| FEBRUARY 18 - BIRTHS | |
| Sir Gilbert Roberts | |
(source) |
 
Born 18 Feb 1899; died 1 Jan 1978.
British civil engineer who pioneered new designs, construction methods and use of high-tensile steels for several major bridges including the 3,300-foot (1,006-metre) Firth of Forth Road bridge in Scotland, one of the longest in the world. He also designed the Severn Bridge, crossing the River Severn near Bristol, England (1966) 3240-foot span with 400-foot towers. It has an aerodynamic steel box girder, inclined hanger cables to provide added damping and an orthotropic steel deck. His work includes designs for Auckland Harbour (N.Z.), Volta River (Ghana), Bosphorus (Turkey) and Humber bridges; and radio telescopes, goliath cranes and other steel structures. He gained his experience as an engineer during WW II developing all-welded ships. [Image right: Severn Bridge] |
| Enzo Ferrari | |
(source) |
Born 18
Feb 1898; died 14 Aug 1988.
Italian automobile manufacturer, designer, and racing-car driver whose Ferrari cars often dominated world racing competition in the second half of the 20th century. In 1947, as a former racecar driver, Ferrari built cars under his own name for the first time. Within five years, his powerful 12-cylinder cars dominated racing. Within a decade, the road models had become status symbols. Individually crafted, their fenders were pounded into shape against tree trunks, their engines were cast like statues.  Enzo
Ferrari: The Man, The Cars, The Races, The Machine,
by Brock Yates. |
| Aleksandr Oparin | |
1970 (source) |
Born 18
Feb 1894; died 21 Apr 1980.
Russian biochemist noted for his studies on the origin of life from chemical matter. By drawing on the insights of chemistry, he extended the Darwinian theory of evolution backward in time to explain how simple organic and inorganic materials might have combined into complex organic compounds. In 1938, Oparin suggested that organic molecules could be formed in the presence of outside energy sources. The
Origin of Life, by Aleksandr Ivanovich Oparin. |
| Harry Brearley | |
(source) |
Born 18
Feb 1871; died 12 Aug 1948.
English metallurgist who invented stainless steel, which is an alloy of steel with chromium and nickel. In 1912, he was investigating corrosion of rifle barrels because their internal diameter was quickly eroded from the action of heating and discharge gases. His solution was to develop a chrome alloy steel which was much more rust resistant than the steel then in common use. The added metals produce a surface film of metal oxides which resists rusting. Thus it was termed "stainless steel". He also realized how it could revolutionize the cutlery industry. Until then, table cutlery was silver or nickel plated, and cutting knives of carbon steel had to be thoroughly washed and dried after use, and even then rust stains would have to be rubbed off. Steelmakers
and Knotted String, by Harry Brearley. |
| Ernst Mach | |
(source) |
Born 18
Feb 1838; died 19 Feb 1916.
Austrian physicist and philosopher who established important principles of optics, mechanics, and wave dynamics. His early physical works were devoted to electric discharge and induction. Between 1860 and 1862 he studied in depth the Doppler Effect by optical and acoustic experiments. He introduced the "Mach number" for the ratio of speed of object to speed of sound is named for him. When supersonic planes travel today, their speed is measured in terms that keep Mach's name alive. His lifetime interest, however, was in psychology and human perception. He supported the view that all knowledge is a conceptual organization of the data of sensory experience (or observation). Space
and Geometry: In the Light of Physiological, Psychological and Physical
Inquiry, by Ernst Mach. |
| Octave Chanute | |
(source) |
Born 18
Feb 1832; died 23 Nov 1910.
U.S. aeronaut whose work and interests profoundly influenced Orville and Wilbur Wright and the invention of the airplane. Octave Chanute was a successful engineer who took up the invention of the airplane as a hobby following his early retirement. Knowing how railroad bridges were strengthened, Chanute experimented with box kites using the same basic strengthening metod, which he then incorporated into wing design of gliders. Through thousands of letters, he drew geographically isolated pioneers into an informal international community. He organized sessions of aeronautical papers for the professional engineering societies that he led; attracted fresh talent and new ideas into the field through his lectures; and produced important publications. 
Progress
in Flying Machines, by Octave Chanute. |
| Heinrich Karl Brugsch | |
(source) |
Born 18
Feb 1827; died 9 Sep 1894.
German Egyptologist who pioneered in deciphering demotic, the simplified script of the later Egyptian periods. As a boy he visited the Berlin Museum and became fascinated with its Egyptian artifacts, an interest fostered by Guiseppe Passalacqua, the Museum's curator of the Egyptian collection. On visiting Egypt 1853 as consul for the Prussian government, he joined the French archaeologist August Mariette in his excavations at Memphis. He was director of the School of Egyptology in Cairo (1870-79). His greatest strength was the ancient Egyptian language, and a pioneer in the study of demotic. Brugsch recognized the Semitic side of Egyptian grammar, thus enabling a far more comprehensive and systematic understanding of hieroglyphs.. |
| Marshall Hall | |
(source) |
Born 18
Feb 1790; died 11 Aug 1857.
English physiologist who was the first to advance a scientific explanation of reflex action. Although Hall earned his living as a practitioner, he was deeply interested in experimentation. A prolific writer, he wrote 19 books and more than 150 papers. Between 1824 and 1830, Hall published several papers and a book on the consequences of blood-letting. Hall published a pioneering book (1817) on diagnosis. In 1833, Hall described the mechanism by which a stimulus can produce a response independently of sensation or volition and coined the term "reflex" in the biological context. For the first time, the concept of the reflex arc was adopted as a basic mechanism of nervous disease, thus Hall may be called "the father of modern neurology." |
| Alessandro Volta | |
(source) |
Born 18
Feb 1745; died 5 Mar 1827.
Count Alessandro Giuseppe Antonio Anastasio Volta was an Italian physicist whose invention of the electric battery (1800) provided the first source of continuous, reliable current produced by the contact of two dissimilar metals. His famous voltaic pile consisted of an alternating column of zinc and silver disks separated by porous cardboard soaked in brine. This instrument revolutionized the study of electricity by producing a practical source of current, leading almost immediately to William Nicholson's decomposition of water by electrolysis and later to Humphry Davy's discovery of potassium and other metals by the same process. Volta also invented the electrophorus and the condensing electroscope. The volt, a unit of electrical measurement, is named after him. Volta:
Science and Culture in the Age of Enlightenment, by Giuliano
Pancaldi. |
| Jean-Marie Roland (de La Platière) | |
(source) |
Born 18
Feb 1734; died 15 Nov 1793.
French industrial scientist who, largely through his wife's ambition, became a leader of the moderate Girondin faction of bourgeois revolutionaries during the French Revolution. Roland became an inspector general of commerce in 1780, and over the next decade he wrote a number of books on manufacturing and political economy. |
| Jacques Cassini | |
(source) |
Born 18
Feb 1677; died 16 Apr 1756.
French astronomer whose direct measurement of the proper motions of the stars (1738) disproved the ancient belief in the unchanging sphere of the stars. He also studied the moons of Jupiter and Saturn and the structure of Saturn's rings. His two major treatises on these subject appeared in 1740: Elements of Astronomy and Astronomical Tables of the Sun, Moon, Planets, Fixed Stars, and Satellites of Jupiter and Saturn. He also wrote about electricity, barometers, the recoil of firearms, and mirrors. He was the son of astronomer, mathematician and engineer Giovanni Cassini (1625-1712) with whom he made numerous geodesic observations. Eventually, he took over his father's duties as head of the Paris Observatory.« [Different sources give different dates of birth and death. See this note.] |
| Leon Battista Alberti | |
(source) |
Born 18
Feb 1404; died 25 Apr 1472.
Artist and geometrist. As an artist, he "wrote the book," the first general treatise Della Pictura (1434) on the the laws of perspective, establishing the science of projective geometry. Alberti also worked on maps (again involving his skill at geometrical mappings) and he collaborated with Toscanelli who supplied Columbus with the maps for his first voyage. He also wrote the first book on cryptography which contains the first example of a frequency table. |
| Nasir ad-Din at-Tusi | |
(source) |
Born 18
Feb 1201; died 26 Jun 1274.
Outstanding Persian philosopher, scientist, mathematician and astronomer. When The Mongol invasion, started by Genghis Khan, reached him in 1256, he escaped likely death by joining the victorious Mongols as a scientific advisor. He used an observatory built at Maragheh (finished 1262), assisted by Chinese astronomers. It had various instruments such as a 4 metre wall quadrant made from copper and an azimuth quadrant which was Tusi's own invention. Using accurately plotted planetary movements, he modified Ptolemy's model of the planetary system based on mechanical principles. The observatory and its library became a centre for a wide range of work in science, mathematics and philosophy. |
|
Today in Science History Science Store Browse a selection of Bargain Science and Nature Books |
| FEBRUARY 18 - DEATHS | |
| J. Robert Oppenheimer | |
(source) |
 Died
18 Feb 1967 (born 22 Apr 1904)
J(ulius) Robert Oppenheimer was a U.S. theoretical physicist and science administrator, noted as director of the Los Alamos laboratory during development of the atomic bomb (1943-45) and as director of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton (1947-66). Accusations as to his loyalty and reliability as a security risk led to a government hearing that resulted the loss of his security clearance and of his position as adviser to the highest echelons of the U.S. government. The case became a cause célèbre in the world of science because of its implications concerning political and moral issues relating to the role of scientists in government. |
| Henry Norris Russell | |
(source) |
Died 18 Feb 1957 (born 25 Oct 1877)
American astronomer and astrophysicist who showed the relationship between a star's brightness and its spectral type, in what is usually called the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram, and who also devised a means of computing the distances of binary stars. He analyzed light from eclipsing binary stars to determine stellar masses and he measured parallaxes. Russell popularized the distinction between giant stars and "dwarfs" while developing an early theoryof stellar evolution. He applied Meghnad Saha's theory of ionization to stellar atmospheres and determined elemental abundances, confirming Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin's discovery that the stars are composed mostly of hydrogen. Russell was a dominant force in U.S. astronomy. |
| Joseph G. Hamilton | |
(source) |
Died
18 Feb 1957 (born 11 Nov 1907)
Joseph G(ilbert) Hamilton was an American medical physicist who pioneered in the medical uses and health effects of radioactive isotopes. On 23 Mar 1936, he injected intraveneously a sodium radioisotope into a leukemia patient. His New York Times obituary stated that he was "believed to be the first ever to inject a radioisotope intravenously in a human being." He became an M.D. in 1936. He identified the usefulness of radioiodine to study and treat thryroid disease. During WW II, he was involved with the Manhattan Project studying the biological effects of the ingestion of plutonium and other fission products. From 1948, Hamilton was Director of the Crocker Laboratory, which had a 60-inch cyclotron for nuclear research.«  |
| Charles Benedict Davenport | |
(source) |
Died
18 Feb 1944 (born 1 Jun 1866)
American zoologist who contributed substantially to the study of eugenics (the improvement of populations through breeding) and heredity and who pioneered the use of statistical techniques in biological research. Partly as a result of breeding experiments with chickens and canaries, he was one of the first, soon after 1902, to recognize the validity of the newly discovered Mendelian theory of heredity. In Heredity in Relation to Eugenics (1911), he compiled evidence concerning the inheritance of human traits, on the basis of which he argued that the application of genetic principles would improve the human race. These data were at the heart of his lifelong promotion of eugenics, though he muddled science with social philosophy. Statistical
Methods in Biology, Medicine and Psychology, by
Charles Benedict Davenport. |
| Charles Eugene Bedaux | |
(source) |
Died
18 Feb 1944 (born 26 Oct 1887)
French-born American efficiency engineer who developed the Bedaux plan for measuring and compensating industrial labour. Bedaux was born in Paris in 1886 and migrated to the U.S. early in the 20th century. He became one of the pioneering contributors to the field of scientific management. Bedaux worked out various ideas about measuring human energy: these provided the basis for the innovative work study programs that lead to startling improvements in productivity. Bedaux introduced the concept of rating assessment in timing work. He adhered to Gilbreth's introduction of a rest allowance to allow recovery from fatigue. He is also known for extending the range of techniques employed in work study, including value analysis. |
| Eugenio Beltrami | |
(source) |
Died
18 Feb 1900 (born 16 Nov 1835)
Italian mathematician and mathematical physicist known for his concepts of non-Euclidean geometry. In 1865, he published a paper on how line elements on the surfaces of constant curvature could be represented by linear expressions. His approach offered a new representation of the geometry of constant curvature that was consistent with Euclidean theory. Beltrami studied elasticity, wave theory, optics, thermodynamics, and potential theory, and was among the first to explore the concepts of hyperspace and time as a fourth dimension. His investigations in the conduction of heat led to linear partial differential equations. Some of Beltrami's last work was on a mechanical interpretation of Maxwell's equations. |
| Sophus Lie | |
(source) |
Died
18 Feb 1899 (born 17 Dec 1842)
(Marius) Sophus Lie was a Norwegian mathematician who made significant contributions to the theories of algebraic invariants, continuous groups of transformations and differential equations. Lie groups and Lie algebras are named after him. Lie was in Paris at the outbreak of the French-German war of 1870. Lie left France, deciding to go to Italy. On the way however he was arrested as a German spy and his mathematics notes were assumed to be coded messages. Only after the intervention of French mathematician, Gaston Darboux, was Lie released and he decided to return to Christiania, Norway, where he had originally studied mathematics to continue his work. |
| Charles Henry Davis | |
(source) |
Died
18 Feb 1877 (born 16 Jan 1807)
U.S. naval officer and scientist who published several hydrographic studies, was a superintendent of the Naval Observatory (1865–67, 1874–77) and worked to further scientific progress. Between his naval duties at sea, he studied mathematics at Harvard. He made the first comprehensive survey of the coasts of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Maine, including the intricate Nantucket shoals area. He helped establish and then supervised the preparation of the American Nautical Almanac (1849) for several years. Davis was a co-founder of the National Academy of Sciences (1863), and wrote several scientific books.« |
| Adolphe-Théodore Brongniart | |
(source) |
Died
18 Feb 1876 (born 14 Jan 1801)
French botanist whose classification of fossil plants, which drew surprisingly accurate relations between extinct and existing forms prior to Charles Darwin's principles of organic evolution, earned him distinction as the founder of modern paleobotany. He was an early proponent of evolutionary theory. Brongniart was a pioneer in the study of plant morphology and physiology and published the first complete account of fossil plants (1828) and of a valuable first account of pollen. His interpretations of the fossil record also contributed to our understanding of historical changes in climates and plant geography. He helped establish the Annales des sciences naturelles and founded the Société botanique de France. |
| Pierre-Fidèle Bretonneau | |
(source) |
Died
18 Feb 1862 (born 3 Apr 1778)
French epidemiologist who performed the first successful tracheotomy to save a patient suffering from laryngeal diptheria from suffocating. In 1825, he made an incision of and entrance into the trachea through the skin and muscles of the neck. (Four previous attempts had failed.) Bretonneau was the first to distinguish typhoid from typhus. He was also the first to clinically describe diphtheria, which he named (Traité de la Diphérite,1826), a contagious condition, characterised by the presence of a false membrane in the pharynx or larynx. He derived the word derived from a Greek word meaning leather or hide. He also enunciated a theory of specific causes of infectious diseases, in which he foreshadowed the germ theory of Pasteur. |
| Wilhelm von Biela | |
| Died
18 Feb 1856 (born 19 Mar 1782)
(Baron) Austrian astronomer, known for his measurement (1826) of a previously known comet as having an orbital period of 6.6 years. Subsequently, known as Biela's Comet, it was observed to break in two (1846), and in 1852 the fragments returned as widely separated twin comets that were not seen again. However, in 1872 and 1885, bright meteor showers (known as Andromedids, or Bielids) were observed when the Earth crossed the path of the comet's known orbit. This observation provided the first concrete evidence for the idea that some meteors are composed of fragments of disintegrated comets. |
|
| Karl Gustav Jacob Jacobi | |
(source) |
Died
18 Feb 1851 (born 10 Dec 1804)
German mathematician who, with the independent work of Niels Henrik Abel of Norway, founded the theory of elliptic functions. He also worked on Abelian functions and discovered the hyperelliptic functions. Jacobi applied his work in elliptic functions to number theory. He also investigated mathematical analysis and geometry. Jacobi carried out important research in partial differential equations of the first order and applied them to the differential equations of dynamics. His work on determinants is important in dynamics and quantum mechanics and he studied the functional determinant now called the Jacobian. |
| Johann Hedwig | |
1793 (EB) |
Died
18 Feb 1799 (born 8 Dec 1730)
Transylvanian-born German botanist who did more than any other scientist to advance the knowledge of mosses. His postumous Species Muscorum Frondosorum (1801), based on natural groupings, is the internationally accepted starting point for the scientific naming of mosses. He demonstrated the close relationship between mosses and liverworts. He described the development of the spore capsule (sporogonium) bryophytes, and was one of the first to observe, and the first to illustrate, conjugation in the aglae Spirogyra and Chara. His major books were illustrated by accurate and beautiful figures, many of which were drawn from highly magnified images. |
| Georg Bernhard Bilfinger | |
(source) |
Died
18 Feb 1750 (born 23 Jan 1693)
German philosopher, mathematician, statesman, and author of treatises in astronomy, physics, botany, and theology. He is best known for his Leibniz-Wolffian philosophy, a term he coined to refer to his own position midway between those of the philosophers Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and Christian Wolff. |
| Michelangelo | |
David |
Died
18 Feb 1564 (born 6 Mar 1475)
Artist and architect known primarily for his works of art, but he also prepared extremely accurate anatomical drawings of the human body. Michelangelo, too, performed a number of dissections to be able to more accurately depict the physiology of saints and sinners. Thus science was advanced, but in the name of Renaissance art. |
| Thabit Ibn Qurra | |
(source) |
Died
18 Feb 901 (born c.836)
Scholar and mathematician who greatly contributed to preparing the way for such important mathematical discoveries as the extension of the concept of number to (positive) real numbers, integral calculus, theorems in spherical trigonometry, analytic geometry, and non-euclidean geometry. In astronomy he was one of the first reformers of the Ptolemaic system, writing Concerning the Motion of the Eighth Sphere. He believed (wrongly) that the motion of the equinoxes oscillates. Including observations of the Sun, eight complete treatises by Thabit on astronomy have survived. In mechanics he was a founder of statics. He wrote The Book on the Beam Balance in which he finds the conditions for the equilibrium of a heavy beam.* |
| FEBRUARY 18 - EVENTS | |
| Selfotel | |
(source) |
In 1994, the medicine selfotel offering benefits for stroke victims
was announced at a conference in San Diego, saying that it appeared to
alleviate the brain damage that follows when a blood clot in the brain
causes a stroke. However the drug's side
effects included hallucinations and agitation that mimic PCP (which
binds at a similar site in the brain). By 1996, like many promising new
drugs that never make it through clinical trials, the human trial of
selfotel was prematurely ended. Ciba-Geigy stated its reason was that the
drug was not effective enough to justify further work. Research continues
into newer chemical treatments to protect stroke victims from devastating
brain damage,
the leading cause of adult disability, and third leading cause of death.
[Image:
scan of brain with stroke damage shown in white circle.] |
| Enterprise shuttle flight tested | |
(source) |
In 1977, the first space shuttle orbiter,
the Enterprise, was flight tested in "captive mode," attached to
the top of a 747 jumbo jet. The flight was the first of five captive
flights before the orbiter was released to land on its own. The nine-month-long
Approach and Landing Test program was conducted through Nov 1977
at the Dryden Flight Research Facility and demonstrated that the orbiter
could fly in the atmosphere and land like an airplane, except without power-gliding
flight. The orbiter was originally to be named Constitution (to
honour the U.S. Constitution's Bicentennial). However, viewers of the popular
TV show Star Trek started a write-in campaign urging the White House
to rename the vehicle to Enterprise. |
| Pluto | |
(source) |
In 1930, the planet Pluto
was discovered
by Clyde Tombaugh, the only planet
to be found by an American astronomer, after three decades of work at Lowell
Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. Before Tombaugh was born, Percival Lowell
had searched unsuccessfully for Pluto, a ninth planet whose gravity would
explain deviations in the positions of Uranus and Neptune. In his will
he decreed that the hunt should continue. That meant using a telescope
to photograph tiny pieces of the sky by night, then and sifting through
the millions of star images by day for one dim dot that moved. When Lowell
Observatory director Vesto Slipher hired him, a Kansas farmboy, Clyde Tombaugh
threw himself into the search in Apr 1929.
Out
of the Darkness, the Planet Pluto, by Clyde William Tombaugh. |
| Isotope | |
(source) |
In 1913, chemist Frederick Soddy
introduced the term "isotope". Soddy was an English chemist
and physicist who received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1921 for investigating
radioactive substances. He suggested that different elements produced in
different radioactive transformations were capable of occupying the same
place on the Periodic Table, and on 18 Feb 1913 he named such species "isotopes"
from Greek words meaning "same place." He is credited, along with others,
with the discovery of the element protactinium in 1917. |
| Edison patent | |
(source) |
In 1908, Thomas A. Edison was issued a U.S.
patent for an improvement to "Alkaline Storage Battery" (No. 879,612).
Its purpose was to reduce foaming of the electrolyte in such batteries
while in operation, which Edison attributed to the presence of even microsopic
quantities of organic matter. To correct the problem, the alkaline solution,
such as caustic potash, is filtered through bone black that has been first
purified by washing in a hot potash solution, then washing in water. Image:
plates of Edison's A-type storage battery, date unknown. |
| Vacuum cleaner | |
(source) |
In 1901, a dust removing suction cleaner was patented by Hubert
Cecil Booth, a bridge engineer (U.K. No. 17,433). Prior machines using
compressed air created clouds of dust, but with no means of removal, the
dirt simply settled again. Once struck with the idea of using suction,
Booth made a preliminary experiment by placing a pocket handkerchief over
the plush back of a seat. He put his lips to it, and after sucking, a ring
of black spots on the handkerchief proved his principle. He started a mobile
cleaning service. Built on a horse-drawn cart, his vacuum machine had an
engine driving a pump provided with a long hose to extend into a house
to be cleaned. An early task was to clean the great blue coronation carpet
in Westminster Abbey for Edward VII's coronation. |
| Statue of Liberty design patent | |
(USPTO) |
In 1897, a U.S. design patent was issued to Auguste Bartholdi for a monumental
statue intended to commemorate the independence of the United States, "Liberty
Enlightening the World," now known as the Statue of Liberty (No.
D11,023). The patent described the design as "a female figure standing
erect upon a pedestal or block ... The body is clothed in the classical
drapery or stola ... The right arm is thrown up and stretched out with
a flamboyant torch grasped in the hand ... In the left arn, which is falling
against the body, is held a tablet, upon which is inscribed "4th July,
1776." ... The head is surmounted by a crown or diadem, from which
radiate divergingly seven rays tapering from the crown, and representing
a halo.... "«
The
Statue of Liberty, by Barry Moreno. |
| Black American patent | |
(source) |
In 1896, a U.S. patent for a "Razor Stropping Device" was issued to black
American inventor, Henry Grenon (No. 554,867).
The invention combined a frame, a strop within the frame, travellers with
horizontal movement along the frame, and a carrier mounted in the travellers
to hold the razor blade. The device was designed to handle a razor while
stropping it, and providing for the razor to automatically turn on its
back when the direction of motion of the travellers is reversed.
The
Inventive Spirit of African Americans: Patented Ingenuity,
by Patricia Carter Sluby. |
| UK-NZ telegraph | |
|
In 1876, a direct telegraph link was established between Britain and New
Zealand. |
|
