| MARCH 5 - BIRTHS | |
| Laurent Schwartz | |
 Born 5
Mar 1915
French mathematician who was awarded the Fields Medal in 1950 for his work in functional analysis. |
|
| Daniel Kahneman | |
|
(source) |
Born 5
Mar 1934
American psychologist (born in Tel Aviv, now in Israel) who was awarded a share of the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2002 "for having integrated insights from psychological research into economic science, especially concerning human judgment and decision-making under uncertainty." Since there is no Nobel Prize, per se, for psychology, he was only the second psychologist to become a Nobel Laureate. He pioneered theories of behavioral finance, which integrates economics and cognitive science to explain seemingly irrational risk management behavior in human beings. He collaborated with Amos Tversky and others in establishing a cognitive basis for common human errors using heuristics and in developing the Prospect Theory. |
| Edouard Belin | |
(source) |
Born 5
Mar 1876; died 4 Mar 1963.
French engineer whose invention (1907) made the first telephoto transmission by wire, from Paris to Lyon to Bordeaux and back to Paris. He further developed the Belinograph able to make the first transatlantic radio facsimile transmission, on 4 Aug 1921, between Annapolis, Md., and Belin's laboratories at La Malmaison, France. His invention scanned an image on a cylinder reflecting a light beam onto a photoelectric cell which converted varying reflected light intensity into electrical impulses. His equipment was adopted in Britain in 1928, and used almost exclusively by European news media in the 1930s -'40s, when the term "Belino" came into general use for all kinds of picture transmission. By 1923, he had dabbled in ideas for television.«  |
| Edouard van Beneden | |
| Born 5
Mar 1846; died 28 Apr 1910.
Edouard (Joseph Louis-Marie) van Beneden was a Belgian embryologist and cytologist best known for his discoveries concerning fertilization in sex cells and chromosome numbers in body cells. From 1883, he experimented with the worm Ascaris megalocephala, an intestinal worm found in horses. His studies showed that sexual fertilization results from the union of two different cell half-nuclei. Thus a new single cell is created with its number of chromosomes derived as one-half from the male sperm and the other half from the female egg. Van Beneden also determined that the chromosome number is constant for every body cell of a species. His theory of embryo formation in mammals became a standard scientific principle. |
|
| Étienne-Jules Marey | |
1880 (source) |
Born 5
Mar 1830; died 15 May 1904.
 
Died 15 May 1904 (born 5 Mar 1830)
French physiologist and chronophotographer, who while studying how blood moves in the body invented the sphygmograph. This device made a graphical record of the pulse and variations in blood pressure. One end of a lever rested on the veins in the wrist, while a stylus on the other end inscribed the fluctuations of the heart onto a carbon-blacked strip of paper moving at a uniform speed. He took an interest in the flight of insects and birds. In 1869, Marey demonstrated how an insect flies by moving its wings in a figure-8 shape. Inspired by Muybridge's work, Marey studied the movement of animals by photographing multiple images on a single plate. He also used a high-speed motion camera to produce film to view in slow motion.« [Image right: sphygmograph]  Picturing
Time: The Work of Etienne-Jules Marey, by Marta Braun. |
| Sir C. Wyville Thomson | |
(source) |
Born 5
Mar 1830; died 10 Mar 1882.
Sir C(harles) Wyville Thomson was a Scottish naturalist who was one of the first marine biologists to describe life in the ocean depths. He led the famous 110,224-km (68,890 mile) scientific expedition of HMS Challenger in (1872-6) which trawled the depths of the oceans for new forms of life. This was the world’s first foray into big science. The Expeditionwas to circumnavigate the world in the steam corvette, HMS Challenger, with a goal, as resolved by the British Association (1871) of "carrying the physical and biological Exploration of the deep-sea into all the great oceanic centres". The extensive biological collections, together with soundings, bottom samples, and chemical and physical observations, presented the first broad view of the character of the oceans. |
| Sir Austen Henry Layard | |
(source) |
Born 5
Mar 1817; died 5 Jul 1894.
English archaeologist whose excavations in Mesopotamia revealed the palaces of the great Assyrian kings, Sennacherib and Assurbanipal, yielding much evidence of both the antiquity and the cultural achievement of the ancient civilizations. He began excavations at Nimrud in 1845, aged 28, making detailed drawing of his discoveries. The artifacts he uncovered included huge winged bulls, hawk-winged lions with human heads, many other statuary reliefs, and alabaster slabs with cuneiform inscriptions. He shipped immense scuptures and other finds back to England. However, he was not a scholar. He wrote popular narrative books on his travels and discoveries. Later in life, he abandoned archaeology and turned to politics.« The
Man Who Found Nineveh: The Story of Austen Henry Layard,
by Robert Silverberg. |
| William Oughtred | |
| Born 5
Mar 1574; died 30 Jun 1660.
English mathematician and Episcopal minister who invented the earliest form of the slide rule, two identical linear or circular logarithmic scales held together and adjusted by hand. Improvements involving the familiar inner rule with tongue-in-groove linear construction came later. He introduced the familiar multiplication sign x in a 1631 textbook, along with the first use of the abbreviations sin, cos and tan. |
|
| Gerardus Mercator | |
(source) |
Born 5
Mar 1512; died 2 Dec 1594.
Flemish cartographer whose most important innovation was a map embodying what was later known as the Mercator projection, on which parallels and meridians are rendered as straight lines spaced so as to produce at any point an accurate ratio of latitude to longitude. He also introduced the term atlas for a collection of maps. |
|
Today in Science History Science Store Browse a selection of Bargain Science and Nature Books |
| MARCH 5 - DEATHS | |
| Julian Lowell Coolidge | |
| Died
5 Mar 1954 (born 28 Sep 1873)
U.S. mathematician and educator who published numerous works on theoretical mathematics along the lines of the Study-Segre school. Coolidge received a B.A. at Harvard (1895), then in England he graduated (1897) with a B.Sc. from Balliol College Oxford. (It is interesting that this degree from Oxford was in natural science and it was the first natural science degree ever awarded by Oxford.) He taught at Groton School, Conn. (1897-9) where one of his pupils was Franklin D Roosevelt, the future U.S. president. From 1899 he taught at Harvard University. Between 1902 and 1904, he went to Turin to study under Corrado Segre and then to Bonn where he studied under Eduard Study. His Mathematics of the Great Amateurs is perhaps his best-known work. |
|
| Ernst Julius Cohen | |
(source) |
Died
5 Mar 1944 (born 7 Mar 1869)
Dutch chemist who researched piezochemistry, electrochemical thermodynamics, polymorphism of compounds and the allotropy of metals, especially tin. He examined the different properties of tin's allotropes: white tin which is the familiar stable form above 13.2ºC and the powdery gray tin stable below that temperature. (The crumbling transition at low temperature is slow and called tin pest by Cohen. Because the cold transformation can be initiated or accelerated by seeding white tin with traces of grey tin, it is also known as tin disease, as if infected.) Cohen's life ended in the Auschwitz death camp following his arrest as a Jew by Nazi occupation forces in 1944. The exact date of his death is uncertain.« |
| Christine Ladd-Franklin | |
 |
Died
5 Mar 1930 (born 1 Dec 1847)
(née Ladd) American scientist and logician known for contributions to the theory of colour vision accounting for the development of man's color sense which countered the established views of Helmholtz, Young, and Hering. Her position was that color-sense developed in stages. Ladd- Franklin's conclusions were particularly useful in accounting for color-blindness in some individuals. In logic, she published an original method for reducing all syllogisms to a single formula (1883) |
| Clément Ader | |
(source) |
Died 5 Mar 1926 (born 4 Feb 1841)
Self-taught French engineer and inventor, best known as a pioneer of flight before the Wright brothers. In 1890 he constructed a steam-powered aircraft with bat-shaped wings. His craft, the Eole, which could not be steered, made the first heavier-than-air flight (of 50 m). His first patent, on 15 Apr 1866, related to railways. From the late 1870's, he registered many telephone patents. In 1881, Ader relayed music from the Paris Opera via phone lines to listeners with headphones at the Paris International Exhibition of Electricity, and demonstrated "Stereo", in a sense, by use of two carbon microphones picking up signals from two points close to each other. Ader also made inventions and improvements for bicycles (1868) and automobiles (1898). |
| Claude-Louis Mathieu | |
 |
Died
5 Mar 1875 (born 25 Nov 1783)
French astronomer and mathematician who worked particularly on the determination of the distances of the stars. He began his career as an engineer, but soon became a mathematician at the Bureau des Longitudes in 1817 and later professor of astronomy in Paris. For many years Claude Mathieu edited the work on population statistics L'Annuaire du Bureau des Longitudes produced by the Bureau des Longitudes. His work in astronomy focussed on determining the distances to stars. He published L'Histoire de l'astronomie au XVIII siècle in 1827. |
| Alessandro Giuseppe Antonio Anastasio Volta | |
(source) |
Died
5 Mar 1827 (born 18 Feb 1745)
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. |
| Pierre-Simon Laplace | |
(source) |
Died
5 Mar 1827 (born 23 Mar 1749)
(marquis) French mathematician, astronomer, and physicist, known for his mathematical analysis of the stability of the solar system (1773), alleviating Newton's concerns about perturbations between planets. He took an exact approach to science. He developed an explanation of surface tension of a liquid in terms of inter-molecular attractions, investigated capillary action and the speed of sound. He assisted Lavoisier (1783) investigating specific heat and heats of combustion, initiating the science of thermochemistry. He believed the solar system formed from a collapsing nebula. He contributed to the mathematics of probability and calculus, in which a differential equation is known by his name, and was involved in establishing the metric system.« 
Pierre-Simon
Laplace, 1749-1827, by Charles Coulston Gillispie. |
| Franz Anton Mesmer | |
| Died
5 Mar 1815 (born 23 May 1734)
German physician whose system of therapeutics, known as mesmerism, was the forerunner of the modern practice of hypnotism. He spent his career offering this controversial therapy to wealthy aristocratic clients in several European capitals.
The
wizard from Vienna: Franz Anton Mesmer, by Vincent Buranelli. |
|
| William Smellie | |
| Died
5 Mar 1795 (born 1740)
Scottish obstetrician who was the first to teach obstetrics and midwifery on a scientific basis. |
|
| MARCH 5 - EVENTS | |
| U.S. Patent 5M | |
In 1991, U.S. patent No. 5,000,000 was issued for a process turning garbage
into fuel to microbiologist Lonnie. O. Ingram of the University of Florida.
His method depended on the creation of a new species of bacterium genetically
formed from two other bacteria. |
|
| Spitfire | |
|
In 1936, the Spitfire made its first flight from Eastleigh aerodrome, Southampton,
England. |
|
| Air brake | |
|
In 1872, George Westinghouse Jr., patented the railroad air brake
on this day (No.124,405). They are now also used in big trucks, buses and
amusement park rides. |
|
| Stapler | |
|
In 1868, the stapler was patented in Birmingham, England by C.H. Gould. |
|
| Limelight | |
|
In 1830, limelight as a form of lighting was presented before scientists
at the Tower of London, in a trial with two other lamp designs. Invented
by Thomas Drummond in 1816, limelight
used jets of oxygen to assist heating lime to incandescence. More brilliant
light was formed than by a flame alone. Limelight was adopted in lighthouses
and for theatre stages. However, because it required constant tending,
it was willingly superceded by newer inventions. |
|
| Coperican theory decreed false | |
|
In 1616, Copernican theory is declared "false and erroneous" in a decree
written by Cardinal Robert Bellarmine, and issued by the Catholic Church
in Rome. Further, no person was to be permitted to hold or teach
the theory that the earth revolves around the sun. When Galileo subsequently
violated the decree, he was put on trial and held under house arrest for
the final eight years of his life. |
|
| Brahe finds comet | |
|
In 1590, Tycho Brahe discovered a comet
in the constellation Pisces. |
|
| Tobacco | |
|
In 1558, smoking tobacco was introduced in Europe by Francisco Fernandes. |
|
| Oldest eclipse record | |
(source) |
In 1223 BC, the oldest recorded eclipse occurred, according to one plausible
interpretation of a date inscribed on a clay tablet retrieved from the
ancient city of Ugarit, Syria (as it is now). This date is favoured by
recent authors on the subject, although alternatively 3
May 1375 has also been proposed as plausible. Certainly by the 8th
century BC, the Babylonians were keeping a systematic record of solar eclipses,
and possibly by this time they may have been able to apply numerological
rules to make fairly accurate predictions of the occurrence of solar eclipses.
The first total solar eclipse reliably recorded by the Chinese occurred
on 4 Jun 180 BC.«
[Image:
a modern photograph of a total solar eclipse.] |
