| MAY 2 - BIRTHS | |
| Emil W. Haury | |
(source) |
 Born 2
May 1904; died 5 Dec 1992.
American anthropologist and archaeologist who investigated the ancient Indian civilizations of the southwestern United States and South America. His main concerns were the preceramic and ceramic archaeology of the southwestern United States and Mexico; the archaeology of the Hohokam, Mogollon, and Anasazi Indians of the southwestern United States; and the archaeology of the Chibcha Indians of the northern Andes. |
| Benjamin Spock | |
| Born 2
May 1903; died 15 Mar 1998.
American pediatrician who was the most influential child-care authority of the 20th century. His book Baby and Child Care sold over 50 million copies worldwide and was translated into 42 languages. His Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care (1946; 6th ed., 1992), influenced generations of parents and made his name a household word. |
|
| Robert W. Wood | |
(source) |
Born 2
May 1868; died 11 Aug 1955.
Robert Williams Wood was an American experimental physicist. He photographed the reflection of sound waves in air, and investigated the physiological effects of high-frequency sound waves. The zone plate he devised could replace the objective lens of a telescope. He invented an improved diffraction grating, did research in spectroscopy, and extended the technique of Raman spectroscopy (a method to study matter using the light scattered by it.) He made photographs showing both infrared and ultraviolet radiation and was the first to photograph ultraviolet fluorescence. Wood was the first to observe the phenomenon of field emission in which charged particles are emitted from conductors in an electric field.« |
| Jesse William Lazear | |
(source) |
Born 2
May 1866; died 26 Sep 1900.
Jesse (William) Lazear was an American physician and bacteriologist, who died of yellow fever in Quemados, Cuba, during his own research into the cause of the disease. He graduated from Columbia's medical school, worked at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, and upon an outbreak of yellow fever in Cuba he was appointed an assistant surgeon in the U.S. Army. As a member of the Yellow Fever Commission with Walter Reed, James Carroll and Aristides Agramonte, he was in Cuba early in 1900. Their investigation yielded proof that the disease was borne by mosquitoes. Unfortunately, Lazear was bitten accidentally by an infected mosquito. Five days later, he developed yellow fever; on the seventh day of his illness, Jesse died. |
| Sir D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson | |
(source) |
Born 2
May 1860; died 21 Jun 1948.
Scottish zoologist and classical scholar noted for his influential workOn Growth and Form (1917, new ed. 1942). It is a profound consideration of the shapes of living things, starting from the simple premise that "everything is the way it is because it got that way.'' Hence one must study not only finished forms, but also the forces that moulded them: "the form of an object is a 'diagram of forces', in this sense, at least, that from it we can judge of or deduce the forces that are acting or have acted upon it.'' One of his great themes is the tremendous light cast on living things by using mathematics to describe their shapes and fairly simple physics and chemistry to explain them. |
| Sir William Maddock Bayliss | |
Born 2
May 1860; died 27 Aug 1924.
British physiologist who, in 1902 co-discovered the first hormone (with the British physiologist Ernest H. Starling). They found a certain chemical substance is secreted when food comes into contact with part of the small intestine. This chemical substance, which they named secretin, upon being carried by the blood to the pancreas, stimulates the secretion of pancreatic juice, the most important of the digestive juices. They coined the word "hormone" based on a Greek word for "to set in motion." Bayliss also studied the use of saline injections to counteract shock during surgery. He proposed the use of gum-saline injections for wound shock to saved many lives of wounded soldiers in WW I.« |
|
| Claude-Joseph-Désiré Charnay | |
(source) |
Born 2
May 1828; died 24 Oct 1915.
French explorer and archaeologist, noted for his pioneering investigations of prehistoric Mexico and Central America. He travelled with his government's support to tour the entire world in order to record and investigate in a "scientific" manner the different cultures and customs. He became expert in photography soon after its invention. With Le Plongeon, Charnay was among the first to publish photographs of Mesoamerican sites. Using the wet collodion process and large plates, his photography was something of a technical feat in the circumstances. He made early plaster molds of Maya sculptures. In Mexico, much of his work was concentrated in the archeological sites of Chichén-Itza, Uxmal, Palenque and Mitla. [Image: Madagascar Women, 1863, from wet collodion-on-glass] |
| Heinrich Gustav Magnus | |
(source) |
Born 2
May 1802; died 4 Apr 1870.
German chemist and physicist who discovered the Magnus effect (the lift force produced by a rotating cylinder, which for example, gives the curve to a curve ball). In chemical research, he discovered the first of the platino-ammonium compounds compounds. Magnus's green salt is [Pt(NH3)4][PtCl4]). With diverse interests in science, he also worked on the absorption of gases by blood, expansion of gases when heated, vapour pressures of water and various solutions, electrolysis, induced and thermoelectric currents, optics, magnetism and hydrodynamics. In 1865, he represented Prussia at a conference called to introduce a uniform metric system of weights and measures into Germany. |
| Abraham (Pineo) Gesner | |
(source) |
Born 2
May 1797; died 29 Apr 1864
Canadian chemist and geologist who pioneered the extraction of kerosene (which he named) by the dry distillation of asphalt rock. He realized the usefulness of this liquid (known as paraffin in England) as a cleaner-furning fuel in lamps to replace whale oil. He obtained several patents for his processes he invented. U.S. Patent Nos. 11,203-5 (issued 27 Jun 1854) described his process for obtaining kerosene from asphalt rock by heat distillation. His Patent No.12,612 (27 Mar 1855) was the first in the U.S. for a process to obtain oil for illumination from bituminous shale and cannel coal. He also invented a wood preservative, an asphalt highway paving process, compressed coal dust briquettes, and a machine for insulating electric wire.«  Abraham
Gesner, by Joyce Barkhouse |
| Henrik Steffens | |
(source) |
Born 2
May 1773; died 13 Feb 1845.
Philosopher and physicist, who combined scientific ideas with German Idealist metaphysics. He was a professor of mineralogy at Halle in 1804 and professor of physics at Breslau in 1811. Though Steffens did much sound scientific work as a physicist, he had the fondness ofs a philosopher for using scientific fact as a basis for the construction of fanciful analogies and quite arbitrary metaphysical conclusions. His exposition of a philosophy of nature in Grundzüge der philosophischen Naturwissenschaft (1806; "Philosophical Characteristics of Natural Science") showed a typical combination of profound scientific knowledge and Schellingian speculation. |
| Jakob Chrisophe Le Blon | |
(source) |
Baptised
2 May 1667; died 16 May 1741.
German painter and engraver who invented the modern system of four-colour printing. Influenced by Newton's work on the light spectrum, after many printing trials, Le Blon in 1710 proposed that three primary colours - cyan, magenta and yellow (blue, red, yellow) and black - are sufficient for mixing in varying proportions to produce all other colours. He used this process to print engravings that mimic the full colour of paintings by superimposing mezzotint plates in each primary colour. For each hand-engraved plate, the individual contribution of each colour estimated. In 1719, George I granted him a priviledge of a monopoly for the reproduction of pictures and drawings in full colour. Nevertheless, by 1725, his company failed.« |
|
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| MAY 2 - DEATHS | |
| Keith Roberts Porter | |
(source) |
 Died
2 May 1997 (born 11 Jun 1912)
Canadian-born American cell biologist who developed techniques for electron microscope studies to determine the internal structure and organization of cells and tissues. As a graduate student at Harvard, he developed a method for nuclear transplantation in frog eggs. In 1945, he described the structure of the endoplasmic reticulum. In 1952-53, Porter with George Palade and Fritiof Stig Sjöstrand perfected thin sectioning and fixation methods for electron microscopy of intracellular structures, especially of mitochondria. He used scanning electron microscopy for visualizing the surfaces of cells and tissues and applied it both to tissue culture cells, and to organs and tissues that were dispersed by chemical or mechanical treatment. |
| Sir John Carew Eccles | |
(source) |
Died
2 May 1997 (born 27 Jan 1903)
Australian research physiologist, who in 1963 received (with Alan Hodgkin and Andrew Huxley) the 1963 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for his discovery of the chemical means by which impulses are communicated or repressed by nerve cells. He also showed how signals pass between nerves and muscles. A nerve cell that is switched on by receiving a signal passes a chemical on to the next cell in line. This chemical expands minute openings in cell membranes, allowing ions to flood inside, reversing the electrical charge of the cell. This activity is repeated along the chain of cells, permitting transmission of the original impulse through the body. Eccles observed living cells in action by planting exceptionally tiny electrodes in them. |
| Giulio Natta | |
(source) |
Died
2 May 1979 (born 26 Feb 1903)
Italian chemist who contributed to the development of high polymers useful in the manufacture of films, plastics, fibres, and synthetic rubber. Along with Karl Ziegler of Germany, he was honoured in 1963 with the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for the development of Ziegler-Natta catalysts. Natta found that certain types of Ziegler catalysts lead to macromolecules with a spatially uniform structure, called isotactic chains. Whereas ordinary hydrocarbon chains are zigzaged, isotactic chains form helices with the side groups pointing outwards. Such polymers give rise to novel synthetic products. Examples are light but strong fabrics, and ropes which float on the water. |
| Salomon Bochner | |
| Died
2 May 1982 (born 20 Aug 1899)
Galician-born American mathematician and educator responsible for the development of the Bochner theorem of positive-definite functions and the Bochner integral. |
|
| David Wechsler | |
 |
Died
2 May 1981 (born 12 Jan 1896)
U.S. psychologist and inventor of several widely used intelligence tests for adults and children. During WW I, while assisting Edwin Garrigues Boring (1886-1968) in testing army recruits, Wechsler realized the inadequacies of the Army Alpha Tests (designed to measure abilities of conscripts and match them to suitable military jobs). He concluded that academically defined "intelligence" did not apply to "real life" situations. After leaving the military and more years of research, he developed the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, and introduced deviation scores in intelligence tests. He developed the Wechsler Memory Scale in 1945, Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (1949), and Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence (1967). |
| John Reed Swanton | |
(source) |
Died
2 May 1958 (born 19 Feb 1873)
American anthropologist who is recognized as the greatest authority upon ethnology, including the development of languages and civilization among men. He was a prolific writer, publishing many books pertaining to the languages, myths, religious beliefs and social conditions of numerous tribes of North American Indians. He pioneered ethnohistorical research techniques while working for the Bureau of American Ethnology 1900-44. In addition to his firsthand knowledge from fieldwork, he consulted the documents of French, Spanish, and British explorers to assemble information on the native cultures of the American Southeast so that he was able to describe extinct societies never seen by an anthropologist.« The
Indian Tribes of North America, by John Reed Swanton. |
| Simon Flexner | |
 |
Died
2 May 1946 (born 25 Mar 1863)
American pathologist and bacteriologist who isolated (1899) a common strain (Shigella dysenteriae) of dysentery bacillus and developed a curative serum for cerebrospinal meningitis (1907). He directed a research team that identified the poliomyelitis virus. At the Rockefeller Institute of Medical Research, he was director of laboratories (1903-35), and director of the Institute (1920-35). For thirty-five years he cultivated the spirit and guided the work of the institute, while implementing John D. Rockefeller's vision of bringing medicine into the realm of science. |
| Sergey Vasilyevich Lebedev | |
(source) |
Died 2 May 1934 (born 25 Jul 1874)
Russian chemist who developed a method for industrial production of synthetic rubber. In 1910, while researching processes by which small molecules combine to form large ones, Lebedev made an elastic rubber by polymerizing butadiene (CH2CH-CHCH2), which he obtained from ethyl alcohol. Production of polybutadiene in the Soviet Union using Lebedev's process was begun in 1932-33, using potatoes and limestone as raw materials. By 1940 the Soviet Union had the largest synthetic rubber industry in the world, producing more than 50,000 tons per year. During WW II his process of obtaining butadiene from ethyl alcohol was also used by the German rubber industry. [Image right: butadiene] |
| Ernest Henry Starling | |
(source) |
Died
2 May 1927 (born 17 Apr 1866)
British physiologist whose prolific contributions to a modern understanding of body functions include Starling's hypothesis (in which he described the forces that propel fluids through blood vessels) and his discovery of how hormones and nerves control digestion. He coined the term "hormone" for the body’s chemical messengers from the endocrine glands (1905). His "law of the heart" stated the strength of the heart contraction is proportional to the stretching of the heart muscle. He discovered the functional significance of serum proteins. In 1902 along with William Bayliss he demonstrated that secretin stimulates pancreatic secretion. In 1924 along with E. B. Vernay he demonstrated the reabsorption of water by the tubules of the kidney.  Principles
of human physiology by Ernest Henry Starling |
| Johann Palisa | |
(source) |
Died
2 May 1925 (born 6 Dec 1848)
Silesian astronomer who was a prolific discoverer of asteroids, 122 in all, beginning with Asteroid 136 Austria (on 18 Mar 1874, using a 6” refractor) to Asteroid 1073 Gellivara in 1923 - all by visual observation, without the aid of photography. In 1883, he joined the expedition of the French academy to observe the total solar eclipse on May 6 of that year. During the eclipse, he searched for the putative planet Vulcan, which was supposed to circle the sun within the orbit of Mercury. In addition to observing the eclipse, Palisa collected insects for the Natural History Museum in Vienna. He also prepared two catalogs containing the positions of almost 4,700 stars. He remains the most successful visual discoverer in the history of minor planet research.« |
| August Wilhelm von Hofmann | |
(source) |
Died
2 May 1892 (born 8 Apr 1818)
German chemist whose research on aniline, with that of his former student Sir William Henry Perkin, helped lay the basis of the aniline-dye industry. He was the first to prepare rosaniline and its derivatives and researched many other compounds, including the discovery formaldehyde. In the field of organic chemistry, Hofmann is best known for his studies of the organic derivatives of ammonia and phosphine and for his subsequent discovery of the Hofmann degradation reaction. He also developed the Hofmann method of finding the vapor densities, and from these the molecular weights, of liquids. He also helped to popularize the concept of valence (the word comes from his term quantivalence). He founded the German Chemical Society. "The
Chemistry of Vat Dyes (Palette of Color Series)" by Dianne
N. Epp |
| Frederick Scott Archer | |
(source) |
Died
2 May 1857 (born 1813)
English inventor of the wet-collodian process, the first practical photographic process which enabled making additional copies of a picture, that was used from 1851 until about 1880. While serving as a silversmith's apprentice, he transferred his interest from sculpture and coin design to seeking an improve photgraphic process. By 1848, he had discovered that collodion, a solution of gun-cotton in ether, could make plates superior to either Talbot's calotype or the daguerrotype. Although sensitivity required fresh preparationand use while still moist, this new "wet plate" photography was favoured for three decades. Having never patented his process, Archer made no commercial gain for his process, and was in poverty when he died.« |
| Leonardo da Vinci | |
(source) |
Died 2 May 1519 (born 15 Apr 1452)
Italian painter, draftsman, sculptor, architect, and engineer. Da Vinci was a great engineer and inventor who designed buildings, bridges, canals, forts and war machines. He kept huge notebooks sketching his ideas. Among these, he was fascinated by birds and flying and his sketches include such fantastic designs as flying machines. These drawings demonstrate a genius for mechanical invention and insight into scientific inquiry, truly centuries ahead of their time. His greater fame lies in being one of the greatest painters of all times, best known for such paintings as the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper.« [Image: Codex Leicester] |
| MAY 2 - EVENTS | |
| Celluloid photographic film | |
In 1887, an application was dated for the first U.S. patent for celluloid
photographic film, submitted by the Reverend Hannibal Williston Goodwin
desribing his invention of "nitro cellulose transparent flexible photographic
film pellicles." The patent was issued 13 Sep 1898 (No. 610,861). He made
a sale of one roll at $2.50 to Thomas Alva Edison on 2 Sep 1889. |
|
| Steamboat electric lights | |
(source) |
SteamshipThm.jpg)
In 1880, an Edison "A" type dynamo was placed in operation to illuminate
the passenger rooms and main salons of the S.S. Columbia. It was
the first commercial order for Edison's light bulb, and the the first time
a U.S. steamboat successfully employed
electric lights. The Oregon Railway and Navigation Company president Henry
Villard made the order after seeing an Edison demonstration
at Menlo Park. The ship sailed
on 8 May 1880 from New York to San Francisco. All 115 cardboard-filament
lamps survived the two-month voyage. The system ran (with replacement bulbs)
for 15 years until upgraded. An earlier, unsuccessful attempt was made
in Oct 1879 to use an electric lighting system on the Jeanette.*[Image
right:
S.S.
Columbia] |
| Electrolysis of water | |
/Nicholson_William(1795-1815)Thm.jpg)
(source) |
In 1800, English chemist William Nicholson
was the first to produce a chemical reaction by electricity. He had been
working with Anthony Carlisle, a London surgeon, experimenting with Allesandro
Volta's voltaic pile. The new effect was discovered
when wires from the poles of the battery being used came into contact with
water and bubbles of gas were released as current flowed through the water.
Closer examination of the electrolysis showed oxygen was released at the
(positive) anode, and hydrogen appeared at the cathode. Electricity had
separated the molecules of water. Further, the effect of the amount of
hydrogen and oxygen set free by the current was proportional to the amount
of current used.« |
| Gulf Stream | |
|
In 1775, Benjamin Franklin completed the first scientific study of the
Gulf Stream. His observations began in 1769 when as deputy postmaster of
the British Colonies he found ships took two weeks longer to bring mail
from England than was required in the opposite direction. Thus, Franklin
became the first to chart the Gulf Stream. |
|
