on radioactivity. |
| Hardy Cross | |
(soure) |
Died
11 Feb 1959 (born 10 Feb 1885)
U.S. professor of civil and structural engineering whose outstanding contribution was a method of calculating tendencies to produce motion (moments) in the members of a continuous framework, such as the skeleton of a building. By the use of Cross's technique, known as the moment distribution method, or simply the Hardy Cross method, calculation can be carried to any required degree of accuracy by successive approximations, thus avoiding the immense labour of solving simultaneous equations that contain as many variables as there are rigid joints in a frame. He also successfully applied his mathematical methods to the solution of pipe network problems that arise in municipal water supply design; these methods have been extended to gas pipelines. |
| Ernest Jones | |
(source) |
Died
11 Feb 1958 (born 1 Jan 1879)
Welsh psychoanalyst who introduced psychoanalysis into Great Britain and North America. His admiration for Sigmund Freud's approach to neurosis led him to learn German to read Freud's work. This led to a lifelong association with Freud from 1908. Jones founded the International Journal of Psychoanalysis (1920), and was its editor for two decades. In 1925, he founded and was director of the London Clinic of Psycho-Analysis. When the Nazis invaded Austria in 1938, Jones went to Vienna to enable Freud's escape with his family to London. He published extensively, including a definitive three-volume biography of Freud (1953-57). His interests included chess, and as a youth, figure skating about which he later wrote a textbook. Ernest
Jones: Freud's Alter Ego, by Vincent Brome. |
| Axel Martin Fredrik Munthe | |
(source) |
Died
11 Feb 1949 (born 31 Oct 1857)
Swedish physician, psychiatrist, and writer whose book The Story of San Michele (1929), one of the world first best sellers in its original English version and in many translations. The book recounts his experiences as a doctor in Paris and Rome and in semiretirement at the villa of San Michele on Capri. Munthe himself was a fascinating man, youngest doctor in the history of France, society doctor to European royalty, but who understood that medicine and doctoring is more about people than wonder drugs and technology. He left the lucrative medical practice in Paris to practice his profession part time time so that he could build the house of his dreams, creating of one of the world's most beautiful houses. |
| Sir Charles Algernon Parsons | |
(source) |
Died 11 Feb 1931 (born 13 Jun 1854)
British engineer whose invention of a multi-stage steam turbine revolutionized marine propulsion (1884). Each stage was designed to control and maximize the power delivered. By 1891, he had designed his turbine with a condenser for powering dynamos in electric generating stations. In 1897, using his turbine to power his 100-ft ship Turbinia, he reached 35 knots. The first vessel to be propelled by turbines, with its amazing speed led to the construction of many turbine propelled warships for the British navy. He further improved efficiency with a mechanical reducing gear to link the engine to the propellers. Parsons also invented a device for improving phonographs, pioneered in aviation, and produced a nonskid device for automobile tires. [Image right: Straight blading of the first Parsons turbine made, 1884.] |
| Jacques Loeb | |
(EB) |
Died
11 Feb 1924 (born 7 Apr 1859)
German-born American biologist noted chiefly for his experimental work on artificial parthenogenesis (reproduction without fertilization). Loeb was able to bring the unfertilized eggs of urchins and frogs to maturity by manipulating their environment, which influenced cell division. He also studied the tropisms of plants and simple animals, which means their reflexive responses to environmental stimuli. Before the age of thirty he published the "tropism theory" which was destined to make him famous. Loeb also worked on brain physiology and tissue regeneration. |
| Alexander Ross Clarke | |
(source) |
Died 11 Feb 1914 (born 16 Dec 1828)
English geodesist with the Army Ordnance Survey who made calculations of the size and shape of the Earth (the Clarke ellipsoid) were the first to approximate accepted modern values with respect to both polar flattening and equatorial radius. The figures from his second determination (1866) became a standard reference for U.S. geodesy for most of the twentieth century until satellites could improve accuracy. In 1880, Clarke coined the term "Geodesy" when he published his famous book by that title. He wrote articles on mathematical geography and geodesy and also contributed "The Figure of the Earth" in the Encyclopedia Britannica. His military service with the Ordnance Survey lasted 27 years.« [Image right: Clarke ellipsoid] |
| William Kelly | |
(source) |
Died
11 Feb 1888 (born 21 Aug 1811)
American ironmaster who invented the pneumatic process of steelmaking, in which air is blown through molten pig iron to remove unwanted impurities. While a Kentucky manufacturer of iron kettles, he discovered that cold air blown on red-hot iron caused the metal to become white-hot by igniting the carbon and thus eliminating impurities. He tried to apply the new "air boiling" technique to his own product, but his customers decried "Kelly's fool steel," and his business declined. His patent of 23 Jun 1857 won priority over the U.S. patent of Sir Henry Bessemer of Great Britain, gradually the Bessemer-Kelly process won acceptance. This process produced the first inexpensive steel, crucial in the industrial age. |
| Jean-Bernard-Léon Foucault | |
(source) |
Died
11 Feb 1868 (born 18 Sep 1819)
French physicist whose Foucault Pendulum experimentally proved that the Earth rotates on its axis (6 Jan 1851). Using a long pendulum with a heavy bob, he showed its plane rotated at a rate related to Earth's angular velocity and the latitude of the site. He studied medicine and physics and became an assistant at the Paris Observatory (1855). He invented an accurate test of a lens for chromatic and spherical aberations. Working with Fizeau, and also independently, he made accurate measurements of the absolute velocity of light. In 1850, Foucault showed that light travels slower in water than in air. He also built a gyroscope (1852), the Foucault's prism (1857) and made improvements for mirrors of reflecting telescopes.« Pendulum:
Leon Foucault and the Triumph of Science, by Amir D.
Aczel. |
| Anders Gustav Ekeberg | |
(source) |
Died
11 Feb 1813 (born 16 Jan 1767)
Swedish chemist who in 1802 discovered the element tantalum. A graduate of the University of Uppsala (1788) he began teaching at Uppsala (1794), introducing the chemistry of Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier. He continued his experiments despite partial deafness from a childhood infection and one eye blinded by an exploding flask (1801). His most notable student was Jöns Jacob Berzelius. |
| Lazzaro Spallanzani | |
(source) |
Died 11 Feb 1799 (born 12 Jan 1729)
Italian physiologist who made important contributions to the experimental study of bodily functions and animal reproduction. Spallanzani demonstrated that microorganisms arose not by spontaneous generation but from spores in the air. He also studied regeneration and spermatozoa. He showed that contact by semen was necessary for development of the egg and he achieved the first successful artificial insemination of a dog (1785). He explained the circulation of the blood and the digestive system of animals. Spallanzani also worked on various problems in the physical and earth sciences. His investigations into the development of microscopic life in nutrient culture solutions paved the way for the research of Louis Pasteur. (Cartoon source) |
| Marchese Francesco Scipione Maffei | |
(source) |
Died
11 Feb 1755 (born 1 June 1675)
(marquess) Italian dramatist and archaeologist whose studies made from 1718 of the archaeology of his native town were published in his four-volume Verona illustrata (1731-32). From 1732, he spent four years pursuing archaeological research in France and also travelled through England, Holland and Germany. He built a museum to house his valuable collection, which he bequeathed to his native city. The Museo Lapidario holds many precious stone relics with runic Latin, Greek, Arabic, Egyptian, Persian and Hebrew inscriptions. He also was interested in physics and astronomy, and built his own observatory to study the movements of the stars. His hometown celebrated him with a statue in the Piazza de Signori.« |
| René Descartes | |
(source) |
Died
11 Feb 1650 (born 31 Mar 1596)
French mathematician, scientist, and "the father of modern philosophy." His work, La géométrie, includes his application of algebra to geometry from which we now have Cartesian geometry. During 1620-28, Descartes travelled through Europe, then settled in Holland. Soon after, he began work on his first major treatise on physics, Le Monde, ou Traité de la Lumière. This work was near completion when news that Galileo was condemned to house arrest reached him. He decided not to publish that work during his lifetime. Later, he turned to philosophy, one of the first to oppose scholastic Aristotelianism, he began by methodically doubting knowledge based on authority, the senses, and reason. His most famous quote is "I think, therefore I am." |
| FEBRUARY 11 - EVENTS | |
| Hubble Space Telescope repair | |
(source) |
In 1997, making significant upgrades to the scientific capabilities of
the Hubble Space Telescope was
the objective of the space shuttle Discovery,
launched on mission STS-82.
This was the second in a series of planned servicing missions to the orbiting
Hubble Space Telescope which was placed in orbit on 24 Apr 1990. During
a record five extravehicular activities (EVAs), astronauts performed repairs
to the Hubble Space Telescope using
over 150 tools and crew aids. Two older instruments were replaced with
the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) and the Near Infrared Camera
and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS). science instruments aboard the
Telescope include two cameras, two spectrographs, and fine guidance sensors. |
| Bovine growth hormone | |
 |
In 1994, the rBGH genetically engineered growth hormone for cows goes on
sale to dairy farmers under the name Posilac,
made by Monsanto Company. Also known as "Bovine Somatotropin" or
BST, it is a genetically
engineered copy of a naturally occurring hormone produced in the pituitary
gland of cattle and is a major regulator of milk production. This is the
first time altered genes have been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration
for injection into live animals. The purpose
is to improve a cow's production of milk as much as 5 to 15 pounds per
day per cow. The approval process took nine years. Nevertheless, the rBGH
has drawn criticism
from people concerned about
food purity. |
| First Japanese satellite | |
(source) |
In 1970, Japan became the fourth country to put a satellite into orbit
with the launch of Osumi
5. (Four earlier launches since 1966 had failed.) The University
of Tokyo's Institute of Space and Aeronautical Science launched
the 24-kg satellite from the Kagoshima Space Center on the Osumi peninsula,
using a Lambda 4S solid-fuel rocket.
Its mission was to explore the upper atmosphere. NEC made Osumi,
and later satellites for meteorological and communications. The USSR was
the first
nation with a satellite in earth orbit (Sputnik on 4
Oct 1957), second the U.S. (Explorer I on 31
Jan 1958), third France (Astrix-1, 26
Nov 1965). China was fifth (DFH-1, 24
Apr 1970) and the U.K. sixth (Prospero, 28
Oct 1972).« |
| Light bulb commemoration | |
(source) |
In 1954, the largest light bulb, rated at 75,000-watts, was lit at the
Rockefeller Center in New York, to commemorate the 75th anniversary of
Edison’s
first light bulb. The huge bulb was 3½-ft high and about 2-ft in
diameter. From high above, it illuminated the entire skating rink. It was
allowed to cool for five minutes after burning for three minutes. In Jan
1879, at his laboratory in Menlo Park, NJ, Edison had built his first high
resistance, incandescent electric light, though its thin platinum filament
in a glass vacuum bulb burned for only a few short hours. He then tested
thousands of substances before coming up with a more useful carbon filament
which he presented in a public demonstration of his light bulb on 31
Dec 1879. |
| Atomic fission | |
(source) |
In 1939, the journal Nature published a theoretical paper
on nuclear fission. The term was coined by the authors Lise
Meitner and Otto Fritsch, her nephew. They knew
that when a uranium nucleus was struck by neutrons, barium was produced.
Seeking an explanation, they used Bohr's "liquid drop" model of the nucleus
to envision the neutron inducing oscillations in a uranium nucleus, which
would occasionally stretch out into the shape of a dumbbell. Sometimes,
the repulsive forces between the protons in the two bulbous ends would
cause the narrow waist joining them to pinch off and leave two nuclei where
before there had been one. They calculated calculated the huge amounts
of energy released. This was the basis for nuclear chain reaction. |
| La-Z-Boy | |
(source) |
In 1928, the La-Z-Boy reclining chair was invented. Ed
Shoemaker (1907-98), and his cousin Edward Knabusch, designed the first
La-Z-Boy with a piece of plywood and a yardstick. Then, it was a comfortable
wood slat porch chair. In Spring 1929, the upholstered chairs were introduced
for a year-round market. |
| Insulin treatment announced | |
(source) |
In 1922, the use of insulin to treat diabetes
in a dog was announced in their first paper* published on the subject by
the Canadian surgeon Frederick
Banting and his assistant Charles
Best. The previous year, Best had made an extract from pancreatic tissue.
At 10:15 a.m., on 10 Jul 1921, they injected a pinkish solution into a
diabetic dog. After an hour, the blood glucose had dropped from 0.2 to
0.1%. They
continued their research, and improved the purity of what they named insulin,
the hormone responsible for controlling blood sugar levels. The discovery
was one of the most revolutionary moments in medicine. Within a year, diabetics
had hopes of living full and productive lives. Banting received a share
of the Nobel Prize in 1923 for the work.
*Banting,
F.G. and Best, C.H. The internal secretion of the pancreas. J.
Lab. Clin. Med. (1922) 7 (5): 465-480. |
| Bandelier National Monument | |
(source) |
In 1916, Bandelier National Monument was proclaimed
by President Woodrow Wilson. Located near Los Alamos, New Mexico, USA,
it is best known for mesas, sheer-walled canyons, and the ancestral Pueblo
dwellings found among them. Of its 32,737 acreage, over 23,000 acres are
designated as Wilderness. It was named for Adolph
Bandelier, a 19th-century pioneering anthropologist whose main focus
was the American and Pueblo Indians of southwest America and northern Mexico.
The Anasazi ruins at Bandelier National Monument are said by some to be
one of the two most important Indian ruin sites in the state of New Mexico,
the other being Chaco Canyon.
Bandelier:
The Life and Adventures of Adolph Bandelier, by Lange
and Riley |
| Steamboat patent | |
(source) |
In 1809, Robert
Fulton patented his steamboat
for the first time in the U.S., although he had already made his first
successful steamboat trip on the Clermont between New York City
and Albany in 1807. He obtained a supplementary patent on 9 Feb 1811. Few
inventions have been as important as the steamboat,
which opened up American rivers to two-way travel. Obtaining the patent
for which he applied on 1 Jan 1809 was routine. However, defending them
against the lawsuits of
competitors
proved troublesome for years. He also had to be wary of the Superintendent
of Patents, Dr. William Thornton, who had a conflict of interest from his
association with John Fitch's Delaware steamboat. |
| Anthracite | |
(source) |
In 1808, Judge Jesse Fell of Wilkes-Barre, Penn experimented
by burning anthracite
coal to keep his house warm. He developed a method
to burn the stone coal without the use of forced air and his fireplace
grate opened up the home heating market. On the fly-leaf of one of his
books he wrote: February
11, 1808, made the experiment of burning the common stone coal of the valley
in a grate, in a common fireplace in my house, and found it will answer
the purpose of fuel, making a clearer and better fire, at less expense,
than burning wood in the common way. He had found a cheap, clean burning
fuel. As a result, that area of northeast Pennsylvania became an important
coal mining area for generations. |
| First U.S. hospital | |
(source) |
In 1752, the Pennsylvania Hospital, the first in America, opened
in Philadelphia through the indefatigible efforts of Benjamin Franklin,
who was involved in drafting the petition for its establishment and fund-raising.
It was established on 11 May 1751, when the colonial governor of Pennsylvania
approved its charter as a proposed hospital to include treatment of people
with mental illness. The first
patient was received on 11 Feb 1752, at the hospital's temporary quarters
in the Judge Kinsey mansion on Market St. The Pine Street Hospital opened
17 Dec 1756, and accepted both mentally ill and general medical patients.
Inmates were provided with light manual labor such as spinning and carding
wool for recreational therapy activities. |
