| FEBRUARY 13 - BIRTHS | |
| William B. Shockley | |
1958(source) |
 Born 13
Feb 1910; died 12 Aug 1989.
English-American engineer and teacher, cowinner (with John Bardeen and Walter H. Brattain) of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1956 for their development of the transistor, a device that largely replaced the bulkier and less-efficient vacuum tube and ushered in the age of microminiature electronics.  Broken
Genius: Rise and Fall of William Shockley, Creator of the Electronic Age,
by Joel N. Shurkin. |
| Johan Ludvig Emil Dreyer | |
(source) |
Born 13
Feb 1852; died 14 Sep 1926.
Danish astronomer who compiled the New General Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars, (NGC) in 1888. When he became Director of the Armagh Observatory in 1882, financially it was destitute, with no prospect of replacing its aging instruments. Though Dreyer obtained a new 10-inch refractor by Grubb, the lack of funding for an assistant, precluded him from a continuation of traditional positional astronomy. Instead he concentrated on the compilation of observations made earlier. The NGC he listed 7840 objects and in its supplements (1895, 1908) he added a further 5386 objects. It still remains one of the standard reference catalogs. |
| G. Brown Goode | |
(source) |
Born 13
Feb 1851; died 6 Sep 1896.
G(eorge) Brown Goode was an American zoologist who directed the scientific reorganization and recataloging of the collection at the National Museum of Natural History, Washington, D.C. During the 1880's he edited two volumes of atlases of illustrations of "The Fisheries and Fisheries Industries of the United States" while Deputy Commissioner of the United States Commission of Fish and Fisheries. The study captured the state of the American fisheries at that time. They describe a significant part of the marine environment with 532 etchings of marine mammals, fish, and shellfish and also illustrated the state of fishing vessels, gear, methods, and processing. |
| Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet | |
(source) |
Born 13
Feb 1805; died 5 May 1859.
German mathematician who made valuable contributions to number theory, analysis, and mechanics. Dirichlet is best known for his papers on conditions for the convergence of trigonometric series and the use of the series to represent arbitrary functions. He also proposed in 1837 the modern definition of a function. In mechanics he investigated the equilibrium of systems and potential theory. This led him to the Dirichlet problem concerning harmonic functions with given boundary conditions. Dirichlet is considered the founder of the theory of Fourier series, having corrected the earlier mistakes of other workers on Fourier's writings. One of his students was Riemann. In 1855, he succeeded Carl Friedrich Gauss at the University of Göttingen. |
| Sir Joseph Banks | |
 |
Born 13
Feb 1743; died 19 Jun 1820.
(Baronet) British explorer and naturalist, and long-time president of the Royal Society, known for his promotion of science. As an independent naturalist, Banks participated in a voyage to Newfoundland and Labrador in 1767. He successfully lobbied the Royal Society to be included on what was to be James Cook's first great voyage of discovery, on board the Endeavour (1768-71). King George III appointed Banks adviser to the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. Banks established his London home as a scientific base (1776) with natural history collections he made freely available to researchers. In 1819, he was Chairman of committees established by the House of Commons, one to enquire into prevention of banknote forgery, the other to consider systems of weights and measures. |
| John Hunter | |
(source) |
Born 13
Feb 1728; died 16 Oct 1793.
Scottish surgeon, founder of pathological anatomy in England, and early advocate of investigation and experimentation. He also carried out many important studies and experiments in comparative aspects of biology, anatomy, physiology, and pathology. His work included a study of human teeth and advancement of dentistry, an extensive study of inflammation, fine work on gun-wounds and some work on venereal diseases. In 1764, he set up his own anatomy school in London. Following his appointment as surgeon to King George III (1776) he was appointed deputy surgeon to the British Army (1786) and was made Surgeon General in (1789). He was a younger brother of William Hunter, the anatomist. |
| Étienne-François Geoffroy | |
(source) |
Born 13
Feb 1672; died 6 Jan 1731.
French chemist, who was the first to recognize the relative fixed affinities of reagents for one another. He composed tables (1718) listing the relative affinities of different reagents for particular substances, showing how one acid displaces another acid of weaker affinity for a specific base in the salt of that base. (These tables stood for most of the 18th century, until Claude-Louis Berthollet demonstrated that reactions instead depend upon the initial relative quantities of the reactants and physical conditions during the reaction.) Geoffroy considered the quest for the philosopher's stone (a substance capable of transforming base metals into gold) a delusion, but he believed that iron could be formed during the combustion of vegetable matter. |
|
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| FEBRUARY 13 - DEATHS | |
| Alphonse Bertillon | |
(source) |
 Died
13 Feb 1914 (born 23 Apr 1853)
Chief of criminal identification for the Paris police (from 1880) who developed an identification system known as anthropometry, or the Bertillon system, that came into wide use in France and other countries. The system records physical characteristics (eye colour, scars, deformities, etc.) and specified measurements (height, fingertip reach, head length and width, ear, foot, arm and finger length, etc) These are recorded on cards and classified according to the length of the head. After two decades this system was replaced by fingerprinting in the early 1900s because Bertillon measurements were difficult to take with uniform exactness, and could change later due to growth or surgery. |
| Julius Thomsen | |
(source) |
Died
13 Feb 1909 (born 16 Feb 1826)
(Hans Peter Jörgen) Julius Thomsen was a Danish chemist who tabulated the amount of heat released or absorbed in 3,500 chemical reactions. He also prepared the first table of the relative strengths of acids. He became wealthy from his process (patented in 1853) for the fabrication of soda from the mineral cryolite. In 1878, Thomsen (and independently by Marcellin Berthelot) proposed that every chemical change proceeds in such a direction that it will produce the most heat. However, this statement is incorrect, for many exceptions are known in which chemical reactions are spontaneous even though they absorb heat. Thomsen designed the modern format of groups and periods on the long form of the Periodic Table of the Elements (1895)«  |
| Marcel-Alexandre Bertrand | |
 |
Died
13 Feb 1907 (born 2 July 1847)
French geologist who introduced the theory that certain mountains, in particular the Alps, were formed by folding of the Earth's crust. He developed a theory of orogeny based on massive folding of the Earth's crust and developed the orogenic wave theory whereby successive Caledonian, Hercynian, Alpine periods of orogeny built up European mountain system north to south. |
| Henrik Steffens | |
(source) |
Died
13 Feb 1845 (born 2 May 1773)
Philosopher and physicist, who combined scientific ideas with German Idealist metaphysics. He was a professor of mineralogy at Halle in 1804 and professor of physics at Breslau in 1811. Though Steffens did much sound scientific work as a physicist, he had the fondness ofs a philosopher for using scientific fact as a basis for the construction of fanciful analogies and quite arbitrary metaphysical conclusions. His exposition of a philosophy of nature in Grundzüge der philosophischen Naturwissenschaft (1806; "Philosophical Characteristics of Natural Science") showed a typical combination of profound scientific knowledge and Schellingian speculation. |
| Ruggero Giuseppe Boscovich | |
(source) |
Died
13 Feb 1787 (born 18 May 1711)
Astronomer and mathematician who gave the first geometric procedure for determining the equator of a rotating planet from three observations of a surface feature and for computing the orbit of a planet from three observations of its position. Boscovich was one of the first in continental Europe to accept Newton's gravitational theories and he wrote 70 papers on optics, astronomy, gravitation, meteorology and trigonometry. Boscovich also showed much ability in dealing with practical problems. He suggested and directed the draining of the Pontine marshes near Rome, and recommended the use of iron bands to control the spread of cracks in the dome of St. Peter's basilica. |
| FEBRUARY 13 - EVENTS | |
| Solar System photographed from space | |
In 1990, the U.S. space probe Voyager I , while heading out to the
edge of the Solar System, photographed a look backward which captured the
Sun and six planets in one image, the first record of the Solar System
from space. The Sun appeared almost star-like and the planets were mere
dots.« |
|
| French atomic bomb | |
 |
In 1960, France detonated their first plutonium
bomb from a 330-foot tower at the Reggane base in the Sahara in what was
then French Algeria. On 18 Oct 1945, the Atomic Energy Commission (Commissariat
à l'Énergie Atomique; CEA) had been established
by General Charles de Gaulle with the objective of exploiting the scientific,
industrial, and military
potential of atomic energy. On 22 Jul 1958, de Gaulle, having resumed power
as prime minister, had set the date for the first atomic explosion to occur
within the first three months of 1960. His goal
was to assert France's independence and its role on the world stage. Thus
he set about building the country's nuclear capacity acquiring also nuclear-armed
aircraft, missiles and submarines. |
| ENIAC first operated | |
(source) |
In 1946, the world's first electronic digital computer, ENIAC
(the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator) was first demonstrated
at the Moore School of Electrical Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania,
by the late John W. Mauchly and
J. Presper Eckert. The ENIAC machine occupied a room 30 by 50 feet. Its
birth lay in WW II as a classified military project known only as Project
PX. The ENIAC is historic because it laid the foundations for the modern
electronic computing industry. The ENIAC demonstrated that high-speed digital
computing was possible using the vacuum tube technology
then available. Built out of some 17,468 electronic vacuum tubes, ENIAC
was in its time the largest single electronic apparatus in the world. |
| Millikan Oil Drop Experiment | |
|
In 1912, Robert Millikan began
collecting data from his famous oil drop experiment. On this day he gathered
observations on the first
of the 58 drops he ultimately published. Millikan used his measurements
of the motion of oil drops within an electric field to estimate the fundamental
unit of charge. He earned the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1923 for his pioneering
measurements of the charge on the electron. |
|
| Cinématographe patent | |
(source) |
In 1895, a French patent was issued for the Cinématographe,
a combined motion-picture camera and projector (No. 245,032). Although
the key principle of operation - intermittent feed - was invented by Louis
Lumière, it was taken out jointly with his brother Auguste
(as was their custom). The patent describes, "The basic property of this
appliance’s mechanism is to act intermittently on a regularly perforated
strip to transmit successive displacements to it separated by stationary
periods, during which photographic images are either exposed or viewed."
It is said Louis was inspired by the motion of cloth under the needle of
a sewing machine. It was demonstrated to a private audience showing the
first motion picture on a screen on 22
Mar 1895. The first public presentation of their films was in Paris
on 28th Dec 1895.« |
| First U.S. quintuplets | |
 |
In 1875, the first well-documented U.S. birth of quintuplets
was five boys born
to Mrs Edna Beecham Kanouse and her husband Eddie. Though the babies appeared
normally developed, one was stillborn, three died within minutes of delivery,
and the remaining one survived only a few hours. Their total birth weight
was 10-lb 2-oz. The doctor, and the father who fetched him arrived after
the birth, delayed by heavy snow. The mother had another child several
years later, and died a few months thereafter from a contagious disease
contracted while caring for a sick friend. Until the 28
May 1934 birth of the famous healthy Dionne quintuplets in Canada,
the longest
known
survival of a quint was 55 days, born in Lisbon, Portugal (1866).« |
| Mowing machine patent | |
(source) |
In 1822, a U.S. patent was issued for the first practical grass mowing
machine to Jeremiah Bailey of Chester county, Pennsylvania, said to mow
ten acres a day. It was horse-drawn, and the movement of one of its wheels
turned gears to spin a vertical shaft with six scythes laid horizontally
above the ground in the form of a complete circle. During the rotation,
the scythes passed under a whetstone. The cutting apparatus adjusted to
the variations in ground surface or grass to stay at the proper distance
above the ground. The machine was known both in the U.S. and in Britain,
where it was described and illustrated in the Mechanic's Magazine
(1823). The first, though unsuccessful, U.S. patent was issued
4 Dec 1811 to Peter Gaillard.« |
| Galileo prepares for trial | |
(source) |
In 1633, Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei
arrived in Rome for his trial before the Inquisition for professing the
belief that the earth revolves around the sun. Enemies of Galileo had convinced
Pope Urban VIII that the character Simplicio in the Dialogue ineptly
defending the Ptolemaic system, was a thinly veiled caricature of himself.
A document was produced alleging that Bellarmine in 1616 forbade Galileo
to discuss Copernican ideas in any way.
(Modern scholars determined this document is a forgery).
He faced two charges: disobeying Bellarmine's order and misleading censors
who published his book. Humiliated and threatened with torture, Galileo
had no choice but to admit guilt, and "abjure, curse and detest the aforesaid
errors and heresies..." |
| Tychonic system | |
(source) |
In 1588, Tycho Brahe first outlines
his "Tychonic system" idea of the structure of the solar system. The Tychonic
system was a hybrid,
sharing both the basic idea of the geocentric system of Ptolemy,
and the heliocentric idea of Nicholas Copernicus.
In his De mundi aethorei recentioribus phaenomenis, Brahe's proposal,
retaining Aristotelian physics, kept the the Sun and Moon revolving about
Earth in the center of the universe and, at a great distance, the shell
of the fixed stars was centered on the Earth. But like Copernicus, he agreed
that Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn revolved about the Sun.
Thus he could explain the motions of the heavens without "crystal spheres"
carrying the planets through complex Ptolemaic epicycles. |
