| MARCH 10 - BIRTHS | |
| Val Logsdon Fitch | |
(source) |
 Born 10
Mar 1923
American particle physicist who was corecipient with James Watson Cronin of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1980 for an experiment conducted in 1964 that disproved the long-held theory that particle interaction should be indifferent to the direction of time. Working with Leo James Rainwater, Fitch had been the first to observe radiation from muonic atoms; i.e., from species in which a muon is orbiting a nucleus rather than an electron. This work indicated that the sizes of atomic nuclei were smaller than had been supposed. He went on to study kaons and in 1964 began his collaboration with James Cronin, James Christenson, and René Turley which led to the discovery of violations of fundamental symmetry principles in the decay of neutral K-mesons. |
| George Julius Poulett Scrope | |
(source) |
Born 10
Mar 1797; died 19 Jan 1876.
English geologist, political economist and Member of Parliament. He took an early amateur interest in geology and volcanology, and his work helped disprove the Neptunist theory that all Earth's rocks were of oceanic sedimentary origin believed by a number of early 19th century geologists. He studied volcanic features in Italy, Sicily and Germany, and especially in central France and wrote Considerations on Volcanoes (1825) and Memoir on the Geology of Central France. (1827). It was by his observations on the erosion of valleys by rivers, that he was able to extend and confirm the views of Hutton and Playfair. His birth name of Thompson became Scrope in 1821 when he married the daughter of the earl William Scrope.« |
| Jeremias B. Richter | |
(source) |
Born 10
Mar 1762; died 4 Apr 1807.
Jeremias Benjamin Richter was a German chemist who discovered law of equivalent proportions. He studied chemistry in his spare time while in the Prussian army (1778-1785) and afterwards while earning a Ph.D. in mathematics (1789). Richter was much influenced by Kant, whose lectures he may have attended, in the contention that science is applied mathematics. Richter looked for mathematical relationships in chemisty, convinced that substances reacted with each other in fixed proportions. He showed such a relationship when acids and bases neutralize to produce salts (1791). Thus he was the first to establish stoichiometry, which became the basis of quantitative chemical analysis. He died of tuberculosis at age 45 years. |
| John Playfair | |
(source) |
Born 10
Mar 1748; died 20 Jul 1819.
Scottish mathematician, physicist, and geologist who is remembered for his axiom that two intersecting straight lines cannot both be parallel to a third straight line. His Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory of the Earth (1802) gave strong support to James Hutton's principle of uniformitarianism, essential to a proper understanding of geology. Playfair was the first scientist to recognise that a river cuts its own valley, and he cited British examples of the gradual, fluvial origins of valleys, to challenge the catastrophic theory (based on the Biblical Flood in Genesis) that was still widely accepted. He was also the first to link the relocation of loose rocks to the movement of glaciers. Playfair published texts on geometry, physics, and astronomy.« |
| Marcello Malpighi | |
(source) |
Born 10
Mar 1628; died 30 Nov 1694.
Italian physician and biologist who, in developing experimental methods to study living things, founded the science of microscopic anatomy. After Malpighi's researches, microscopic anatomy became a prerequisite for advances in the fields of physiology, embryology, and practical medicine. Drawing on the work of William Harvey, he studied the circulatory and respiratory systems of all living things and arranged them in a hierarchical system, beginning with plants, above which were insects, then fishes, then the mammals, then man. He was one of the first scientists to study such anatomical structures as the lungs, kidneys, spleen, brain, tongue, and skin at the microscopic level. |
|
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| MARCH 10 - DEATHS | |
| Sheldon Glueck | |
 Died
10 Mar 1980 (born 15 Aug 1896)
Sol Sheldon Glueck and his wife Eleanor were an American criminologists and researchers at Harvard Law School, a husband-and-wife team whose numerous studies of criminal behaviour and of the results of correctional treatment profoundly influenced criminal justice, both legislatively and administratively. In 1940 the Gluecks began work on their best-known study, Unraveling Juvenile Delinquency (1950). This ten-year project addressed the development of criminal careers and involved a detailed examination of 500 delinquents and 500 nondelinquents from disadvantaged neighborhoods in the Boston area. Then, for the next fifteen years, the Gluecks conducted an extensive follow-up of the original sample. |
|
| Frits Zernike | |
(source) |
Died
10 Mar 1966 (born 16 Jul 1888)
Dutch scientist, winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1953 for his invention of the phase-contrast microscope, an instrument that permits the study of internal cell structure without the need to stain and thus kill the cells. In addition to its capacity to render colourless and transparent objects visible in the microscope, it also enables one to detect slight flaws in mirrors, telescope lenses, and other instruments indispensable for research. In this connection, Zernike's phase-plate serves as an indicator which locates and measures small surface irregularities to a fraction of a light-wavelength. |
| Charles Gordon Curtis | |
(source) |
Died
10 Mar 1953 (born 20 Apr 1860)
U.S. inventor who devised a steam turbine widely used in electric power plants and in marine propulsion. He was a patent lawyer for eight years. He patented the first U.S. gas turbine (1899). Among his other achievements, the Curtis multiple-stage steam turbine (patented 1896, sold rights to GE in 1901) required one tenth the space and weighed one eighth as much as machines it replaced. The Curtis generator was the most powerful steam turbine in the world and represented a significant advance in the capacity of steam turbines. In spite of its high-power output, this machine cost much less than contemporary reciprocating steam engine-driven generators of the same output. Image: One of Curtis's first steam turbines - 50kw. |
| Lydia M. DeWitt | |
(source) |
Died
10 Mar 1928 (born 1 Feb 1859)
Lydia Maria DeWitt (née Adams) was an American experimental pathologist who investigated the chemotherapy of tuberculosis. Prior to 1910 she made studies in microscopric anatomy. The remainder of her career she worked in pathology, bacteriology and chemotherapeutics. She searched for dyes that would penetrate tuberculous lesions, and especially with dyes modified by the incorporation of metal atoms such as copper, gold, and mercury. These were tested in animal studies for their potential as an anti-tuberlucosis drug. She also conducted influential investigations on the anatomy of the nervous system and on public health practices. She started the Women's Research Club at the University of Michigan to encourage research by women, and served as its president for several years.« |
| John Fillmore Hayford | |
(NOAA) |
Died
10 Mar 1925 (born 19 May 1868)
American civil engineer and early geodesist who established the modern science of geodesy, the precise determination of the shape of the earth. His theory of isostasy gave that the pressure exerted by the earth's crust is approximately the same over the entire globe, regardless of the nature of the surface (for example, lowlands or mountains). With modification, this theory is now used to explain phenomena within the crust. At the time of his death he was a research associate of the Carnegie Institution of Washington and while under a grant from that institution he was investigating the problems connected with evaporation and the water level of the Great Lakes. |
| Francis Robbins Upton | |
(source) |
Died
10 Mar 1921 (born 1852)
American mathematician and physicist who, as assistant to Thomas Edison, contributed to the development of the American electric industry. Upton was the best educated of Edison's Menlo Park assistants. He was recruited by investors who felt it couldn't hurt to supplement Edison's wizardry with some advanced scientific training. He joined Edison in 1878, working at Edison's Menlo Park laboratory on mathematical problems relating to the development of the light bulb, the watt-hour meter and large dynamos. He later became a partner and general manager of the Edison Lamp Company (est. 1880). Upton's articles for Scientific American and Scribner's Monthly introduced many of Edison's inventions to the public. |
| George James Symons | |
(source) |
Died
10 Mar 1900 (born 16 Aug 1838)
British meteorologist who strove to provide reliable observational data by imposing standards of accuracy and uniformity on meteorological measurements and by substantially increasing the number of reporting stations from 168 to 3,500. He was elected to Royal Meteorological Society (1856) when only 17 years old. He established the British Rainfall Organization (1860) and issued annual rainfall reports (1860-98). Symons's Monthly Meteorological Magazine first appeared in 1866. He wrote hundreds of articles and several books, and he amassed the UK's most comprehensive collection of meteorological books, many of great historical interest. |
| Lucy Myers Wright Mitchell | |
| Died
10 Mar 1888 (born 20 Mar 1845)
Persian-born American archaeologist who, though self-taught, became an internationally recognized authority on ancient Greek and Roman sculpture. She spoke Syriac, Arabic, French, German, and Italian. Previously chiefly interested in philological researches, in 1873 she began those studies in classical archeology which resulted in her becoming one of the foremost archeologists of her time. In Rome (1876-78) she gave parlor lectures to ladies on Greek and Roman sculpture, taking her hearers also to the museums. Many of the leading archeologists of Europe aided and encouraged her in her work. In Berlin (1884-86), as part of her preparation for a work on Greek vase-paintings, she began the study of ancient and modern Greek and of photography. |
|
| Sir C. Wyville Thomson | |
(source) |
Died
10 Mar 1882 (born 5 Mar 1830)
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 Expedition was 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. |
| Jean Cruveilhier | |
(source) |
Died
10 Mar 1874 (born 9 Feb 1791)
French pathologist, anatomist, and physician who wrote several important works on pathological anatomy. He was essentially a researcher and experimenter. He was not known for his abilities as a clinician or teacher, but gained notoriety from the illustrations contained in his chief work Anatomie pathologique du corps humain (1828-1842) and the Traité d’anatomie pathologique générale (1849-1864). He was the first to describe multiple sclerosis, and gave an account of progressive muscular atrophy (sometimes called Cruveilhier's atrophy or paralysis). His injections of mercury into blood vessels and bronchial systems made possible the concepts of embolism and infarction developed by Virchow. |
| John Torrey | |
1825 (source) |
Died
10 Mar 1873 (born 15 Aug 1796)
American botanist and chemist known for his extensive studies of North American flora. The first professional botanist in the New World, Torrey published extensively on the North American flora, advocated the "natural system" of classification that was replacing Linnaeus' artifical system, and collaborated for many years with his student Asa Gray (who was to become an important botanist). Torrey never was able to make a living from botany and worked (among other things) as a freelance chemical analyst. Unidentified plants collected on government expeditions to the western states were sent to him for study, however, as a foremost authority of his time. A genus of evergreen trees, Torreya, is named for him. |
| Charles Hatchett | |
(source) |
Died 10 Mar 1847 (born 2 Jan 1765)
English chemist who discovered an element he called columbium in 1801. He worked at the British Museum. He found it while analyzing columbite, a black rock in the collection from New England. The sample donor was Sir Hans Sloane, who received it decades earlier from the grandson of mineral collector, John Winthrop (1606-76), Connecticut's first governor. Hatchett was able to detect a new element in the complex mineral, but not to isolate it. It was called niobium by German chemist, Heinrich Rose, who rediscovered the metal forty years later. In 1864, the element itself was first separated by reducing the chloride by heating it in a hydrogen atmosphere. Niobium is a metal that burns when heated in air and is used in arc-welding rods.« [Image right: Arc-welding rod.] |
| John Theophile Desaguliers | |
(source) |
Died
10 Mar 1744 (born 12 Mar 1683)
French-English chaplain and physicist. He studied at Oxford, became experimental assistant to Sir Isaac Newton. As curator at the Royal Society, his experimental lectures in mechanical philosophy and electricity (advocating, substantiating and popularizing the work of Isaac Newton) attracted a wide audience. In electricity, he first used the terms conductor and insulator. He repeated and extended the work of Stephen Gray in electricity. He proposed a scheme for heating vessels such as salt-boilers by steam instead of fire. He made inventions of his own, such as a planetarium, and improvements to machines, such as Thomas Savery's steam engine (by adding a safety valve, and using an internal water jet to condense the steam in the displacement chambers) and a ventilator at the House of Commons. He was a prolific author and translator. |
| Johann Rudolf Glauber | |
 |
Died
10 Mar 1668 (born 1604)
German-Dutch chemist, sometimes called the German Boyle; i.e., the German father of chemistry. Glauber supported himself by selling secret chemicals and medicinals. He prepared hydrochloric acid from common salt and sulphuric acid and pointed out the virtues of the residue, sodium sulphate - sal mirabile, or Glauber's salt. He also noted the formation of nitric acid from potassium nitrate and sulphuric acid. Glauber prepared many substances, made useful observations on dyeing, and described the preparation of tartar emetic. He urged that Germany's natural resources be developed and gave examples of such developments. |
| Rembert Dodoens | |
(source) |
Died 10 Mar 1585 (born 29 Jun 1516 / 17)
Flemish physician and botanist whose Stirpium historiae pemptades sex sive libri XXX (1583) is considered one of the foremost botanical works of the late 16th century. In this work, he divided plants into 26 groups and introduced many new families, adding a wealth of illustration. He was the first Belgian botanist of world-wide renown. He studied at Louvain and visited medical schools in France, Italy and Germany and finally became doctor and court physician to Maximillian II (1574). His Cruydt boeck (1554) is beautifully. The text is in ancient Flemish, which later translated in French, English, and Latin. Cruydt is a Flemish word meaning "spices" and other herbs used for cooking and conserving food; by extension, it also means medicinal herbs. Image: Cruydt boeck (source) |
| MARCH 10 - EVENTS | |
| Syzygy | |
(source) |
In 1982, a syzygy occurred when all nine planets aligned
on the same side of the Sun. The planets are spread out over 98 degrees
on this date. The four major planets, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune,
span an arc of some 73 degrees. |
| Uranus | |
(source) |
In 1977, the rings of Uranus were discovered
from earth by stellar occultation experiments made when Uranus occulted
(passed in front of) a star and it was noticed that there were dips in
the brightness of the star before and after it passed behind the body of
Uranus. This data suggested that Uranus was surrounded by at least five
rings.
Four more rings were suggested by subsequent occultation measurements from
the Earth, and two additional ones were found by space probe Voyager 2,
bringing the total to 11. Direct observations of the rings from earth had
not been possible, because the rings are lost in the planet's glare as
seen through terrestrial optical telescopes. Most of the rings are not
quite circular, and most are not exactly in the plane of the equator. |
| Whipped cream can valve patent | |
(USPTO) |
In 1955, a U.S. patent (No. 2,704,172) was issued to Aaron S. Lapin for
his invention of "Dispensing Valves for Gas Pressure Containers" which
he designed for his
Reddi-Wip whipped cream dessert topping in a
spray can (1948). Soluble gases such as carbon dioxide or nitrous oxide
mixed under pressure into the whipped cream causes the food to emerge from
the valve as a fluffed or whipped product as the gas bubbles expand in
the lesser atmospheric pressure outside the can. Lapin created the tilt-opening
tubular valve such that it re-sealed after use to retain the pressurised
gas inside the can. The elasticity of the seal also acted as a spring to
restore the dispensing valve to the closed position when released. (He
filed on 2 May 1949.)« |
| Sound barrier | |
(source) |
In 1948, Herbert H. Hoover became the first civilian pilot
to exceed the speed of sound when he flew
a Bell X-1
research aircraft at Edwards AFB, California. Instead of making its own
take-off, the X-1 was loaded under the bomb bay of a B29 mother ship which
carried it aloft, then released it at 20,000 feet. He reached Mach 1.065.
On landing, the aircraft nosewheel failed to extend, resulting in minor
damage. Hoover was a test pilot working for NACA (the National Advisory
Committee on Aeronautics, the predecessor of today's NASA). A U.S. Air
Force Captain, Chuck Yeager, was the first
pilot to break the sound barrier and land safely a few months earlier,
on 14 Oct 1947, also flying an X-1. Image:
USAF Captain Chuck Yeager (left), and Herbert H. Hoover (right), |
| Geniuses in the dust heap | |
Ross (source) |
In 1923, Time magazine reported the statement "You throw your geniuses
in the dust heap," made by tropical disease expert Sir
Ronald Ross to the British Science Guild in London. He drew attention
to two scientists that were not employed by Great Britain despite their
medical accomplishments: Waldemar
M. W. Haffkine who discovered methods of inoculation against cholera
and Sir David Bruce who discovered
the cure for sleeping sickness. He also commented that the American, Walter
Reed, who linked yellow fever transmission to mosquitoes, died without
knowing how his wife and children would be provided for.« [Ref.:
Time,
10 Mar 1923] |
| Multigraph | |
(source) |
In 1903, Harry C. Gammeter, a typewriter salesman of Cleveland, Ohio patented
the multigraph "duplicating machine" (No. 722,404). It was the first successful
machine in the U.S. to simplify the printing processes, so that a layman
could print from type. The machine
met the business need to reproduce circular letters in large quantities,
and yet have the appearance of having been written upon a typewriter. The
machine had two drums. The printing drum carried type to give the actual
impression on paper. A supply drum carried the type when not in actual
use, mounted on the same axis so type could pass between them, sliding
and retained in longitudinal channels. Commercial manufacture began 12
Dec 1902 by the Multigraph Sales Company of Cleveland, Ohio. |
| Telephone exchange | |
 |
In 1891, Almon B. Strowger was issued a U.S. patent for his electromechanical
switch to automate a telephone exchange (No. 447,918). Strowger
did not invent the idea of automatic switching (it was first invented in
1879 by Connolly and McTigthe) but Strowger was the first to put it to
effective use. His selector used electromagnets and pawls to move a wiper
(with contacts on the end) vertically and around a bank of many other contacts,
able to make a connection with any one of them. Strowger formed his company,
Strowger Automatic Telephone Exchange, in Oct 1891. |
| Telephone | |
 |
In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell made what was, in effect, the first
telephone call. His assistant, Thomas Watson, located in an adjoining
room in Boston, heard Bell's voice over the experimental device say to
him, "Mr. Watson, come here. I want you." This was Bell's first successful
experiment with the telephone, which is recorded
in the 10 Mar entry of his Lab Notebook. That same day, an ebullient Bell
wrote
his father of his "great success" and speculated that "the day is coming
when telegraph [phone] wires will be laid on to houses just like water
and gas - and friends converse with each other without leaving home." Bell
had received the first telephone patent three days before. Later that year,
Bell succeeded in making a phone call over outdoor lines. (NPR
audio) |
| Thomas Jefferson on paleontology | |
(source) |
In 1797, Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) presented a paper
on the megalonyx to the American Philosophical Society. It was published
as "A Memoir on the Discovery of Certain Bones of a Quadruped of the Clawed
Kind in the Western Parts of Virginia," Transactions of American Philosophical
Society 4:255-256, along with an account by Caspar Wistar (1761-1818).
This is arguably the first American publication in paleontology, but the
only paleontology paper written by Jefferson. In 1822, this huge extinct
sloth
was named Megalonyx jeffersoni by a French naturalist. (Megalonyx
Gr. large claw). It was a bear-sized ground sloth, over 2 meters tall,
widespread in North America during the last Ice Age. [Image:
left - Skeleton of Megalonyx jeffersoni on display at Yukon Beringia
Interpretive Centre, Canada; right - from etching of fossil Megalonyx hand
bones in 1799 article by Caspar Wistar.] |
| Pile driver | |
|
In 1791, John Stone of Concord, Mass., patented the pile driver, which
he called a "driving pile for bridges." Over fifty years later, on 26 Jun
1847, a steam pile driver was patented in the U.S. by James Naysmyth of
Patricroft, England (No. 5,172). |
|
| Surgery book | |
(source) |
In 1553, Ambroise Paré published
a second edition of his Method of Curing Wounds Made by Arquebus and
Arrows ("La manière de traicter les playes faictes tant par
harquebutes que par flèches") which he had first published
in 1545 to popularize a revolutionary method he had discovered to treat
the new medical problem of gunshot wounds. During the siege of Turin (1536-37),
having run out of the oil used to cauterize wounds in the conventional
way, Paré turned instead to simple dressings and soothing ointment,
and immediately noted the improved condition of his patients. In his career,
Paré wrote several important medical works which advanced the art
of surgery, for which he became known as "the father of modern surgery." 
 Ambroise
Pare: Surgeon of the Renaissance, by Wallace B. Hamby. |
