| MARCH 20 - BIRTHS | |
| Erwin Neher | |
(source) |
 Born 20
Mar 1944
German physicist, who shared (with Bert Sakmann) the 1991 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine "for their discoveries concerning the function of single ion channels in cells". The channels are the route by which ions (charged atoms) can pass through the membrane that surrounds the cell. To measure the miniscule electrical currents (in the picoampere range, 10-12A) involved, Neher and Sakmann developed a unique method that tracks how a single channel molecule alters its shape and in that way controls the flow of current within a time frame of a few millionths of a second. The regulation of ion channels influences the life of the cell and its functions under normal and pathological conditions.« |
| Sergi Petrovich Novikov | |
(source) |
Born 20
Mar 1938
Russian mathematician who was awarded the Fields Medal in 1970 for his work in algebraic topology. His parents were both mathematicians, and Novikov showed his own talent while a youth. In 1960, the year he obtained his first degree, he published a paper on some problems in the topology of manifolds connected with the theory of Thom spaces. In 1965, he proved his famous theorem on the invariance of Pontryagin classes. He was unable receive the Fields Medal in person because Soviet authorities would not permit his travel. Thereafter he pursued an interest in mathematical physics, including the theory of solitons, quantum field theory and string theory.« |
| Douglas Chapman | |
(source) |
Born 20
Mar 1920; died 9 Jul 1996.
Douglas George Chapman was a Canadian-born U.S. mathematical statistician and an expert on wildlife statistics. He was one of the scientific advisors to the International Whaling Commission that warned in the 1960s that the number of whales being taken by the whaling industry was far in excess of what the population could stand, and proposed annual fin whale catch quotas that would permit the depleted populations of this species to recover. His later research on fish farming expanded to include mollusk aquaculture and he directed a program to develop quantitative methods to aid in the management of fisheries resources.« |
| Paul Arthur Zahl | |
(source) |
Born 20
Mar 1919; died 16 Oct 1985.
American research biologist, medical physiologist, explorer and writer. After expeditions to Panama, British Guiana, Brazil, and Venezuela (1937-39) he wrote his first book, To the Lost World (1939), recording his search for giant ants in jungle areas of South America. In Flamingo Hunt (1952), he discussed his search for Bahamas flamingo. His articles and photographs illustrated various National Geographic publications with subjects such as an albino gorilla in Central Africa, three-foot long, seven-pound frogs, and the bathtub-sized Rafflesia flower with two-foot-wide leathery petals he found in Malaysia. On other expeditions he researched the deepsea fauna in Straits of Messina and travelled in many other countries. [Image: example of Rafflesia arnoldii, Malaya] |
| Raymond Cattell | |
(source) |
Born 20
Mar 1905; died 2 Feb 1998.
Raymond B(ernard) Cattell was a English-born American psychologist. He conducted research on individual differences in cognitive abilities, personality, and motivation. He applied mathematical techniques to the study of psychology, making the discipline more objective and quantitative. Cattell became one of the world's leading personality theorists, and developed many widely used psychological tests, of which the best known is the 16 Personality Factor (16PF) personality assessment. During his life, he wrote 55 books and over 500 research papers.« |
| B.F. Skinner | |
(source) |
Born 20
Mar 1904; died 18 Aug 1990.
B(urrhus) F(rederick) Skinner was an American psychologist whose pioneering work in experimental psychology promoted behaviorism, shaping behavior through positive and negative reinforcement and demonstrated operant conditioning. The "Skinner box" he used in experiments from 1930 remains famous. To investigate the learning processes of animals, he observed their behaviour in a simple box with a lever which, when activated by the animal, would give a reward (or punishment). The reward, such as pellets of food or water, acts as a primary reinforcer. He observed the behaviour of animals adapted to utilize the opportunity for a reward. He extended his theories to the behaviour of humans, as a form of social engineering.«  B.F.
Skinner: A Life, by Daniel W. Bjork. |
| Walter M. Elsasser | |
| Born 20
Mar 1904; died 14 Oct 1991.
German-born American physicist who contributed to science in several disciplines. In atomic physics, he interpreted electron scattering. In geophysics, during the 1940's, he provided insight into radiative heat transfer in the Earth's atmosphere, and also created the presently accepted dynamo theory as an explanation of the Earth's magnetism. He proposed that this magnetic field resulted from electric currents induced in the fluid outer core of the Earth. He pioneered study of the magnetic orientation of minerals in rocks to reveal the Earth's history of its magnetic field. The last fifty years of his life were to a large part given to studies relevant to biology: a theory of organisms. He wished to establish the distinction between living and inanimate matter.« Reflections
on a Theory of Organisms, by Walter M. Elsasser, Harry
Rubin. |
|
| Frederick W. Taylor | |
(source) |
Born 20
Mar 1856; died 21 Mar 1915.
American inventor and engineer who is known as the father of scientific management. His system of industrial management has influenced the development of virtually every country enjoying the benefits of modern industry. He introduced a scientific approach (1881) to "time and motion study" while chief engineer at Midvale Steel Company, Philadelphia, Pa. Taylor and his associates used stop-watches to time the laborers as they performed various tasks, counted the number of shovel-loads they each moved, and the load per shovel. Thus he was able to determine an optimum shovel size and length. Such careful observations, aimed at recognizing wasted effort and minimizing time used, increased the efficiency of actions of factory workers. |
| Giulio Bizzozero | |
(source) |
Born 20
Mar 1846; died 8 Apr 1901.
Italian pathologist who discovered the role of platelets in haemostasis and identified the bone marrow as the site of production of blood cells. As professor of general pathology at the University of Turin, made it one of the most important European centres of medical scholarship. Among those who studied or worked in his laboratory were Edoardo Bassini, the surgeon who perfected the operation for inguinal hernia (Bassini's operation); Carlo Forlanini, who introduced therapeutic pneumothorax in treating pulmonary tuberculosis; and Antonio Carle and Giorgio Rattone, who demonstrated the transmissibility of tetanus. Bizzozero also contributed to knowledge of histology and public health, emphasizing the control of malaria and tuberculosis. |
| John Goodsir | |
(source) |
Born 20
Mar 1814; died 6 Mar 1867.
Scottish anatomist who was one of the earliest and most acute observers of cell-life. In his early medical career, he identified the independent origins of deciduous and permanent teeth. Goodsir recognized the importance of cell division as the basis of growth and observed the cell is divided into a number of departments. His discoveries anticipated by a number of years the work of Rudolph Virchow. In 1842, he showed that stomach upsets with vomiting were caused by bacteria, treated it accordingly, and thus, before Pasteur, was the first to successfully recognise and treat a bacterial infection. Goodsir taught anatomy, physiology and pathology, while maintaining his research at the dissecting-table.« |
| Torbern Olof Bergman | |
(source) |
Born 20
Mar 1735; died 8 Jul 1784.
Swedish chemist and naturalist who experimented with carbon dioxide, which he named "aerial acid," and Priestley called "fixed air." His investigation led him to successfully prepare artificial mineral water. In natural mineral water, he identified hydrogen sulphide. As a pioneer in chemical analysis, he introduced many improvements, studied minerals in particular and contributed to the theory of crystal structure. In 1775, his important paper Essay on Elective Attractions marked the beginning of his extensive work preparing affinity tables for acids and bases. By 1783, he ceased this effort due to failing health, leaving it to others to further develop an understanding of chemical affinity. He wrote an account of the use of the blowpipe in analysis.« Torbern
Bergman, a Man Before His Time, by Joseph A. Schufle. |
| Jean de Hautefeuille | |
| Born 20
Mar 1647; died 18 Oct 1724.
French physicist who built a primitive internal-combustion engine which was intended to operate a pump. The piston was pushed back by the explosion of a small charge of gunpowder, and then returned as the combustion gases cooled, leaving a partial vacuum. He wrote on many topics, including acoustics, optics, tidal phenomena, and watch mechanisms. He also invented the micrometer microscope to measure the size of minute objects. |
|
| Baha ad-din Muhammad ibn Husayn, al-Amili | |
| Born 20
Mar 1546; died 20 Aug 1622.
Syrian-born Iranian (a.k.a. Shaykh Baha'i) who was a theologian, mathematician and astronomer. He became a very learned Muslim whose genius touched every field of knowledge from mathematics and philosophy to architecture and landscape design. He revived the study of mathematics in Iran. His treatise on the subject, Khulasat al-hisab ("The Essentials of Arithmetic"), and translations from the original Arabic was in use as a textbook until the end of the 19th century. His treatise in astronomy, Tashrihu'l-aflak ("Anatomy of the Heavens") summarised the works of earlier masters. He was born within a year of William Gilbert in England and Tycho Brahe in Denmark, and was still a child when his family left Syria to escape religious persecution.« |
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| MARCH 20 - DEATHS | |
| Polykarp Kusch | |
 Died
20 Mar 1993 (born 26 Jan 1911)
German-American physicist who, with Willis E. Lamb, Jr., was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1955 for his accurate determination that the magnetic moment of the electron is greater than its theoretical value, a vital determination that led to revised theories about the interactions of electrons with electromagnetic radiation. |
|
| Ivan Matveyevich Vinogradov | |
(source) |
Died
20 Mar 1983 (born 2 Sep 1891)
Soviet mathematician known for his contributions to the analytical theory of numbers, including a partial solution of the Goldbach conjecture proving that every sufficiently large odd integer can be expressed as the sum of three odd primes. He described his methods in his most celebrated piece of work Some Theorems Concerning the Theory of Prime Numbers (1937). |
| Andrew Ellicott Douglass | |
| Died
20 Mar 1962 (born 5 Jul 1867)
American astronomer and archaeologist who established the principles of dendrochronology (the dating and interpreting of past events by the analysis of tree rings). He coined the name of that study when, while working at the Lowell Observatory, Flagstaff, Ariz. (1894-1901), he began to collect tree specimens, believing that variations in the width of tree rings would show a connection between sunspot activity and the terrestrial climate and vegetation. |
|
| Frederick William Twort | |
(source) |
Died
20 Mar 1950 (born 22 Oct 1877)
English bacteriologist who, working with George Ingram, was the first to publish (1912) a method for isolating and culturing the extremely fastidious Mycobacterium paratuberculosis, the bacterium that causes Johne's disease, or chronic dysentery of cattle. He was the first to publish a report (1915) on what were called bacteriophage (viruses that prey upon bacteria) when Félix d'Hérelle independently made the discovery two years later. Twort's somewhat accidental discovery happened when he noticed that the bacteria infecting his plates became transparent. Thinking the virus to be a primitive life form, thereafter he tried to grow viruses in artificial media, but had difficulty funding the research.« In Focus, Out of Step: A Biography of Frederick William Twort,
by Antony Twort. |
| Victor Moritz Goldschmidt | |
(source) |
Died
20 Mar 1947 (born 27 Jan 1888)
Swiss-born Norwegian mineralogist and petrologist who laid the foundation of inorganic crystal chemistry and founded modern geochemistry. |
| Amadeus William Grabau | |
(source) |
Died
20 Mar 1946 (born 9 Jan 1879)
American geologist and paleontologist, known for his work on world stratigraphic deposits and the deciphering of Earth history. In 1899, he published an early work that studied the environment of old sedimentary rocks in light of knowledge of the conditions of life among modern organisms, The Relations of Marine Bionomy to Stratigraphy*, which was a step toward the development of paleoecology. For more than a quarter of a century, he worked on the geologic survey of China. In 1940, he developed a theory of rhythms in the growth of the Earth's crust, and of repetitions in mountain building. He died in China and was buried there. *Ref.: Bulletin of Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences, 6 no. 4 (September 1899): 319-356. Principles
of stratigraphy, by Amadeus W Grabau. |
| Ilya Ivanovich Ivanov | |
 |
Died
20 Mar 1932 (born 1 Aug 1870)
Soviet biologist who developed a practical procedure for artificially inseminating domestic animals (extending earlier research by Spallanzani who discovered that it was possible). In 1901 Ivanov founded the world's first centre for the artificial insemination of racehorses. Thereafter, his method was extensively used breeding farm animals. In 2005, Moscow newspapers reported that uncovered secret documents showed that Ivanov was ordered to use monkey sperm in humans as part of Stalin's quest for a super-warrior that would be "a new invincible human being, insensitive to pain, resistant and indifferent about the quality of food they eat." His expensive work failed, and he was exiled in disgrace to Kazakhstan in 1931 where he died a year later.« |
| John Henry Comstock | |
(source) |
Died 20 Mar 1931 (born 24 Feb 1849)
American entomologist who did pioneering work in the systematic classification of scale insects, moths and butterflies. His wife, Anna Botsford, illustrated these subjects in his earlier books. He published works for both the layman and the scientist. After he graduated from Cornell University, he taught there. He spent a summer in Alabama (1878) studying the cotton-leaf worm, Alabama argillacea, and shortly afterwards became the chief entomologist of the United States Department of Agriculture (1879-82), after which he returned to a university position. Over a number of years his research included studing the wing venation of insects, making notable new contributions to the field. Later in life, he turned his interest to morphology.« [Image right: Illustration by Anna Botsford Comstock from A Manual for the Study of Insects (source)] A
manual for the study of insects, by John Henry Comstock. |
| James (Ward) Packard | |
(source) |
Died
20 Mar 1928 (born 5 Nov 1863).
Engineer and inventor who founded Packard Automobile Co. Within a few years of his graduation, while foreman for the Sawyer-Mann Electric Co., N.Y., manufacturers of the Sawyer-Mann incandescent electric lamp, he acquired several patents. These included a new form of incandescent lamp, a lamp socket, and improvements in vacuum pumps for exhausting the air from incandescent lamp bulbs. In 1889, with his brother, he started an electrical business, the Packard Electric Company. During ten years, Packard obtained more patents manufacturing electrical transformers, fuse boxes, measuring instruments, and cables. Later, he designed and built his first automobile, first road tested on 6 Nov 1899. Subsequently, he formed the Packard Motor Co. |
| François Hennébique | |
(source) |
Died
20 Mar 1921 (born 25 Apr 1842)
French engineer who was an important leader in experimenting with various ways of reinforcing concrete with iron and steel. At the Paris Exposition of 1867, Hennebique saw Joseph Monier's tubs and tanks built of concrete reinforced with wire mesh, and began experimenting with ways to apply this new material to building construction, setting up his own firm (1867). First using reinforced-concrete floor slabs (1879), he progressed to a complete building system, patented 1892, using his invention of a method using hooked connections on reinforcing bars. Hennébique introduced his techniques into Britain when he was commissioned to build a new flour mill in Swansea (completed 1898). This was the first multistorey reinforced concrete building in Britain. |
| Robert Mayer | |
(source) |
Died
20 Mar 1878 (born 25 Nov 1814)
(Julius) Robert Mayer was a German physicist. While a ship's doctor sailing to Java, he considered the physics of animal heat. In 1842, he measured the mechanical equivalent of heat. His experiment compared the work done by a horse powering a mechanism which stirred paper pulp in a caldron with the temperature rise in the pulp. He held that solar energy was the ultimate source of all energy on earth, both living and nonliving. Mayer had the idea of the conservation of energy before either Joule or Helmholtz. The prominence of these two scientists, however, diminished credit for Mayer's earlier insights. James Joule presented his own value for the mechanical equivalent of heat. Helmhotlz more systematically presented the law of conservation of energy.   |
| Joseph Aspdin | |
(source) |
Died
20 Mar 1855 (born 1778)
English pioneer in the development of the cement industry. The eldest son of a bricklayer, he became interested in making advanced cements for rendering brickwork. On 21 Oct 1824, he patented Portland Cement, a calcined mixture of limestone, clay and water, so named because he thought its colour resembled Portland Stone. He established his first cement works at Kirkgate in Wakefield (1825-38) and established a new works there in 1843. He retired the following year, and the business was taken over by his elder son, James. His younger son William had already set up his own business in Rotherhithe, London (1841) where he manufactured an improved cement. Sir Marc Brunel used William Aspin's cement in his Thames railway tunnel for its greater strength. |
| Sir Isaac Newton | |
 |
Died
20 Mar 1727 (born 25 Dec 1642)
English physicist and mathematician, who made seminal discoveries in several areas of science, and was the leading scientist of his era. His study of optics included using a prism to show white light could be split into a spectrum of colours. The statement of his three laws of motion are fundamental in the study of mechanics. He was the first to describe the moon as falling (in a circle around the earth) under the same influence of gravity as a falling apple, embodied in his law of universal gravitation. As a mathematician, he devised infinitesimal calculus to make the calculations needed in his studies, which he published in Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, 1687).« |
| MARCH 20 - EVENTS | |
| AZT | |
(source) |
In 1987, the FDA approved
the sale of AZT (azidothymidine),
an antiviral drug believed to prolong the lives of some AIDS patients.
By 2000, an estimated 50 million people were infected with HIV worldwide.
AZT was the first authorized antiretroviral AIDS drug. Combined with other,
recently approved antivirals, AZT's effectiveness has been increased. The
generic name of AZT is zidovudine, brand name Retrovir. It
was originally developed in 1964 by Dr. Jerome Horowitz of the Michigan
Cancer Foundation as a possible treatment for cancer. In Feb 1985, the
National Cancer Institute, under the direction of Dr. Samuel Broder, tested
AZT and found that it was a potent inhibitor of AIDS. |
| Radar | |
 |
In 1934, the first test
of a practical radar apparatus was made by Rudolf Kuhnold in Kiel Harbour,
Germany, Chief of the German Navy Signals Research Department. His 700-watt
transmitter worked on a frequency of 600 megacycles, had a receiver and
had disk reflectors. It received echoes from signals bounced off the battleship
Hesse, anchored 600 yds away. In an October test, it picked up echoes from
a ship seven miles away. Radar was to be an important asset in the coming
WW II, but ironically it was the U.S. and Great Britain, that took Kuhnold's
pioneering work and developed it into a reliable detection system. Kuhnold
may thus be described
as the man who won the Battle of Britain for the English! |
| Einstein's Theory of General Relativity | |
(source) |
In 1916, Einstein's Theory
of General Relativity was published
as an academic paper in Annalen der Physik 49, 769, titled
"Die Grundlagen der allgemeinen Relativitästheorie." This theory accounted
for the slow rotation of the elliptical path of the planet Mercury, which
Newtonian gravitational theory failed to do. Fame and recognition came
suddenly in 1919, when the Royal Society of London photographed the solar
eclipse and publicly verified
Einstein's general theory of relativity. In 1921 he was awarded the Nobel
Prize for Physics for his photoelectric law and work in the field of theoretical
physics, but such was the controversy still aroused by this theories on
relativity that these were not specified in the text of the award. |
| Tesla patent | |
 |
In 1900, Nikola Tesla received a patent for the wireless transmission of
electric power (No. 645,576). |
| AC power plant | |
|
In 1886, America's first demonstration of the alternating-current system
provided lighting
along Main Street at Great Barrington, Massachusetts. The power came from
the first AC power plant in the U.S. to begin commercial operation. Thus
its creator, George Westinghouse, now thirty-nine years old, began a new
direction in his career. |
|
| Volta announces his battery | |
Volta (source) |
In 1800, Alessandro Volta dated
a letter announcing his invention of the voltaic pile to Sir
Joseph Banks, president of the Royal Society, London. "On the electricity
excited by the mere contact of conducting substances of different kinds"
described his results of stacking sandwiches of copper and zinc metal discs
between pads of moist material. The letter had to pass from Italy, through
France, which was then at war with Britain, so Volta sent the message in
two parts. When the first pages arrived, Banks showed them to Anthony Carlisle,
a London surgeon, who with William Nicholson immediately began trying to
repeat
Volta's experiments. By 2 May 1800, they stumbled upon electrolysis of
water.« |
