| MARCH 1 - BIRTHS | |
| Seymour Papert | |
(source) |
 Born 1
Mar 1928
Computer scientist who invented the Logo computer programming language, an educational computer programming language for children. He studied under Piaget, absorbing his educational theories. He has studied ways to use mathematics to understand better how children learn and think, and about the ways in which computers can aid in a child's learning. With Marvin Minsky, he co-founded the Artificial Intelligence Lab at MIT. In the mid-80’s he worked in Costa Rica to develop a nationwide program of intensive computer use throughout the public education system. Costa Rica, which now has the highest literacy rate in the Americas, continues to serve as a model for large-scale deployment of computer technology in education. |
| Archer Martin | |
(source) |
Born 1
Mar 1910; died 28 Jul 2002.
Archer J(ohn) P(orter) Martin was the British biochemist who was awarded (with R.L.M. Synge) the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1952 for development of paper partition chromatography using two different liquids moving at right angles. This quick and economical analytical technique separates the different components of a mixture, permitting their identification and analysis. As a new tool, it provided extensive advances in chemical, medical, and biological research. In 1941 Martin and Synge had realized that the partition of a solute between a gas and a liquid was possible, but it was in the early 1950s that Martin developed the technique of gas-liquid chromatography with A. T. James. |
| Sir Isaac Shoenberg | |
(source) |
Born 1
Mar 1880; died 25 Jan 1963.
Russian-Born British electrical engineer and principal inventor of the first high-definition television system, as used by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) for the world's first public high-definition telecast (from London, 1936). He had installed the first radio stations in Russia before moving to England in 1914. He was head of a research group for Electrical and Musical Industries (EMI) that developed (1931-35) an advanced kind of camera tube (the Emitron) and a relatively efficient hard-vacuum cathode-ray tube for the television receiver. Until 1964 the BBC used his technical standard proposal - 405 scanning lines and 25 pictures a second. He was director of EMI from 1955. His youngest son, David Shoenberg, became a noted physicist. |
| John Pell | |
(source) |
Born 1
Mar 1611; died 12 Dec 1685.
English mathematician who introduced the division sign (obelus, ÷) into England. The obelus was first used by Johann Rahn (1622-1676) in 1659 in Teutsche Algebra. Rahn’s book was interpreted into English and published, with additions made by John Pell. According to some sources, John Pell was a key influence on Rahn and he may be responsible for the development of the symbol. The word obelus comes from a Greek word meaning a "roasting spit." The symbol wasn't new. It had been used to mark passages in writings that were considered dubious, corrupt or spurious. Image: the division symbol as first used by Rahn in Teutsche Algebra as reproduced by Florian Cajori in A History of Mathematical Notations, (1928-29) vol. 2, page 211. |
|
Today in Science History Science Store Browse a selection of Bargain Science and Nature Books |
| MARCH 1 - DEATHS | |
| Joseph Cyril Bamford | |
(source) |
 Died
1 Mar 2001 (born 21 Jun 1916)
English inventor and industrialist who invented and manufactured the JCB construction machine with a hydraulically operated shovel on the front and an excavator arm on the back. From the business which bore his initials that he started in a garage in 1945, he became one of Britain's most successful industrialists. He pioneered the backhoe loader concept in Europe, which he first introduced in 1954. He is also credited with the widespread application of hydraulic technology in construction and agricultural equipment. The company he founded now has a global market in heavy plant and agricultural machinery. In 1968, he created a nature reserve in the grounds of the factory which now successfully hosts much wildlife.« |
| Cláudio Villas-Boas | |
(source) |
Died
1 Mar 1998 (born 8 Dec 1916)
Brazilian anthropologist and activist whose life was dedicated to the search for and protection of the country's indigenous people as their lands were taken over and developed; he and his brother Orlando aided in the creation of the Xingu National Park reservation in 1961 and the National Indian Foundation six years later. He helped to build more than 30 airfields in the middle of the jungle and opened more than 1,000 miles of trails under the Amazon canopy. Together with his brothers, Cláudio contacted some of the most feared tribes like the Kalapalos, Kayabi, Kamaiurás, Meinacos, and Txucarramães. In 1973 they made contact for the first time with the Kreen-Akarore Indians (or Panarás, the giant Indians) in the north of the state of Mato Grosso. |
| Georges J.F. Köhler | |
(source) |
Died
1 Mar 1995 (born 17 Apr 1946)
German immunologist who in 1984, with César Milstein and Niels K. Jerne, received the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for his work in developing the technique for producing unlimited amounts of extremely pure proteins known as monoclonal antibodies. These uniform, and highly sensitive protein molecules are used in diagnosing and combating a number of diseases. Milstein's and Koehler's method of producing monoclonal antibodies involves fusing an antibody-producing cell - which can recognize an invading organism - with a tumor cell, which lives and reproduces indefinitely. Their discoveries are being used in research on mild illnesses and diseases such as cancer and AIDS. |
| Edwin Herbert Land | |
1947 (source) |
Died
1 Mar 1991 (born 7 May 1909)
American inventor and physicist whose one-step process for developing and printing photographs culminated in a revolution in photography unparalleled since the advent of roll film. He founded the Polaroid Company, and introduced the Polaroid camera, Polaroid sunglasses polarizing filters, instant X-rays, 3D movie projector among the over 500 patents he held. |
| Harry E. Soref | |
(source) |
Died
1 Mar 1957 (born 2 Mar 1887)
Locksmith, inventor of the laminated steel padlock, and founder of Master Lock Company (1921). As a locksmith, Soref had realized that the cheaper padlocks, made with stamped metal sheels, were poor security because they were easily damaged. He patented (1924) his invention of a laminated padlock which, like bank vault doors and battleships, was built in laminations of layer on layer of steel for greater strength. Unable to sell his invention to a padlock manufacturer, he began making them himself. Master Lock opened its first tiny factory in Milwaukee, Wisc. In 1928 Master Lock gained national recognition for shipping 147,600 padlocks to federal prohibition agents in New York for locking up the speakeasies they raided.«  |
| Alfred Korzybski | |
(source) |
Died
1 Mar 1950 (born 3 July 1879)
Polish-born American scientist and philosopher. Korzybski was the originator of general semantics, a system of linguistic philosophy that attempts to increase humanity's capacity to transmit ideas from generation to generation (what Korzybski called man's “time-binding capacity”) through the study and refinement of ways of using and reacting to language. |
| Alexandre Yersin | |
(source) |
Died
1 Mar 1943 (born 23 Sep 1863)
Swiss-born French bacteriologist and a co-discoverer of the plague bacillus, Pasteurella pestis (also called Yersinia pestis and Bacillus pestis). With Pierre Roux he discovered the diphtheria toxin (1889). Yersin discovered the plague bacillus simultaneously with Shibasaburo Kitasato (1894) in Hong Kong, where he had been sent by the French government. The Japanese bacteriologist Kitasato had arrived days earlier and had secured priority to the limited facilities. Nevertheless, Yersin gained a sample of pus excised from a plague victim, and was almost immediately isolate the plague bacillus.Yersin then set out to attenuate the bacillus and develop an anti-plague serum. He successfully treated his first plague patient, a Chinese student, in 1896.  Plague:
A Story of Rivalry, Science, and the Scourge That Won't Go Away,
by Edward Marriott. |
| Ferdinand von Lindemann | |
(source) |
Died
1 Mar 1939 (born 12 April 1852)
(Carl Louis) Ferdinand von Lindemann was a German mathematician who was the first to prove that the number 
is transcendental, that is, it does not satisfy any algebraic equation
with rational coefficients. The problem of squaring the circle, namely
constructing a square with the same area as a given circle using ruler
and compasses alone, had been one of the classical problems of Greek mathematics.
In 1873, the year in which Lindemann was awarded his doctorate, Hermite
published his proof that e is transcendental. Shortly after this Lindemann
visited Hermite in Paris and discussed the methods which he had used in
his proof. Using methods similar to those of Hermite, Lindemann established
in 1882 that
was also transcendental. |
| Edwin James Houston | |
 |
Died
1 Mar 1914 (born 9 July 1847)
Edwin J(ames) Houston was a U.S. electrical engineer. Together with another Philadelphia high school teacher, Elihu Thomson, he experimented with electricity, invented (patented 1881) and manufactured arc street-lighting. He presented the first paper, Notes on Phenomena in Incandescent Lamps, to The American Institute of Electrical Engineers when it began in 1884 (AIEE - the predecessor society of the present IEEE, The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.) . The merger of Thomson-Houston and Edison General Electric companies (1892) formed General Electric. In 1894 he joined with Arthur Kennelly (who resigned from Edison's laboratory) to form a consulting company. |
| Jacobus Henricus van't Hoff | |
| Died
1 Mar 1911 (born 30 Aug 1852)
Physical chemist and first winner of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry (1901) for work on rates of reaction, chemical equilibrium, and osmotic pressure. |
|
| Peter Barlow | |
(source) |
Died
1 Mar 1862 (born 13 Oct 1776)
English mathematician and engineer who invented two varieties of achromatic (non-colour-distorting) telescope lenses. In 1819, Barlow began work on the problem of deviation in ship compasses caused by the presence of iron in the hull. For his method of correcting the deviation by juxtaposing the compass with a suitably shaped piece of iron, he was awarded the Copley Medal. In 1822, he built a device which is to be considered one of the first models of an electric motor supplied by continuous current. He also worked on the design of bridges, in particular working (1819-26) with Thomas Telford on the design of the bridge over the Menai Strait, the first major modern suspension bridge. Barlow was active during the period of railway building in Britain. |
| Friedrich Eduard Beneke | |
| Died
1 Mar 1854 (born 17 Feb 1798)
German philosopher and psychologist who argued that inductive psychology was the foundation for the study of all philosophical disciplines. He rejected the existing idealism for a form of associationism influenced by both Kant and Locke. Beneke agreed with Herbart's general idea that mathematics should be introduced into psychology, but he felt that Herbart's attempt to quantify psychological phenomena was insufficiently empirical. Beneke suggested that more precise observations were needed, through psychological experiments. Although he never carried out such experiments himself, Beneke demanded that psychologists should develop their theories, and test them, under controlled conditions and with the systematic variation of variables. |
|
| Thomas Earnshaw | |
(source) |
Died
1 Mar 1829 (born 4 Feb 1749)
English watchmaker, the first to simplify and economize in producing chronometers so as to make them available to the general public. In 1782, he devised the spring detent chronometer escapement. He did much to develop the chronometer, and was awarded £3,000 by Board of Longitude. His chronometers were described in a publication by the Commissioners of Longitude in 1806. Forty years after his death, the novelist Jules Verne described Phileas Fogg as, "He gave the idea of being perfectly well-balanced, as exactly regulated as a Leroy or Earnshaw chronometer." |
| Zabdiel Boylston | |
 |
Died
1 Mar 1766 (born 9 Mar 1676)
American physician who introduced smallpox inoculation into the American colonies. Small-pox had broken out again in Boston in 1721. Rev. Cotton Mather had learned of a technique being practiced abroad to use that was reported to give protection. When a small wound was infected with pus taken from a smallpox sore, a person would thereupon develop a trivial case of the disease, but would likely suffer no further more serious infection later. After Mather was rebuffed by other medical practitioners in Boston, he approached Boylston with the idea to experiment with the technique. Boyston thought a trial to be so worthwhile that he inoculated his own son and two others on 26 Jun 1721. Their resulting illness was mild; they recovered by 4 July. |
| Francesco Redi | |
(source) |
Died
1 Mar 1697 (born 19 Feb 1626)
Italian physician and poet who demonstrated that the presence of maggots in putrefying meat does not result from spontaneous generation but from eggs laid on the meat by flies. His classic method repeated the same experiments in different ways, modifying only one parameter at a time, and carrying out suitable tests. Redi prepared eight jars with different kinds of meat; four were left open and four sealed. Only the first four jars, in which flies had laid eggs, generated maggots which later became flies. In the sealed jars, the meat merely decomposed. (To exclude the possibility that maggot's life cycle was affected in sealed jars, he tested further with two other series of jars, allowing air, but no flies, to enter test jars covered with a fine filter.)  Sparks
of Life: Darwinism and the Victorian Debates Over Spontaneous Generationby
James E. Strick |
| MARCH 1 - EVENTS | |
| Direct-dial tranatlantic phone calls | |
In 1970, direct-dialed transatlantic phone calls were made possible between
the US and Britain by the combined efforts of AT&T and the British
Post Office (which also then handled the British telephone system.) |
|
| Soviet Venus landing | |
|
In 1966, the Soviet unmanned spacecraft Venus 3 touched down on Venus. |
|
| Bikini H-bomb test | |
|
In 1954, the hydrogen bomb code-named Bravo was exploded in a test
over the Bikini Atoll of the Pacific Ocean. With explosive power of about
20 megatons of TNT it was the most powerful of all U.S. thermonuclear bomb
tests. Radioactivity made the islands an unsafe wasteland, preventing the
evacuated indigenous people from returning for many decades to follow. |
|
| Houdini patent | |
|
In 1921, Harry Houdini patented a diver's suit (No.1,370,316) |
|
| Radioactivity discovered | |
(source) |
In 1896, Becquerel discovered radioactivity when he developed
the photographic plate he left in a desk drawer and found it had fogged
with the image of the uranium compound crystals resting on it. Thus, the
discovery was in fact the result of a chance occurrence. He had originally
stored objects together on 26 Feb,
after postponing his intended experiment on phosphorescent emissions stimulated
by the sun. Instead he now found spontaneous and penetrating rays, independent
of any input of energy. The mysterious nucleus of the atom had been revealed,
but realizing that took more years of research by other scientists. He
received
a share of the 1903 Nobel Prize with Pierre and Marie Curie for their work
on radioactivity |
| Pterodactylis | |
|
In 1872, rival paleontologists Edward Drinker Cope and O.C. Marsh vie for
recognition of their work on the fossilized remains of an animal with large
wings from the dinosaur era. Today, Cope reads his paper to the American
Philosophical Society in Philadelphia in which he namedcv vgbc the creature
as
Ornithochirus. However, Marsh beat him into print in the American
Journal of Science a few days earlier, and the name he used, Pterodactylis,
was thus established. |
|
| John Muir | |
 |
In 1866, John Muir's workplace was destroyed by fire. The factory, near
Meaford, Canada, was not only where he worked as a woodworker and inventor
of tools, but also where he stored his inventions, and a stock of wood
he part-owned, all of which were lost in the fire. At the age of 27, he
shortly changed his lifestyle to that of a naturalist and author. |
| First female black American medical degree | |
|
In 1864, Rebecca Lee Crumpler became the first black woman to receive an
American medical degree, from the New England Female Medical College in
Boston. She began in 1852-1860 as a nurse in Massachusetts. As a medical
pioneer who prevailed over the severest of societal restrictions, she spent
her lifetime working to improve the health of the black community. In 1883,
her desire to educate others in general medical principles resulted in
the publication of her A Book of Medicinal Discourses in Two Parts.
In the book, based on her personal journals, she focused on instructions
for women on how to provide medical care for themselves and their children. |
|
| Faraday joins Davy | |
(source) |
In 1813, Michael Faraday was appointed
at the Royal Institution as Chemical Assistant to Humphry Davy, whom he
succeeded as Professor of Chemistry in 1820. Since age 14, in 1805, while
an apprentice bookbinder, Faraday had educated himself about science. In
1810, he joined the City Philosophical Society to attend lectures
and discuss scientific matters. A turning point in his life happened in
1812. A client of the bookbindery gave him four tickets to hear Humphry
Davy lecturing at the Royal Institution. Fascinated by the scientific topics,
He took notes, which he took with him later to show Davy when he later
asked for a position. Davy interviewed him, but there was no opening at
the time. When a vacancy ocurred in 1813, Davy recalled him and Faraday
was hired.« |
