| MARCH 3 - BIRTHS | |
| Daniel Chonghan Hong | |
 Born 3
Mar 1956; died 2 Jul 2002
Korean theoretical physicist specializing in statistical physics and nonlinear dynamic physics, who with colleague Hugo Caram, originated the void diffusing-void model of granular flow, which is recognized as an effective theoretical treatment for a broad range of dynamical phenomena in granular media. In general, his work ranged from percolation network, viscous fingering, granular flows to traffic equations. He studied and taught in America from 1981, and wrote articles for popular magazines on various topics. He died at the young age of 46 of cardiac arrest.« |
|
| Arthur Kornberg | |
(source) |
Born 3
Mar 1918
American biochemist and physician who shared the 1959 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine (with Severo Ochoa) for the "discovery of the mechanisms in the biological synthesis of deoxyribonucleic acid." Kornberg showed not only how DNA molecules are duplicated both in nature within bacterial cells, but also isolated the first DNA polymerising enzyme (1958), and reproduced the process in the test tube. His research included studying the nucleic acids which control heredity in animals, plants, bacteria and viruses.«  For
the Love of Enzymes: The Odyssey of a Biochemist, by
Arthur Kornberg. |
| Emil Artin | |
 |
Born 3
Mar 1898; died 20 Dec 1962.
Austro-German mathematician who worked in algebraic number theory, made a major contribution to field theory, and stated a law of reciprocity which included all previously known laws of reciprocity (1927). He also worked on the theory of braids (1925), and on rings with the minimum condition on right ideals, now called Artinian rings (1944). Artin has the distinction of solving (1927) one of the 23 famous problems previously posed by Hilbert in 1900. With his Jewish wife, he left Nazi Germany in 1937, and worked at universities in the U.S. until 1956, when he returned to his home country.« Galois
Theory (Notre Dame Mathematical Lectures), by Emil Artin,
et al. |
| Sir Cyril Burt | |
(source) |
Born 3
Mar 1883; died 10 Oct 1971.
British psychologist who was a leader in developing methods of statistical data analysis, particularly factor analysis, in psychological testing. He investigated the role of heredity in intelligence with twin studies and the role of nuture in juvenile deliquency. In 1913, he was appointed thea school psychologist for the schools administered by the London County Council (LCC) This was the first appointment of this kind in the U.K. In 1926, he proposed a national testing program of intelligence tests on children at about age 11. Subsequently, the national "Eleven-Plus" exam was used to identify whether children were high scorers suitable for education at a grammar schools, or not. After Burt's death his later work on twins was questioned as flawed or fraud.« Cyril
Burt, Psychologist, by Leslie S.
Hearnshaw. |
| Elmer McCollum | |
(source) |
Born 3
Mar 1879 (died 15 Nov 1967)
American biochemist who originated the letter system of naming vitamins. He discovered vitamins A, B and worked with others on vitamin D. He performed extensive research work in nutrition and growth. He was the first in the U.S. to establish a colony of white rats as laboratory animals to be the subject of his nutrition experiments. In the 1910's, he recognized that a healthy diet required certain fats, and he named the essential component "fat-soluble A," as distinct from another he named "water-soluble B." Although at first he thought each was a single compound, he later showed that they were in fact complexes. He researched how certain minerals were important as nutrients, including calcium, phosphorus, fluorine, manganese and zinc.« A
history of nutrition: The sequence of ideas in nutrition investigations,
by Elmer Verner McCollum. |
| Henry Wetherbee Henshaw | |
| Born 3
Mar 1850; died 1 Aug 1930
Naturalist |
|
| Alexander Graham Bell | |
(source) |
Born 3
Mar 1847; died 2 Aug 1922
Scottish inventor of the telephone. Bell's career was influenced by his grandfather (who published The Practical Elocutionist and Stammering and Other Impediments of Speech), his father (whose interest was the mechanics and methods of vocal communication) and his mother (who was deaf). As a teenager, Alexander was intrigued by the writings of German physicist Hermann Von Helmholtz, On The Sensations of Tone. At age 23 he moved to Canada. In 1871, Bell began giving instruction in Visible Speech at the Boston School for Deaf Mutes. This background set his course in developing the transmission of voice over wires. He cofounded Bell Telephone Co in 1877. With his father-in-law, he re-established the journal Science (1882).« Alexander
Graham Bell, by Edwin S. Grosvenor, Morgan Wesson. |
| Georg Cantor | |
(source) |
Born 3
Mar 1845; died 6 Jan 1918.
Georg (Ferdinand Ludwig Philipp) Cantor was a Russian-German mathematician who created modern set theory and extended it to give the concept of transfinite numbers,with cardinal and ordinal number classes. His early work was on Fourier series, but he is best known for his study of transfinite set theory. He began with the definition of infinite sets proposed by Dedekind in 1872: a set is infinite when it is similar to a proper part of itself. Sets with this property, such as the set of natural numbers are said to be 'denumerable' or 'countable'. His career was repeatedly interrupted after 1884 by mental illness. He died of heart failure in 1918 in a mental institution. |
| Sir William Chandler Roberts-Austen | |
| Born 3
Mar 1843; died 22 Nov 1902.
English metallurgist noted for his research on the physical properties of metals and their alloys. He was knighted in 1899. |
|
| Sir John Murray | |
(source) |
Born 3
Mar 1841; died 16 Mar 1914.
Scottish naturalist who, as one of its founders, coined the name oceanography He studyied ocean basins, deep-sea deposits, and coral-reef formation. As a marine scientist, he took part in the Challenger Expedition (1872-76), the first major oceanographic expedition of the world. He was first to observe the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and the existence of marine trenches. He attempted with Buchan to construct from temperature and salinity observations a qualitative theory of water movement in the world's oceans. With A. Agassiz, he put forward a modified hypothesis for coral reef development, arguing against Darwin's hypothesis and suggesting that subsidence was not always a controlling mechanism. He died in 1914, killed by a motor car. |
| George William Hill | |
(source) |
Born 3
Mar 1838; died 16 Apr 1914.
U.S. mathematical astronomer considered by many of his peers to be the greatest master of celestial mechanics of his time. Hill joined the Nautical Almanac Office in 1861. He computed the orbit of the moon while making original contributions to the three body problem. He introduced infinite determinants, a concept which later found application in many fields of mathematics and physics. When Simon Newcomb took over the Nautical Almanac in 1877 and began a complete recomputation of all solar system motions, Hill was assigned the difficult problem of the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn. After completing the enormous labor in ten years, he returned to his farm, where he continued his research in celestial mechanics. |
| George M. Pullman | |
| Born 3
Mar 1831; died 19 Oct 1897.
George M(ortimer) Pullman was an American industrialist and inventor of the Pullman sleeping car for use on railroads. |
|
| Pierre Prévost | |
| Born 3
Mar 1751; died 8 Apr 1839.
Swiss philosopher and physicist who first showed that all bodies radiate heat, no matter how hot or cold they are. In Sur l'equilibre du feu (1792) he made a significant step forward in understanding the nature of heat. With the Prévost theory of exchanges, he introduced the concept of dynamic equilibrium in which all bodies are both radiating and absorbing heat. This contrasted with the widely held belief of the time that together with the idea that heat consisted of a fluid called caloric, many philosophers regarded cold as consisting of another fluid called frigoric. Prévost recognized that cooling was the loss of heat, not the gain of cold. In his later years, Prévost studied the human ageing process, using himself as the subject of his observations. |
|
| Andreas Sigismund Marggraf | |
| Born 3
Mar 1709; died 7 Aug 1782.
German chemist whose discovery of beet sugar in 1747 led to the development of the modern sugar industry. |
|
|
Today in Science History Science Store Browse a selection of Bargain Science and Nature Books |
| MARCH 3 - DEATHS | |
| Alec Zino | |
(source) |
Born 9 Feb 1916; died 3 Mar 2004.
Portuguese ornithologist and conservationist who gave his name to Zino's petrel, Europe's rarest breeding bird. Only perhaps 45 mating pairs of the Zino's petrel (Pterodroma madeira) remain on the island of Madeira, south-west of Portugal, where this small black and white seabird breeds. The abundance population of the bird started to decline with the arrival of settlers (1419). By mid-20th century it was thought extinct. Zino, a successful businessman and native of Madeira, devoted much of the second half of his life to conservation. After searching, he re-discovered a small colony of the bird, in Jun 1969. Therafter, he studied and protected it. Zino's petrel continues to raise young in burrows on remote precipices of the mountains of Madeira. [Image right: Zeno's Petrel (source) ] |
| Gerhard Herzberg | |
(source) |
 Died
3 Mar 1999 (born 25 Dec 1904)
German-Canadian physicist and winner of the 1971 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for his work in determining the electronic structure and geometry of molecules, especially free radicals: groups of atoms that contain odd numbers of electrons. Herzberg is noted for his extensive work on the technique and interpretation of the spectra of molecules. He elucidated the properties of many molecules, ions, and radicals and also contributed to the use of spectroscopy in astronomy (e.g., in detecting hydrogen in space). His work included the first measurements of the Lamb shifts (important in quantum electrodynamics) in deuterium, helium, and the positive lithium ion. |
| Albert Bruce Sabin | |
(source) |
Died
3 Mar 1993 (born 26 Aug 1906)
Polish-American physician and microbiologist best known for developing the first oral polio vaccine (1955), which was administered to millions of children in Europe, Africa, and the Americas beginning in the late 1950s. He was also known for his research in the fields of human viral diseases, toxoplasmosis, and cancer. |
| William Penney | |
(source) |
Died
3 Mar 1991 (born 24 Jun 1909)
(Baron Penney of East Hendred) British nuclear physicist who led Britain's development of the atomic bomb. Penney was to Britain as Oppenheimer was to the U.S. He was a prominent part of the British Mission at Los Alamos during WW II, where his principal assignment was studying the damage effects from the blast wave of the atomic bomb, but he became involved in implosion studies as well. Penney's combination of expertise, analytical skill, effective communication, and the ability to translate them into practical application soon made him one of the five members of the Los Alamos "brain trust" that made key decisions. He was the only Briton to be part of the ten man Target Committee that drew up the list of targets for the atomic bombing of Japan. |
| Charlotte Moore Sitterly | |
(source) |
Died
3 Mar 1990 (born 24 Sep 1898)
American astrophysicist who organized, analyzed, and published definitive books on the solar spectrum and spectral line multiplets. From 1945 to age 90, she conducted this work at the U.S. National Bureau of Standards and the Naval Research Laboratory. She detected that technetium, an unstable element (previously known only as a result of laboratory experiments with nuclear reactions) exists in nature. She made major contributions to the compilation of tables for atomic-energy levels associated with optical spectra, which are now standard reference material. As instruments carried in space rockets provided new data in the ultraviolet, she extended these tables beyond the optical range. She was awarded the Bruce Medal in 1990.« |
| Sewell Wright | |
1928 (source) |
Died
3 Mar 1988 (born 21 Dec 1889)
American geneticist, one of the founders of modern theoretical population genetics. He researched the effects of inbreeding and crossbreeding with guinea pigs, and later on the effects of gene action on inherited characteristics. He adopted statistical techniques to develop evolutionary theory. Wright is best known for his concept of genetic drift, called the Sewell Wright effect - that when small populations of a species are isolated, out of pure chance the few individuals who carry certain relatively rare genes may fail to transmit them. The genes may therefore disappear and their loss may lead to the emergence of new species, although natural selection has played no part in the process.« |
| Edmund Beecher Wilson | |
(source) |
Died
3 Mar 1939 (born 19 Oct 1856)
American biologist known for his researches in embryology and cytology. His first experimental studies, in embryology, led him to investigations at the cellular level. His principal work was on the function of the cell in heredity and showed the chromosomal basis of sex determination in the embryo (1905). Wilson concluded that females have XX chromosomes, while males possess XY chromosomes. Following the process of meiosis, all eggs are left with an X chromosome, but sperm can have either X or Y. If an X chromosome sperm fertilizes an egg, the result is a female. If a Y chromosome sperm fertilizes and egg, the result is a male. He was the first scientist to publish photographs illustrating how a cell divides. |
| William Kingdon Clifford | |
(source) |
Died
3 Mar 1879 (born 4 May 1845)
British philosopher and mathematician who developed the theory of biquaternions (a generalization of the Irish mathematician Sir William Rowan Hamilton's theory of quaternions) and then linked them with more general associative algebras. In 1870, he survived a shipwreck near Sicily while on an expedition to Italy to obtain scientific data from an eclipse. Influenced by the work of Riemann and Lobachevsky, Clifford studied non-euclidean geometry. In 1870 he wrote On the Space Theory of Matter in which he argued that energy and matter are simply different types of curvature of space. In this work he presented ideas which were to form a fundamental role in Einstein's general theory of relativity. |
| Robert Mills | |
c. 1850 (source) |
Died
3 Mar 1855 (born 12 Aug 1781)
American architect and engineer of the Washington Monument. Mills designed buildings in Charleston, SC; Philadelphia, PA; Baltimore, MD; Richmond, VA and Washington, DC. In 1836, he won the competition for the design of the Washington Monument. Construction began in 1848 and proceeded slowly because of a lack of funds. The monument was only 152-ft high when Mills died in 1855; only in 1878 did Congress appropriate money to complete the structure, which was finished at 555-ft in 1884. He also designed the Department of Treasury building and several other federal buildings. His diverse interests included mapping and making a directory of lighthouses. He adopted fire-proofing measures in the design of buildings.« Robert
Mills: America's First Architect, by John Bryan |
| Johann Christian Fabricius | |
(source) |
Died
3 Mar 1808 (born 7 Jan 1745)
Danish entomologist who was one of the great entomologists of the 18th century. After studying with Swedish naturalist Linnaeus, Fabricius travelled widely in Europe to see insect collections and produced many publications describing all the new species that he saw. He named and classified some 10,000 species of insects. The system of classification of insects he developed was based on mouth structure (instead of wing). He offered theories, progressive for his time, suggesting that hybridization could produce produce new species or varieties, and that environmental adaptation could influence changes in anatomical structure or function. |
| William Stukeley | |
(source) |
Died
3 Mar 1765 (born 7 Nov 1687)
English antiquary and physician whose studies of the monumental Neolithic Period-Bronze Age stone circles at Stonehenge and Avebury, Wiltshire, led him to elaborate extravagant theories relating them to the Druids (ancient Celtic priest-magicians). These views were widely and enthusiastically accepted in the late 18th century. Despite his romantic theorizing, he was an excellent field archaeologist, and his surveys of the monuments in the 1720s remain of interest. Stukeley was the first to note the midsummer alignment at Stonehenge, and the first to describe the Stonehenge and Beckhampton "Avenues" (his name, as were "Cursus" and "trilithon").Main representative of the theory of electricity as the cause of earthquakes in Britain. Image: a sketch made by William Stukeley of the Meini Gwyr site before near total destruction in the following years. |
| Robert Hooke | |
(source) |
Died 3 Mar 1703 (born 18 July 1635)
English physicist, born Freshwater, Isle of Wight, who discovered the law of elasticity, known as Hooke's law. He was a virtuoso scientist whose scope of research ranged widely, including physics, astronomy, chemistry, biology, geology, architecture and naval technology. Hooke invented the balance spring for clocks; served as Chief Surveyor and helped rebuild London after the Great Fire of 1666; invented or improved meteorological instruments such as the barometer, anemometer, and hygrometer. He authored the influential Micrographia, the first book on microscopy (1665).« [Image left: [Image: from a recently discovered portrait, believed (by Lisa Jardine) to be the only authentic picture of Hooke. Image right: Hooke's compound microscope (source).] The
Curious Life of Robert Hooke: The Man Who Measured London, by
Lisa Jardine |
| Matthias de L'Obel | |
(source) |
Died
3 Mar 1616 (born 1538)
French physician and botanist whose Stirpium adversaria nova (1570; written in collaboration with Pierre Pena) was a milestone in modern botany, a collection of notes and data on 1,300 plants that he had observed and gathered in France and England. In this book, he argued that botany and medicine must be based on thorough, exact observation. L'Obel divided plants according to the form of their leaves. His two professions were closed related, as most medicines derived from plants. Thus, l’Obel managed several gardens of herbs, and wrote on them. The popular garden perennial Lobelia was named by Linneaus for him. (De l'Obel is French for "of the white poplar" and his family coat of arms was a poplar leaf.) |
| MARCH 3 - EVENTS | |
| Solo non-stop global flight | |
(source) |
In 2005, the first solo non-stop and fastest flight
around the world without refueling ended as Steve
Fossett landed at the Salina Municipal Airport, Kansas. He left there
67 hours earlier on 28 Feb 2005, in The GlobalFlyer, a single-engine,
single-use experimental jet plane. The first non-stop two-person flight
around the world, was made in 1986 by Jeana Yeager and Dick Rutan in nine
days, covering 26,366 miles without refueling. The GlobalFlyer,
purpose-built of light composites, carried fuel comprising 86 percent of
its weight at take-off in 13 tanks in its long wings and boom tanks. The
chief designer, Jon Karkow, had spent five years planning the project,
sponsored by Sir Richard Branson, owner of Virgin Atlantic Airways.« |
| Apollo 9 | |
|
In 1969, Apollo 9 was launched from Cape Kennedy on a mission to test the
lunar module.« |
|
| U.K. Colour television | |
|
In 1966, plans to begin broadcasting television programmes in colour from
the following year were announced.
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) would make Britain the first
European country to have a schedule of colour programs. Postmaster General,
Anthony Wedgwood Benn, made the announcement in the House of Commons. The
cost of production would be paid from a higher licence fee for the use
of colour televisions, beginning with four hours of original programming
per week in colour, with David Attenborough, controller of BBC2, in charge.
Service was expected to expand to 10-12 hours weekly within a year. A new
colour receiver then cost about £250. Black and white reception would
be unaffected.« |
|
| U.S. inland radio facsimile transmission | |
|
In 1923, the first radio facsimile transmission made in the U.S. to a distant
point sent a photgraphic image from the U.S. Navy Radio Station NOF, at
Anacostia, D.C., to the Evening Bulletin in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
A few months earlier, on 3 Oct 1922, photographs had been sent as a facsimile
transmission over a city telephone line within Washington D.C., using a
photographic plate to record the signal received at the radio station
NOF, attended by Commander Albert Hoyt Taaylor, U.S.N.*« |
|
| U.S. international airmail | |
|
In 1919, the first U.S. international airmail service began. Mail was flown
74 miles from Seattle, Washington to Victoria, B.C., Canada. The carrier
was pilot Edward Hubbard flying a Boeing type-C open cockpit biplane with
pontoons. Edward Boeing accompanied as a passenger on the first interantional
airmail flight.*« |
|
| U.S. standards bureau | |
|
In 1901, the office of Standards, Weights and Measures was created by an
act of Congress (31 Stat. L. 1449), establishing it as a separate bureau
for the work previously conducted by the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey
of the Treasury Department. Its first director was Samuel Wesley Stratton.
On 1 Jul 1913, it became the National Bureau of Standards under the Department
of Commerce.*« |
|
| Cattle tuberculosis test | |
|
In 1892, the first tuberculosis test on cattle in the U.S. was made by
Dr. Leonard Pearson with tuberculin that he had brought from Europe. He
was the Dean of the Veterinary Department of the University of Pennsylvania,
Philadelphia, and he conducted the test on a herd at Claremont Farms,
Villa Nova, Pennsylvania, owned by Dr. J. E. Gillingham.*« |
|
| U.S. Navy steel vessels | |
|
In 1883, the first steel vessels of the U.S. Navy were authorized by Congress.
Four boats were built - the cruisers Atlanta, Boston, Chicago,
and a dispatch boat Dolphin (22 Stat. L. 477). The Atlanta
was launched 9 Oct 1884, and commissioned 19 Jul 1886. Of these, the Chicago
was the largest, with a length of 325 feet and width of 48 feet. The Atlanta
and
the Boston were 270 feet long and 42 feet wide, powered by horizontal
back-acting engines and cylindrical tubular boilers.*« |
|
| U.S. Geological Survey | |
|
In 1879, the office of director of the U.S. Geological Survey was authorized
by Congress (20 Stat. L. 394), which made appropriations "for sundry civil
expenses of the government." Clarence King, the first director, was nominated
on 21 Mar 1879 and started work on 24 May 1879. The Survey was national
in scope for the classification of public lands and their geological structure,
mineral resources, and products. The first geological survey financed by
Congress was authorized by act of Congress on 28 Jun 1834 (4 Stat. L. 394)
which provided $5,000 for a survey made by George William Featherstonhaugh
of the land between the Missouri and Red Rivers. The earliest survey at
state expense was made in 1830-33 by Massachussetts.*« |
|
| Steam distribution plant | |
|
In 1882, the first steam distribution plant of importance in the U.S. made
its first distribution of steam from a central plant to the United Bank
Building on Broadway. The New York Steam Corporation, formed 26 Jul 1880,
consolidated with the Steam Heating and Power Company of New York on 19
Sep 1881. The plant, built on the block bounded by Cortlandt, Dey, Greenwich
and Washington Streets had a 225-ft high chimney, and generated steam from
48 boilers each rated 250-h.p. By nine months later, the output served
62 customers.*« |
|
| AT&T | |
|
In 1885, American Telephone and Telegraph Company was incorporated
as a wholly owned subsidiary of American Bell. |
|
| Science Association | |
(source) |
In 1863, the National Academy of Sciences was chartered
in the U.S. as President Abraham Lincoln approved the Act of Congress which
established it (12 Stat. L. 806). The Act stipulated that the Academy would
"whenever called upon by any department of the Government, investigate,
examine, experiment or report upon any subject of science or art." The
Academy would receive no compensation, but the actual expenses incurred
for the Government's requirements were to be paid from appropriations.
In 1863, Alexander Dallas Bache
became its first president, who served until 1867. Several scientific societies
were formed in the U.S. before this date, the earliest being the Boston
Philosophical Society founded in 1683.*«
[Image: Details from 1924 portrait
made for the dedication of the Academy Building, showing Founders at signing
of the charter (top L to bottom R) Peirce,
Bache (first president of the
Academy), Henry, Agassiz,
President Lincoln, Sen.
Henry Wilson, Adm. Davis,
and Gould.] |
| First Black-American patent | |
|
In 1821, the first U.S. patent issued to a Black-American was granted to
Thomas Jennings for a "dry-scouring" cleaning process (3 Mar 1821 No. X3306).
Jennings used his royalties to buy
his family out of slavery and to support the abolition of slavery. In 1831,
Thomas Jennings became
assistant secretary for the First Annual Convention of the People of Color
in Philadelphia, PA. For some time Henry Blair had been regarded
as the first Black-American receiving a patent, for a corn planter
(14 Oct 1834, No. X8447), until
it became better known that the Jennings held that distinction.
The
Inventive Spirit of African Americans: Patented Ingenuity,
by Patricia Carter Sluby. |
|
