| APRIL 18 - BIRTHS | |
| Charles Louis Fefferman | |
(source) |
 Born 18
Apr 1949
American mathematician who received the Fields Medal in 1978 for his work in mathematical analysis. As a child prodigy, his accelerated schooling resulted a B.S. degrees in physics and mathematics by age 17 and a Ph.D. in mathematics at age 20 from Princeton University (1969). When in he became a professor (1971) at the University of Chicago at the age of 22, he was the youngest full professor ever in the U.S. Two years later, he returned to Princeton as a professor (1973). His Ph.D. dissertation was on "Inequalities for Strongly Regular Convolution Operators." His field of study includes his interest in physics - applied mathematics in vibrations, heat, turbulence, though he is best known for his theoretical work.« |
| Joseph L. Goldstein | |
| Born 18
Apr 1940
American molecular geneticist who, along with Michael S. Brown, was awarded the 1985 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for their elucidation of the process of cholesterol metabolism in the human body. |
|
| Maurice Goldhaber | |
| Born 18
Apr 1911
U.S. physicist whose contributions to nuclear physics include the discovery that the nucleus of the deuterium atom consists of a proton and a neutron. |
|
| Lars Valerian Ahlfors | |
| Born 18
Apr 1907; died 11 Oct 1996.
Finnish mathematician who was awarded one of the first two Fields Medals in 1936 for his work with Riemann surfaces. He also won the Wolf Prize in 1981. |
|
| George Herbert Hitchings | |
(source) |
Born 18
Apr 1905; died 27 Feb 1998.
American pharmacologist was a medical research pioneer who was awarded a share of the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1988 (with Gertrude B. Elion and Sir James W. Black) for development of drugs for several major diseases. In the 1950s, he and colleague Elion developed thioguanine and 6-mercaptopurine, that treated leukemia, and in 1957, azathioprine, used in treating severe rheumatoid arthritis and other autoimmune disorders. Their drug allopurinol was effective treatment for gout. Other important drugs they developed include pyrimethamine, an antimalarial agent; trimethoprim, a treatment for urinary and respiratory tract infections; and acyclovir, the first effective treatment for viral herpes.« |
| Bernard Ogilvie Dodge | |
| Born 18
Apr 1872; died 9 Aug 1960.
American botanist and pioneer researcher on heredity in fungi. |
|
| H.L. Callendar | |
(source) |
Born 18
Apr 1863; died 21 Jan 1930.
H(ugh) L(ongbourne) Callendar was an English physicist famous for work in calorimetry, thermometry and especially, the thermodynamic properties of steam. He published the first steam tables (1915). In 1886, he invented the platinum resistance thermometer using the electrical resistivity of platinum, enabling the precise measurement of temperatures. He also invented the electrical continuous-flow calorimeter, the compensated air thermometer (1891), a radio balance (1910) and a rolling-chart thermometer (1897) that enabled long-duration collection of climatic temperature data. His son, Guy S. Callendar linked climatic change with increases in carbon dioxide (CO2) resulting from mankind's burning of carbon fuels (1938), known as the Callendar effect, part of the greenhouse effect.« |
| Paul-Émile Lecoq de Boisbaudran | |
(source) |
Born 18
Apr 1838; died 28 May 1912.
French chemist who developed improved spectroscopic methods which had recently been developed by Kirchhoff. In 1859, he set out to scan minerals for unknown spectral lines. Fifteen years of persistence paid off when he discovered the elements gallium (1875), samarium (1880), and dysprosium (1886). He ranks with Bunsen, Kirchoff and Crookes as one of the founders of the science of spectroscopy. Guided by the general arrangement of spectral lines for elements in the same family, he believed the element he called gallium (in honour of France) was the eka-aluminium predicted by Mendeléeff between aluminium and indium. Since it is liquid between about 30 - 1700 deg C, a gallium in quartz thermometer can measure high temperatures. |
|
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| APRIL 18 - DEATHS | |
| Edgar Frank Codd | |
|
(source) |
 Died
18 Apr 2003 (born 23 Aug 1923)
British-American computer scientist and mathematician who laid the theoretical foundation for relational databases, for storing and retrieving information in computer records. He also contributed knowledge in the area of cellular automata. |
| Thor Heyerdahl | |
| Died
18 Apr 2002 (born 6 Oct 1914)
Norwegian ethnologist and adventurer who organized and led the famous Kon-Tiki (1947) and Ra (1969-70) transoceanic scientific expeditions. Both expeditions were intended to prove the possibility of ancient transoceanic contacts between distant civilizations and cultures. The Kon Tiki voyage from Peru to Polynesia was a 101-day, 4,300-mile drifting voyage on the 40-sq.ft. raft, a replica of pre-Inca vessels. He wished to show that Polynesia's first settlers could have come from South America. Few scholars at the time, and almost none today, endorsed the idea. They discount the Heyerdahl hypothesis largely on linguistic, genetic and cultural grounds, all of which point to the settlers having come from the west, not the east.  Kon-Tiki:
Across the Pacific in a Raft, by Thor Heyerdahl. |
|
| Gertrude Caton-Thompson | |
| Died
18 Apr 1985 (born 1 Feb 1889)
English archaeologist who distinguished two prehistoric cultures in the Al-Fayyum depression of Upper Egypt, the older dating to about 5000 BC and the younger to about 4500 BC. |
|
| William Joscelyn Arkell | |
(source) |
Died
18 Apr 1958 (born 9 Jun 1904)
English paleontologist, an authority on Jurassic fossils (those dating from 208 to 144 million years ago). Arkell taught at Trinity College, Cambridge University. His work includes the classification of Jurassic ammonites and an interpretation of the environments of that period. He wrote Jurassic Geology of the World (1956), which critically reviewed the information dispersed throughout the world's enormous literature on the world's Jurassic stratigraphy. He made numerous contributions to knowledge of the Jurassic stratigraphy, and gradually stabilized many stratigraphically significant zonal assemblages. In 1946, his "Standard of the European Jurassic" advocated a commission formulate a code of rules for stratigraphical nomenclature. |
| Albert Einstein | |
Died
18 Apr 1955 (born 14 Mar 1879)
German-American physicist who developed the special and general theories of relativity and won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1921 for his explanation of the photoelectric effect. Recognized in his own time as one of the most creative intellects in human history, in the first 15 years of the 20th century Einstein advanced a series of theories that proposed entirely new ways of thinking about space, time, and gravitation. His theories of relativity and gravitation were a profound advance over the old Newtonian physics and revolutionized scientific and philosophic inquiry. |
|
| Sir John Ambrose Fleming | |
(source) |
Died 18 Apr 1945 (born 29 Nov 1849)
English engineer who made numerous contributions to electronics, photometry, electric measurements, and wireless telegraphy. In 1904, he discovered the one directional current effect between a positively biassed electrode, which he called the anode, and the heated filament in an evacuated glass tube; the electrons flowed from filament to anode only. Fleming called the device a diode because it contained two electrodes, the anode and the heated filament. He noted that when an alternating current was applied, only the positive halves of the waves were passed - that is, the wave was rectified (from a.c. to d.c.). It would also take a radio frequency wave and produce d.c.corresponding to the on and off of the Morse code transmitted signals. |
| Sir Henry Cole | |
(source) |
Died 18 Apr 1882 (born 15 Jul 1808)
British industrial designer, museum director and writer who produced the first commercial Christmas card.* Cole played a pivotal role in the introduction of the Penny Post, the English postal system (assistant to Rowland Hill, 1837-40), influenced the expansion of railways, helped establish the Victoria and Albert Museum, contributed greatly to the success of London’s Great Exhibition of 1851, and promoted art and science education. In 1843, wishing to save much handwriting of seasonal correspondance, Cole introduced the world's first commercial Christmas card. He commissioned artist John Callcott Horsley to make the artwork for 1000 hand-coloured lithographs. (Individuals' homemade Christmas cards had existed earlier.)« [Image right: Cole's 1843 Christmas card.] The
Great Exhibitor: The Life and Work of Henry Cole, by
Elizabeth Bonython. |
| Justus Liebig | |
| Died
18 Apr 1873 (born 12 May 1803)
(baron of ) German chemist who made many important contributions to the early systematization of organic chemistry, to the application of chemistry to biology (biochemistry), to chemical education, and to the basic principles of agricultural chemistry. Justus
von Liebig : The Chemical Gatekeeper, by William H. Brock. |
|
| Nicolas-Théodore de Saussure | |
| Died
18 Apr 1845 (born 14 Oct 1767)
Swiss chemist and plant physiologist whose quantitative experiments on the influence of water, air, and nutrients on plants laid the foundation for phytochemistry. |
|
| Erasmus Darwin | |
c.1792 (source) |
Died
18 Apr 1802 (born 12 Dec 1731)
Prominent English physician, poet , philosopher, botanist, naturalist and the grandfather of naturalist Charles Darwin and the biologist Francis Galton. Erasmus Darwin was one of the leading intellectuals of 18th century England. As a naturalist, he formulated one of the first formal theories on evolution in Zoonomia, or, The Laws of Organic Life (1794-1796). Although he did not come up with natural selection, he did discuss ideas that his grandson elaborated on sixty years later, such as how life evolved from a single common ancestor, forming "one living filament". Although some of his ideas on how evolution might occur are quite close to those of Lamarck, Erasmus Darwin also talked about how competition and sexual selection could cause changes in species. |
| John Graunt | |
(source) |
Died
18 Apr 1674 (born 24 Apr 1620)
English statistician, generally considered to be the founder of the science of demography, the statistical study of human populations. His analysis of the vital statistics of the London populace influenced the pioneer demographic work of his friend Sir William Petty and, even more importantly, that of Edmond Halley, the astronomer royal. |
| APRIL 18 - EVENTS | |
| AIDS virus | |
In 1997, researchers reported that the AIDS virus penetrates cells
by a harpoonlike mechanism. They conducted their work at the Whitehead
Institute for Biomedical Research, Cambridge, Mass., |
|
| First U.S. jet international passenger flight | |
|
In 1950, the first U.S. jet passenger international trip was a flight from
Malton Airport in Toronto, Canada to the International Airport, New York
City. The Avro Canada jetliner carried a crew of three, with three passengers,
and 15,000 airmail letters (which became the first airmail letters carried
in the U.S. by jet plane). The 359 mile flight took one hour, powered by
four Rolls-Royce Derwent jet engines. |
|
| Radio facsimile | |
|
In 1925, the first U.S. commercial transcontinental radio transmission
of a radio facsimile was sent from San Francisco, California to New York
City. The photograph showed Marion Davies receiving a make-up box as a
gift from Louis B. Mayer of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures. The service had
been tried out the previous month by the American Telephone and Telegraph
Company on 4 Mar 1925. The first photograph sent showed the inauguration
of President Calvin Coolidge taken in Washington, D.C. Nine photographs
were transmitted, each taking seven minutes, going to New York, Chicago,
and San Francisco. |
|
| Woman's World Fair | |
|
In 1925, the first Woman's World's Fair in U.S. was officially opened in
Chicago, Illinois, by Mrs Calvin Coolidge. For eight days, it displayed
women's progress in 70 industries. This showed the diversification since
the 1893 World's Fair, where the only example of woman's handiwork was
the sewing exhibit. |
|
| First U.S. night flight | |
|
In 1910, the first night airplane flight made in the U.S. was made by Walter
R. Brookins in Montgomery, Alabama. |
|
| Japan Patent Office | |
|
In 1885, in Japan, a Patent Monopoly Act was proclaimed, which effectively
established
the Japanese Patent Office at that time. The need for a patent system had
become clearly apparent in order to speed up modernization efforts (An
earlier patent law passed in 1871 had been short-lived, but was abandoned
in the following year because it was poorly understood by the people and
the government office experience problems with its operation.) The first
patent issued by the new office, on 14
Aug 1885, was to Zuisho Hotta for his formulation of an antifouling
paint for ship hulls made of lacquer, powdered iron, red lead, persimmon
tannin, and other ingredients. A New Utility Model Law was enacted in the
1905 to complement the patent system.« |
|
| Telegraph ticker patent | |
|
In 1846, the first U.S. patent for a telegraph ticker that would print
letters of the alphabet was issued to R.E. House of New York City (No.
4,464). It was able to print at the rate of 50 words a minute in Roman
letters. It had first been publically exhibited in 1844 at the American
Institute Fair in New York City. It was widely used for ten years, until
replaced by improved versions. |
|
| See 16 Apr 1756 for the date of death of Jaccques Cassini, although 18 Apr 1756 is given by Encyclopedia Britannica. More in this note.] | |
