| MARCH 9 - BIRTHS | |
| Yury Alekseyevich Gagarin | |
(source) |
 Born 9
Mar 1934; died 27 Mar 1968.
Soviet cosmonaut who on 12 Apr 1961 became the first man to travel into space when he was 27 years old. He graduated from the Soviet Air Force cadet school in 1957. He volunteered to become a cosmonaut and joined a group of test pilots for training. Three days before the launch, he was informed he had been selected to pilot the Vostok 1 spacecraft. He orbited the Earth once in 1 hour 29 minutes at a maximum altitude of 187 miles (301 km). He never went into space again but trained other cosmonauts and toured several other nations. Gagarin was killed with another pilot in the crash of a two-seat jet aircraft while on what was described as a routine training flight. His ashes were placed in a niche in the Kremlin wall. |
| Walter Kohn | |
| Born 9
Mar 1923
Austrian-born American physicist who, with John A. Pople, received the 1998 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. The award recognized their individual work on computations in quantum chemistry. Kohn's share of the prize acknowledged his development of the density-functional theory, which made it possible to apply the complicated mathematics of quantum mechanics to the description and analysis of the chemical bonding between atoms. |
|
| Howard Hathaway Aiken | |
(source) |
Born 9
Mar 1900; died 14 Mar 1973.
American mathematician who invented the Harvard Mark I, forerunner of the modern electronic digital computer. While a graduate student and instructor Harvard University, Aiken's research had led to a system of differential equations which could only be solved using numerical techniques, for which he began planning large computer. His idea was to use an adaptation of Hollerith's punched card machine. When eventually built, (1943) it weighed 35 tons, had 500 miles of wire and could compute to 23 significant figures. There were 72 storage registers and central units to perform multiplication and division. It was controlled by a sequence of instructions on punched paper tapes, and used punched cards to enter data and give output from the machine. |
| Fernand-Isidore Widal | |
(source) |
Born 9
Mar 1862; died 14 January 1929.
(Georges-) Fernand-Isidore Widal was a French physician and bacteriologist who made important contributions to the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of many diseases. In 1896, he developed the Widal reaction, a procedure for diagnosing typhoid fever based on the fact that antibodies in the blood of an infected individual cause the bacteria to bind together into clumps. In 1906, he recognized that the retention of sodium chloride was a feature found in cases of nephritis and cardiac edema, and he recommended salt deprivation as part of the treatment for both diseases. During WW I, Widal prepared a vaccine that appreciably reduced typhoid contagion among the allied armies. |
| Edward Goodrich Acheson | |
(source) |
Born 9
Mar 1856; died 6 Jul 1931.
American inventor who discovered the abrasive carborundum, the second hardest substance (next to diamonds) and perfected a method for making graphite. He worked at Thomas Edison's Menlo Park from 1880 until 1884 when he left to become an independent inventor. In 1891, he obtained the use of an electric generating plant of considerable power and tried to use electric heat to impregnate clay with carbon. The resultant mass exhibited some small shiny specks, and he determined that this crystalline substance (silicon carbide) had value as an abrasive, which he called "carborundum." In 1894, Acheson established the Carborundum Company, to produce grinding wheels, whet stones, and powdered abrasives. |
| Wilhelm Pfeffer | |
(source) |
Born 9
Mar 1845; died 31 Jan 1920.
Wilhelm (Friedrich Philipp) Pfeffer was a German botanist whose work on osmotic pressure made him a pioneer in the study of plant physiology. With Julius von Sachs, he was a leader in systematizing the fundamentals of plant physiology. In 1877, while investigating cell metabolism, he devised a semi-permeable membrane for the study osmosis. By measuring osmotic pressure, a technique he developed, Pfeffer found that pressure depends on the size of the molecules that are too large to pass through the membrane. Thus, he had a method to measure the size of such giant molecules. However, he was unable to find a mathematical relationship to predict osmotic pressure, which was furthered by the work of van't Hoff. |
| Franz Joseph Gall | |
(source) |
Born 9
Mar 1758; died 22 Aug 1828.
German anatomist and physiologist who pioneered in linking cerebral functions to localized areas of the brain and associated with underlying attributes of the human personality. As early as the 1790s, he was developing theories on the anatomy and function of the parts of the brain. He was first to identify recognize that the brain's gray matter was made up of nerve cell bodies, and that the white matter has the fibers that carry impulses from the nerves. He believed an external examination of the skull could reveal individual intellect and personality, which he termed "cranioscopy," later called "phrenology" by his protegé, J. G. Spurzheim. In 1805, they travelled on a long lecture tour of Europe, also studying at prisons and asylums.« |
| Zabdiel Boylston | |
 |
Born 9
Mar 1676; died 1 Mar 1766.
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 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 Jul 1721.  |
| David Fabricius | |
 |
Born 9
Mar 1564; died 7 May 1617.
A German astronomer, friend of Tycho Brahe and Kepler, and one of the first to follow Galileo in telescope observation of the skies. He is best known for a naked-eye observation of a star in Aug 1596, subsequently named Omicron Ceti, the first variable star to be discovered, and now known as Mira. Its existence with variable brightness contradicted the Aristotelian dogma that the heavens were both perfect and constant. With his son, Johannes Fabricius, he observed the sun and noted sunspots. For further observations they invented the use of a camera obscura and recorded sun-spot motion indicating the rotation of the Sun. David Fabricius, a Protestant minister, was killed by a parishioner angered upon being accused by him as a thief. |
|
Today in Science History Science Store Browse a selection of Bargain Science and Nature Books |
| MARCH 9 - DEATHS | |
| Ulf von Euler | |
(source) |
 Died
9 Mar 1983 (born 7 Feb 1905)
Swedish physiologist who shared the 1970 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine (with Sir Bernard Katz and Julius Axelrod) for their independent study of transmitter mechanisms of nerve cells. Since 1906, when Thomas Elliott first proposed that nerve cells communicate with each other and the muscles they control by the release of chemicals, there had been efforts to identify these substances. Euler's recognition was for his discovery (1946) of noradrenaline which serves as neurotransmitter at the nerve terminals of the sympathetic nervous system. He further showed how noradrenaline is stored in small nerve granules within the nerve fibres of this system. Euler had earlier, in 1935, discovered the substance he named prostaglandin.«  Release
and uptake functions in adrenergic nerve granules, by
Ulf von Euler. |
| Earl W. Sutherland, Jr. | |
| Died
9 Mar 1974 (born 19 Nov 1915)
American pharmacologist and physiologist who was awarded the 1971 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for isolating cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cyclic AMP) and demonstrating its involvement in numerous metabolic processes that occur in animals. |
|
| Dr. Howard T. Engstrom | |
(source) |
Died
9 Mar 1962 (born 23 Jun 1902)
American computer designer who promoted the first commercially available digital computer, the Univac. As a Yale professor he had written a paper on the mathematical basis for cryptanalysis techniques. During WW II he was called to the Navy and placed in command of the OP-20-G automated machines "Research Section" for message decryption. After the war, he was a co-founder of Engineering Research Associates, a private company to work on electronic digital circuit technology for the Navy on a contract basis, with former Navy researchers. ERA delivered its first Atlas computer to the National Security Agency in Dec 1950. As vice president for research, Engstrom took the initiative to make a commercial version, renamed Univac. |
| V(agn) Walfrid Ekman | |
(source) |
Died
9 Mar 1954 (born 3 May 1874)
Swedish physical oceanographer and mathematical physicist whose research into the dynamics of ocean currents led to his name remaining associated with terms for particular phenomena of the ocean or atmosphere, including Ekman spiral, Ekman transport and Ekman layer. Fridtjof Nansen pointed out to Ekman that he had noticed that icebergs drift at an angle of 20°-40° to the prevailing wind, rather than directly with the wind. In 1902, Ekman published an explanation, known now as the Ekman spiral, describing movement of ocean currents under the influence of effects from the Earth's rotation. He also developed experimental techniques and instruments such as the Ekman current meter and Ekman water bottle.« |
| Robert Bosch | |
| Died
9 Mar 1942 (born 23 Sep 1861)
German engineer and industrialist who was responsible for the invention of the spark plug and magneto for automobiles and whose firm produced a wide range of precision machines and electrical equipment in plants throughout the world. |
|
| Henry Chapman Mercer | |
(source) |
Died
9 Mar 1930 (born 24 Jun 1856)
American archaeologist, collector, and tilemaker. In his early years, he pursued archaeology. In 1897, while searching for fireplace tools in a junk dealer's barn, Mercer found a jumble of American Pioneer handicraft tools made obsolete by the Industrial Revolution. He realized these pre-1850 work related implements might one day be the prized findings of future archeologists. Mercer seized upon opportunity to preserve such endangered artifacts. He spent a lifetime building his collection, which he called "The Tools of the Nation Maker." In 1898, he founded the Moravian Pottery and Tile Works in Doylestown, PA., to manufacture hand-worked relief-decorated ceramic tiles by a system he developed and patented. 
"Ancient
Carpenter's Tools: Illustrated and Explained..." by Henry
Chapman Mercer |
| Johannes Diederik van der Waals | |
| Died
9 Mar 1923 (born 23 Nov 1837)
Dutch physicist, winner of the 1910 Nobel Prize for Physics for his research on the gaseous and liquid states of matter. His work made the study of temperatures near absolute zero possible. |
|
| Henry Clifton Sorby | |
| Died
9 Mar 1908 (born 10 May 1826)
English geologist whose microscopic studies of thin slices of rock earned him the title "father of microscopical petrography." |
|
| Max Delbrück | |
| Died
9 Mar 1906 (born 9 Mar 1981)
German-born U.S. biologist, a pioneer in the study of molecular genetics. With Alfred Day Hershey and Salvador Luria, he was awarded the 1969 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for work on bacteriophages (viruses that infect bacteria). |
|
| Hans Christian Ørsted | |
| Died
9 Mar 1851 (born 14 Aug 1777).
Danish physicist and chemist who discovered that electric current in a wire can deflect a magnetized compass needle, a phenomenon the importance of which was rapidly recognized and which inspired the development of electromagnetic theory. |
|
| Mary Anning | |
 |
Died
9 Mar 1847 (born 21 May 1799)
English fossil collector who made her first significant discovery at the age of 11 or 12 (sources differ on the details), when she found a complete skeleton of an Ichthyosaurus, from the Jurassic period. The ten-meter (30 feet) long skeleton created a sensation and made her famous. Anning's determination and keen scientific interest in fossils derived from her father's interest in fossil hunting, and a need for the income derived from them to support her family after his death. in 1810. She sold large fossils to noted paleontologists of the day, and smaller ones to the tourist trade. In 1823, Anning made another great discovery, found the first complete Plesiosaurus. Later in her life, the Geological Society of London granted Anning an honorary membership. |
| Hans Conrad Escher (von der Linth) | |
| Died
9 Mar 1823 (born 24 Aug 1767).
Swiss scientist and politician who was president of the Great Council of the Helvetic Republic (1798-99) and who was an outspoken opponent of federalism. He directed the canalization of the Linth River. |
|
| Edward Daniel Clarke | |
| Died
9 Mar 1822 (born 5 Jun 1769)
English mineralogist and traveler who amassed valuable collections of minerals, manuscripts, and Greek coins and sculpture. |
|
| Albumazar | |
| Died
9 Mar 886 (born 10 Aug 787)
leading astrologer of the Muslim world, who is known primarily for his theory that the world, created when the seven planets were in conjunction in the first degree of Aries, will come to an end at a like conjunction in the last degree of Pisces. |
|
| MARCH 9 - EVENTS | |
| Mesons | |
In 1948, the University of California at Berkeley and the Atomic Energy
Commission officially announced the artificial production
of mesons using the 184-inch cyclotron at the university's Radiation Laboratory.
Time
reported the discovery and hinted that the study of mesons might "lead
in the direction of a vastly better source of atomic energy than the fission
of uranium." |
|
| Solid air | |
 |
In 1893, Professor Dewar communicated to the meeting of the Royal Society
that he had succeeded in freezing air into a clear, transparent solid.
The precise nature of this solid was not known, and needed further research.
It was speculated
that it may be "a jelly of solid nitrogen containing liquid oxygen, much
as calves’foot jelly contains water diffused in solid gelatine. Or it may
be a true ice of liquid air, in which both oxygen and nitrogen exist in
the solid form." At this time, Dewar had not been able to solidify pure
oxygen, although nitrogen had been frozen with comparative ease. It also
had already been proved that in the evaporation of liquid air, nitrogen
boils off first. |
| Mailbox | |
(source) |
In 1858, the first U.S. patent for a street mailbox was patented by Albert
Potts of Philadelphia (No.19,578).
It comprised a simple metal box designed to attach to a lamppost. By August,
these boxes were found along the streets of Boston, Mass., and New York
City, N.Y. His patent described the "object of this improvement is to afford
greater facilities to the inhabitants of large cities for the depositing
of letters, and to enable the carriers to collect, or the citizens to deposit
therein, at any period of time." The boxes had a central hole for the shaft
of a lamp post, lids covering the drop hole to exclude weather, a sight
hole so a carrier could see if any letters had been deposited, and a small
door secured with a lock for the carrier to empty the box. |
| Artificial teeth | |
|
In 1822, Charles M. Graham of N.Y. was granted a patent for his invention
of artificial teeth. |
|
| Sunspots | |
|
(source) |
In 1611, Johannes Fabricius,
a Dutch astronomer,
observed the rising sun through his telescope, and observed several dark
spots on it. This was perhaps the first ever observation of sunspots.
He called his father to investigate
this new phenomenon with him. The brightness of the Sun's center was very
painful, and the two quickly switched to a projection method by means of
a camera obscura. Johannes was the first to publish information on such
observations. He did so in his Narratio de maculis in sole observatis
et apparente earum cum sole conversione. ("Narration on Spots Observed
on the Sun and their Apparent Rotation with the Sun"), the dedication of
which was dated 13 Jun 1611. |
