| MAY 9 - BIRTHS | |
| Manfred Eigen | |
(source) |
 Born 9
May 1927
German biochemist and physicist who was awarded a share of the 1967 Nobel Prize in Chemistry (with Ronald Norrish and George Porter) "for their studies of extremely fast chemical reactions, effected by disturbing the equlibrium by means of very short pulses of energy." In 1954, Eigen introduced the relaxation techniques for the study of extremely fast chemical reactions (those taking less than a millisecond). His general method was to take a solution in equilibrium for a given temperature and pressure. If a short disturbance was applied to the solution the equilibrium would be very briefly destroyed and a new equilibrium quickly reached. Eigen studied exactly what happened in this very short time by means of absorption spectroscopy. |
| Howard Carter | |
(source) |
Born 9
May 1873; died 2 Mar 1939
British archaeologist who made one of the richest and most celebrated contributions to Egyptology: the discovery (27 Nov 1922) of the largely intact tomb of King Tutankhamen. In 1891, at age 17, with a talent for drawing and an interest in Egyptian antiquities, he was hired by the Egypt Exploration Fund in London to help with the epigraphic recording of tombs in Middle Egypt. At the beginning of 1900 Howard Carter was appointed Chief Inspector of Antiquities to the Egyptian Government with responsibilities for Upper Egypt. The Earl of Carnarvon, visited Egypt for health reasons in 1905, became interested in Egyptian antiquities and decided to finance some archaeological work. He funded Carter's excavation work beginning in 1909.  "The
Tomb of Tut.Ankh.Amen: Discovered by the Late Earl of Carnarvon and Howard
Carter: The Annexe and Treasury" by Howard Carter |
| Edward Weston | |
(EB) |
Born 9
May 1850; died 20 Aug 1936
British-born American electrical engineer and industrialist who founded the Weston Electrical Instrument Company. He moved to America as a young medical student in 1870. In the next few years, he revolutionized the electro-plating industry by inventing and manufacturing a highly successful electroplating dynamo, which far surpassed the efficiency of storage batteries. He patented the dynamo and a nickel-plating anode in 1875. From then until about 1917, Weston was granted 334 U.S patents. After early experiments with designs of incandescent lamps, he distinguished himself with the invention and manufacture of a series of precision electronical measuring instruments. |
| Carl Gustaf Patrik de Laval | |
(source) |
Born 9
May 1845; died 2 Feb 1913
Swedish scientist, engineer, and inventor who pioneered in the development of high-speed turbines. After earning his Ph.D. at age 27, he worked as a technical engineer at a steel mill in his home village. In 1877, he began developing a high-speed centrifugal cream separator, a significant advance in butter-making. He perfected a vacuum milking machine in 1913. About 1882, he began working on steam turbines, and by 1889, he applied for a British patent for an impulse type, with a jet of steam impinging on a set of blades around the periphery of a wheel. His inventive talent was wide, including electric lighting, electrometallurgy, and aerodynamics. During his lifetime, he acquired 92 Swedish patents and founded 37 companies. |
| James Pollard Espy | |
(source) |
Born 9
May 1785; died 24 Jan 1860
American meteorologist who was one of the first to collect meteorological observations by telegraph. He gave apparently the first essentially correct explanation of the thermodynamics of cloud formation and growth. Every great atmospheric disturbance begins with a rising mass of heated, thus less dense air. While rising, the air mass dilates and cools. Then, as water vapour precipitates as clouds, latent heat is liberated so the dilation and rising continues until the moisture of the air forming the upward current is practically exhausted. The heavier air flows in beneath, and, finding a diminished pressure above it, rushes upward with constantly increasing violence. Water vapour precipitated during this atmospheric disturbance results in heavy rains. [Image: Formation of a thunderstorm, mature stage] |
| Gaspard Monge | |
(source) |
Born 9
May 1748; died 28 Jul 1818
French mathematician who was one of the founders of descriptive geometry (the mathematics of projecting solid figures onto a plane, upon which modern engineering drawing is based) and the application of the techniques of analysis to the theory of curvature. The latter ultimately led to the revolutionary work of Georg Riemann on geometry and curvature. He became a close friend of Napoleon and was appointed minister for the navy (1792-93), but was stripped of all honours on the restoration of the Bourbons. He died in poverty. |
|
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| MAY 9 - DEATHS | |
| Humfry Payne | |
(source) |
 Died
9 May 1936 (born 19 Feb 1902)
Humfry (Gilbert Garth) Payne was an English archaeologist who studied Mediterranean archaeology and is known for his book Necrocorinthia (1931), a significant work on Corinthian pottery. He did work at Knossos, and between 1930 and 1933, he led excavations of the Hera sanctuary and the ancient harbour at Perahóra (meaning "the land beyond") in the Gulf of Korinth, Greece. Later excavations there were headed by Peter Megaw in the 1960s and Richard Tomlinson in the early 1980s clarified earlier finds and opened up new areas of the temples, markets, ritual dining areas and complex water systems. Payne died at the early age of 35, and was buried at Mycenae.«  Necrocorinthia:
A study of Corinthian art, by Humfry
Payne. |
| A.A. Michelson | |
(source) |
Died
9 May 1931 (born 19 Dec 1852)
Albert Abraham Michelson was a German-born American physicist who accurately measured the speed of light and received the 1907 Nobel Prize for Physics "for his optical precision instruments and the spectroscopic and metrological investigations" he carried out with them. He designed the highly accurate Michelson interferometer and used it to establish the speed of light as a fundamental constant. With Edward Morley, he also used it in an attempt to measure the velocity of the earth through the ether (1887). The experiment yielded null results that eventually led Einstein to his theory of relativity. He measured the standard meter bar in Paris to be 1,553,163.5 wavelengths of the red cadmium line (1892-3).« The
master of light: A biography of Albert A. Michelson,
by Dorothy Michelson Livingston |
| Paul-Louis-Toussaint Héroult | |
(source) |
Died
9 May 1914 (born 10 Apr 1863)
French chemist who invented the electric-arc furnace, widely used in making steel; and, independently of the simultaneous work of Charles M. Hall of the United States, devised the electrolytic process for preparing aluminum. This process made low-priced aluminum available for the first time, securing the widespread use of the metal and its alloys.  |
| C(harles) W(illiam) Post | |
(source) |
Died
9 May 1914 (born 26 Oct 1854)
American industrialist who founded Post Cereal Company with the Grape-Nuts cereal he created. In 1890, a nervous breakdown had led Post to the sanitorium of Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, where he was fed on Kellogg's grain-intensive vegetarian diet. Early in 1895, Post began the manufacture of Postum, a grain product intended as a coffee substitute, similar to one of Kellogg's concoctions. The manufacture of Grape-Nuts, based on another Kellogg item, began the following year. Post's new company, Postum Ltd., achieved wide-scale distribution of its products through massive spending on advertising appealing to the health concerns of the American public. In 1929, Postum became General Foods Corporation. |
| Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac | |
(source) |
Died
9 May 1850 (born 6 Dec 1778)
French chemist best known for his work on gases. In 1805, by exploding together given volumes of hydrogen and oxygen, Gay-Lussac discovered they combined in ratio 2:1 by volume to form water. By 1808, after researches using other gases, he formulated his famous law of combining volumes - that when gases combine their relative volumes bear a simple numerical relation to each other (e.g., 1:1, 2:1) and to their gaseous product (under constant pressure and temperature). He developed techniques of quantitative chemical analysis, confirmed that iodine was an element, discovered cyanogen, improved the process for manufacturing sulphuric acid, prepared potassium and boron (1808). He made two balloon ascents to study the atmosphere. Gay-Lussac:
Scientist and Bourgeois, by Maurice P. Crosland. |
| MAY 9 - EVENTS | |
| Moon reached by laser light | |
In 1962, a laser beam was bounced off the moon from earth by MIT scientists.
The area of the light beam on the surface was estimated at a diameter of
4 miles. |
|
| Birth control pill | |
(source) |
In 1960, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved a pill
as safe for birth control use. In 1953, Margaret Sanger, a legendary
birth control crusader gave Dr. Gregory Pincus $150,000 to continue his
prior research and develop a safe and effective oral contraceptive for
women. The original version contained at least five times the estrogen
that it does today, and ten times the progestin. Reductions addressed early
medical problems, mainly with dangerous blood clots. The pill,
now the most common form of birth control used by millions of women, is
about 99 percent effective in preventing pregnancy. After 40 years, U.S.
women still need a doctor's prescription, but the pill is available over-the-counter
in many other countries. [Image:
pills in a calendar package] |
| First UK laundrette | |
|
In 1949, Britain’s first launderette opened in Queensway, London.* |
|
| Eye bank | |
|
In 1944, the first eye bank in the U.S. opened in New York City through
the efforts of Dr. Richard T. Paton of Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital
and Dr. John McLean of New York Hospital. These hospitals cooperated to
establish a joint project at New York Hospital, New York City. Nineteen
other hospitals in the metropolitan area also cooperated and contributed
eyes to the bank. |
|
| Hindenburg | |
|
In 1936, the Hindenburg Zeppelin arrived at Lakehurst, New Jersey,
USA, from Germany marking the beginning of regular transatlantic passenger
service. The flight, carrying 51 passengers and 56 crew, took 61-hr 38-min.« |
|
| Rotor ship | |
(source) |
In 1926, Baden-Baden, a rotor ship
invented by Anton Flettner arrived
in New York having left Hamburg on 2 Apr 1926, and completed a transatlantic
crossing from Germany. He replaced sails with a unique propulsion
- two 9-ft diameter, 50-ft high cylinders, mounted vertically on the deck
at the bow and the stern. Driven by 45-hp electric motors, they applying
the aerodynamic power
of the Magnus Effect (discovered 1852) which builds air pressure behind
a rotating cylinder. Although a theoretical success, it was not sufficiently
effective for commercial application. |
| North Pole flight | |
|
In 1926, Americans Richard Byrd and Floyd Bennett became the first men
to fly over the North Pole. |
|
| Motion pictures | |
|
In 1893, the first motion picture exhibition was given by Thomas Alva Edison
in Brooklyn, New York to an audience of 400 people at the Dept of
Physics, Brooklyn Institute, Brooklyn, N.Y. using Edision's Kinetograph.
An optical lantern projector showed moving images of a blacksmith and his
two helpers passing a bottle and forging a piece of iron. Each filmstrip
had 700 images, each image being shown for 1/92 sec. The event was reported
in the Scientific American of 20 May 1893. |
|
| Stethoscope | |
(USPTO) |
In 1882, a stethoscope of the now classic design, invented by William F.
Ford was issued a U.S. patent (No. 257,487). |
| Gatling gun patent | |
(USPTO) |
In 1865, a U.S. patent
was issued to Richard Jordan Gatling
for the Gatling gun,
invented 1861, which was the first to successfully combine reliability,
high firing rate and ease of loading into a single device (No. 47,631),
which he in the patent description, he called a "battery-gun." The gun
was a hand-cranked to rotate a cylinder of ten barrels. Each loaded from
a gravity-feed magazine on top and fired on each revolution. He was motivated
to invent the weapon after he noticed the majority of dead returning from
the American Civil War died of illness, rather than gunshots. He thought
if a rapid-firing gun could enable one man to do what previously required
many, then armies could be smaller, saving men from exposure to battle
and disease.« 
Gatling:
A Photographic Remembrance, by E. Frank Jr. Stephenson. |
| Theatre gas lighting | |
|
In 1825, the first U.S. newspaper account was published of a theatre lighted
by gas in New York City, the Chatham Garden and Theatre situated at what
is now 80-90 Chatham Street. Previously gas lighting had been seen in theatres,
it was only as a novelty, but not illumination. The New York Post and
Mirror reported that the whole theatre was lighted by gas "which sheds
a clear soft light over the audience and stage." The illumination "elicited
the loudest plaudits from those present." |
|
