| JUNE 3 - BIRTHS | |
| Werner Arber | |
(source) |
 Born 3
June 1929
Swiss microbiologist, corecipient (with Americans Daniel Nathans and Hamilton Othanel Smith) of the 1978 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. All three were cited for their work in molecular genetics, specifically the discovery and application of restriction enzymes that break the giant molecules of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) into manageable pieces, small enough to be separated for individual study but large enough to retain bits of the genetic information inherent in the sequence of units that make up the original substance. |
| Torsten Nils Wiesel | |
(source) |
Born 3
June 1924
Swedish neurobiologist, corecipient (with Americans David Hunter Hubel and Roger Wolcott Sperry) of the 1981 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. All three scientists were honoured for their investigations of brain function, Wiesel and Hubel in particular for their collaborative studies of the visual cortex, which is located in the occipital lobes of the cerebrum. |
| Charles Richard Drew | |
 |
Born 3
June 1904; died 1 April 1950.
Black American physician and surgeon who was an authority on the preservation of human blood for transfusion. He organized and directed the blood-plasma programs of the United States and Great Britain in the early years of World War II, while also agitating the authorities to stop excluding the blood of blacks from plasma-supply networks.  One
Blood: The Death and Resurrection of Charles R. Drew,
by Spencie Love. |
| Georg von Békésy | |
(source) |
Born 3
June 1899; died 13 Jun 1972.
American physicist and physiologist who received the 1961 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for his discovery of the physical mechanism of stimulation within the cochlea by which sound is analyzed and communicated in the cochlea, a portion of the inner ear. Békésy developed anatomical techniques that allowed rapid, nondestructive dissection of the cochlea. Békésy was able to observe the traveling waves along the basilar membrane that were produced by sound. He observed the shape of these waves by stroboscopic examination of the motion of particles of silver which he sprinkled on the nearly transparent basilar membrane. |
| Raymond Pearl | |
(source) |
Born 3
June 1879; died 17 Nov 1940.
American zoologist, one of the founders of biometry, the application of statistics to biology and medicine. Pearl was chief statistician at the Johns Hopkins Hospital (1919-35). He pioneered studies in longevity, changes in world population, and genetics. He reported in the May 1938 Scientific American that "the smoking of tobacco was associated definitely with an impairment of life duration and the amount or degree of this impairment increased as the habitual amount of smoking increased." In 1926, he first reported health benefits of moderate alcohol consumption (as opposed to both abstinence and heavy drinking) in a modern medical light. |
| Lawrence Joseph Henderson | |
part of Henderson's nomogram of blood (source) |
Born 3
June 1878; died 10 Feb 1942.
U.S. biochemist, who discovered the chemical means by which acid-base equilibria are maintained in nature. He concentrated on giving a description of the many chemical variables influencing the neutrality of blood, since its most significant and most conspicuous property was its ability to neutralise large amounts of acids or bases without losing its neutral reaction. Henderson published The Fitness of the Environment (1913) and The Order of Nature (1917). In these books he offered a detailed chemical analysis to support the view that the properties of hydrogen, oxygen, carbon and other elements are so improbably well suited for the evolution of life that no mere "mechanism" can be responsible, and the universe shows the hand of "teleology" or God. |
| Otto Loewi | |
(source) |
Born 3
June 1873; died 25 Dec 1961.
German-born American physician and pharmacologist who shared the 1936 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine (with Sir Henry Dale) "for their discoveries relating to the chemical transmission of nerve impulses." Sadly, just two years later he was a victim of Nazi persecution, imprisoned for being Jewish. As ransom for his life, he was forced to hand over his possessions, including his Nobel Prize money, and Loewi escaped to England. From there he moved to America in 1940. His research showed that it was the release of a certain chemical (the transmitter) acetylcholine, that enabled the transmission of nerve impulses. Loewi also investigated action of drugs able to blockade or assist nerve impulse transmission.«. |
| Aristides Agramonte y Simoni | |
(source) |
Born 3
June 1868; died 19 Aug 1931.
Agramonte was a physician, pathologist, and bacteriologist, a member of the Reed Yellow Fever Board of the U.S. Army that discovered (1901) the role of the mosquito in the transmission of yellow fever. In May 1898, he was appointed Acting Assistant Surgeon in the U.S. Army. Agramonte had acquired immunity to yellow fever from a mild childhood case in Cuba before emigrating to the U.S., which was an advantage when he was chosen by the Surgeon-General to study the yellow fever outbreak in General Shafter's army in Cuba. There Agramonte performed autopsies in order to determine the causative agent of the disease. After additional work in Cuba, in May 1900, Agramonte was appointmented to Reed's Yellow Fever Commission. |
| Ransom Eli Olds | |
 |
Born 3
June 1864; died 26 Aug 1950.
American inventor and automobile manufacturer, designer of the three-horsepower, curved-dash Oldsmobile, the first commercially successful American-made automobile and the first to use a progressive assembly system, which foreshadowed modern mass-production methods. When young, he worked in his father's machine and repair shop, in Lansing, Mich., where he experimented with small steam engines. In 1887, for a distance of one block, Olds drove Lansing's first automobile, an experimental steam vehicle. He continued to work with steam, gasoline and electric power. Eventually he produced a gasoline-powered vehicle that seated four persons and could do 18 miles per hour on level ground. |
| Sir Flinders Petrie | |
 |
Born 3
June 1853; died 28 July 1942.
Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie was a British archaeologist and Egyptologist who made valuable contributions to the techniques and methods of field excavation and invented a sequence dating method that enabled reconstruction of history from the remains of ancient cultures. He studied ancient British remains at Stonehenge (1875-80), then investigated pyramids at Giza and other Egyptian antiquities (1880-1914). He developed a principle of sequence dating by potsherds (1890). In 1895, he discovered remains of a prehistoric race at Nagada (1895). The stele of Merneptah he uncovered at Thebes in 1896 contained the earliest known Egyptian reference to Israel. He wrote The Formation of the Alphabet (1912). |
| Charles-Bernard Desormes | |
(source) |
Born 3
June 1771; died 30 Aug 1862.
French chemist who collaborated with Nicolas Clément (later to become his son-in-law) in scientific investigations including the exact determination of the composition of carbon monoxide and carbon disulphide. They also experimentally determined the ratio of the specific heats of gases (1819). In independent work, following up on Volta's pile, Desormes devised dry electric piles composed of metallic disks separated by a layer of salt paste (1801-04). In the period c.1812-19, with Clement, Desormes studied heat and crudely estimated absolute zero. Later in life he turned to politics, with election losses at first, but after some years leading to becoming a member of the Constituent Assembly on 23 Apr 1848.« [Image: Apparatus used by Clement and Desormes to determine the density of air.] |
| Henry Shrapnel | |
(source) |
Born 3
June 1761; died 13 Mar 1842.
English soldier and inventor of the Shrapnel shell, a spherical case designed to explode in midair, spreading its content of small lead musket balls to injure enemy soldiers over a wide area. He joined the Royal Artillery shortly after his 18th birthday, and spent his life in service during which time he devised and refined his shell, invented a percussion lock for small arms (patented 1834) and other improvements in fuses, ammunition and small arms. He also prepared important artillery range tables and originated the brass tangent slide to improve the sighting of guns. Incorporating his idea of the parabolic chamber, howitzers and mortars were operated more efficiently.«  |
| James Hutton | |
(source) |
Born 3
June 1726; died 26 Mar 1797.
Scottish geologist who initiated the principle of uniformitarianism with his Theory of the Earth (1785). He asserted that geological processes examined in the present time explain the formation of older rocks. John Playfair effectively championed Hutton's theory. Hutton, in effect, was the founder of modern geology, replacing a belief in the role of a biblical flood forming the Earth's crust. He introduced an understanding of the action of great heat beneath the Earth's crust in fusing sedimentary rocks, and the elevation of land forms from levels below the ocean to high land in a cyclical process. He established the igneous origin of granite (1788). He also had early thoughts on the evolution of animal forms and meterology.« The
Man Who Found Time: James Hutton and the Discovery of Earth's Antiquity,
by Jack Repcheck. |
| David Gregory | |
(source) |
Born 3
June 1659; died 10 Oct 1708.
Scottish mathematician and astronomer. In 1702 he published a book Astronomiae physicae et geometricae elementa, an effort in the popularization of Newtonian science. However, in the matter of chromatic aberration, Gregory noted something that Newton had missed. Different kinds of glass spread the colours of the spectrum by different amounts. He suggested a suitable combination of two different kinds of glass might eliminate chromatic aberration. (A half century later, Dollond accomplished this result.) Telescopes were a special interest of his, and Gregory also experimented with making an achromatic telescope. Gregory and did important work on series. |
|
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| JUNE 3 - DEATHS | |
| J. Presper Eckert, Jr. | |
(source) |
 Died
3 June 1995 (born 9 Apr 1919)
J(ohn) Presper Eckert, Jr. was an American engineer and coinventor of the first general-purpose electronic computer, a digital machine that was the prototype for most computers in use today. In 1946, Eckert with John W. Mauchly fulfilled a government contract to build a digital computer to be used by the U.S. Army for military calculations. They named it ENIAC for Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer. By 1949, they had started a manufacturing company for their BINAC computer. This was followed by a business oriented computer, UNIVAC (1951), which was put to many uses and spurred the growth of the computer industry. By 1966 Eckert held 85 patents, mostly for electronic inventions. |
| Robert Noyce | |
(soource) |
Died
3 June 1990 (born 12 Dec 1927)
Robert (Norton) Noyce was a U.S. engineer and coinventor (1959), with Jack Kilby, of the integrated circuit, a system of interconnected transistors on a single silicon microchip. He held sixteen patents for semiconductor devices, methods, and structures. In 1968, he and colleague Gordon E. Moore cofounded N.M. Electronics, which later was renamed Intel Corporation. Noyce served as Intel's president and chairman (1968-75), then as vice chairman until 1979. The
Man Behind the Microchip, by Leslie Berlin |
| A.V. Hill | |
(source) |
Died
3 June 1977 (born 26 Sep 1886)
Archibald Vivian Hill was a British physiologist and biophysicist who received (with Otto Meyerhof) the 1922 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for discoveries concerning the production of heat in muscles, research which helped establish the origin of muscular force in the breakdown of carbohydrates with formation of lactic acid in the muscle. Hill's early experiments researched the effects of electrical stimulation on nerve function, the mechanical efficiency of muscle, energy processes in muscle during recovery, the interaction between oxygen and hemoglobin, and quantitative aspects of drug kinetics on muscle. Hill combined aspects of physics and biology, a discipline which he championed as biophysics. |
| Emmett J. Culligan | |
(source) |
Died
3 June 1970 (born 5 Mar 1893)
American founder of a water treatment company. In 1936, Emmett J. Culligan launched the Culligan Zeolite Company (Water Softening) in Northbrook, Illinois. During WW II, Culligan built a facility to manufacture silica gel, a dehydrating material that protected metals from atmospheric corrosion that was greatly in demand during the war, and Culligan soon became one of the largest suppliers. He developed a novel process for manufacturing zeolite, the man-made mineral used in water softeners, and built a nationwide service industry in water conditioning and filtering, which then expanded internationally. |
| Camille Flammarion | |
(source) |
Died
3 June 1925 (born 26 Feb 1842)
(Nicolas) Camille Flammarion was a French astronomer who studied double and multiple stars, the moon and Mars. He is best known as the author of popular, lavishly illustrated, books on astronomy, including Popular Astronomy (1880) and The Atmosphere (1871). In 1873, Flammarion attributed the red color of Mars (wrongly) to vegetation. In Pop. Sci. Mo. v. IV p.190, he wrote "May we attribute to the color of the herbage and plants which no doubt clothe the plains of Mars, the characteristic hue of that planet..." He supported the idea of canals on Mars, and intelligent life, perhaps more advanced than earth's. Flammarion reported changes in one of the craters of the moon, which he attributed to growth of vegetation. Late in life he turned to pschic research. |
| William Gilson Farlow | |
(source) |
Died
3 June 1919 (born 17 Dec 1844)
U.S. mycologist and plant pathologist who developed cryptogamic botany in the U.S. with pioneer investigations in plant pathology. His course in this subject was the first taught in the United States. Farlow's publications were mainly on taxonomic and bibliographic phases of mycology, (the study of fungi), but he also wrote articles on algae, lichens, and ferns. From Summer 1872 to1874 while in Europe for further training, he established contacts, bought books, periodicals and specimens. His extensive library and collections of fungi, algae, lichens, and mosses became the nucleus of Harvard University's Farlow Research Library and herbarium, bequeathed in 1919, to meet the need for a complete reference library to establish relationships. |
| René-Just Haüy | |
(source) |
Died
3 June 1822 (born 28 Feb 1743)
French mineralogist. He studied the crystalline structure of minerals rather than than their chemical or geological characteristics. It is said that while examining a specimen of calcite he dropped it and the crystal broke into pieces. He realized the fragments took regular forms. This accident thus marked the beginning of those exhaustive studies which made him the father of modern crystallography. Upon studying many specimens, he found that crystals of the same composition possessed the same internal nucleus, even though their external forms differed. He also established the law of symmetry whereby forms of crystal are perfectly definite and based an fixed laws. Haüy was also one of the pioneers in the development of piezoelectricity. |
| Nicolas Appert | |
(EB) |
Died
3 June 1841 (born c.1750)
Nicolas-François Appert was a French chef, confectioner, and distiller who invented the method of preserving food by enclosing it in hermetically sealed containers. Inspired by the French Directory's offer of a prize for a way to conserve food for transport, Appert began a 14-year period of experimentation in 1795. Using corked-glass containers reinforced with wire and sealing wax and kept in boiling water for varying lengths of time, he preserved soups, fruits, vegetables, juices, dairy products, marmalades, jellies, and syrups. |
| William Harvey | |
(source) |
Died
3 June 1657 (born 1 Apr 1578)
English physician and discoverer of the true nature of the circulation of the blood and of the function of the heart as a pump. Functional knowledge of the heart and the circulation had remained almost at a standstill ever since the time of the Greco-Roman physician Galen - 1,400 years earlier. Harvey's courage, penetrating intelligence, and precise methods were to set the pattern for research in biology and other sciences for succeeding generations, so that he shares with William Gilbert, investigator of the magnet, the credit for initiating accurate experimental research throughout the world. On
the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals, by William
Harvey, Robert Willis (Translator) |
| JUNE 3 - EVENTS | |
| First American spacewalk | |
(source) |
In 1965, the first American astronaut
to make a spacewalk was Major Edward White II, when he spent 20 minutes
outside the Gemini 4 capsule during Earth orbit at an altitude of
120 miles. A tether and 25 foot airline were wrapped
in gold tape to form a single, thick cord. He used a hand-held 7.5 pound
oxygen jet propulsion gun to maneuver. The launch had taken place a few
hours earlier on the same day. During the remainder of the flight, pilot
White and his crewmate commander McDivitt completed 12 scientific and medical
experiments. The total time in orbit was almost 98 hours, making 62 orbits.
Soviet cosmonaut Aleksei A. Leonov, had made the first ever spacewalk for
10 minutes about three months earlier. |
| Hale telescope | |
(source) |
In 1948, the 200-inch (5.08 m) reflecting Hale telescope
at the Palomar Mountain Observatory in California was dedicated. This was
the first in the world with a 200-inch lens, which after casting was permitted
to cool slowly over an 11 month period. The resulting 20-ton glass disk
then required 11 years of careful grinding and polishing. The telescope
was officially named after Dr. George Ellery
Hale who conceived, designed and promoted this telescope, though he
died before it was completed. On 1 Feb 1949, studies first began with observations
were first made of the constellation
Coma Berenices.
Explorer
of the Universe: A Biography of George Ellery Hale, by
Helen Wright. |
| Rutherford on the neutron | |
Rutherford (source) |
In 1920, Ernest Rutherford speculated
on the possible existence and properties of the neutron
in his second Bakerian
Lecture, London, on "The Nuclear Constitution of Atoms." He considered
isotopes for which "...provided the resultant nuclear charge is the same,
a number of possible stable modes of combination of the different units
which make up a complex nucleus may be possible." Later he said, "Under
some conditions, however, it may be possible for an electron to combine
much more closely with the H nucleus, forming a kind of neutral doublet.
Such an atom would have very novel properties. Its external field would
be practically zero, except very close to the nucleus..." In 1932, Chadwick
discovered the neutron.« |
| Edison patent | |
(source) |
In 1902, Thomas A. Edison received a patent for a "Reversible Galvanic
Battery" (U.S. No. 701,804). Such battery used insoluble active elements
in an alkaline solution which remained unchanged during all conditions
of use, such that a battery is made of great permanence and of remarkably
light weight per unit of power. He had experimented and found nickel which
he described as a suitable component for the battery. |
| Woods patent | |
(source) |
In 1884, Granville T. Woods
- the prolific black American inventor
- was issued his first patent. This covered his innovation for a "Steam
Boiler Furnace" (U.S. No. 299,894). He continued inventing
for over 20 more years and received several dozen more patents, many of
which were related to railroad equipment controls and communication. Woods
also patented an egg incubator for 50,000 eggs. Perhaps his most important
invention was the "Synchronous Multiplex Railway Telegraph" (1887) which
he designed for the purpose of making rail travel safer. It averted accidents
by keeping each train informed of the whereabouts of the one immediately
ahead or following it, and in communicating with the stations from moving
trains.
Black
Inventors in the Age of Segregation, by Rayvon Fouche |
| Photophone | |
(source) |
In 1880, Alexander Graham Bell transmitted the first wireless telephone
message on his newly-invented photophone.
The photophone worked by projecting his voice through an instrument towards
a mirror. The vibrations in the voice caused similar vibrations in the
mirror. Bell directed sunlight into the mirror, which captured and projected
the mirror's vibrations. The vibrations could be deconstructed back into
sound at the receiving end of the projection. In this way the photophone
functioned similarly to the telephone; the difference was that the photophone
used light as a means for projecting the information, while the telephone
used electricity. |
| First telephone twang | |
(source) |
In 1875, Alexander Bell used his "harmonic telegraph" to transmit
a twanging sound from a reed vibrated by Bell’s voice along wires to Watson.
Although the instrument transmitted voicelike sounds, the words were not
recognizable. Now he knew he was closer to his dream of speech transmission.
The striking result on this day came after more tinkering on the instrument,
after a simple discovery the previous day. On 2 Jun 1875, the two had been
workingon
the telegraph. In the transmitter room, Watson was trying to free a reed
wound too tightly to the pole of its electromagnet, when it produced a
twang.
Bell, at work in the receiving room heard the twang
and realized
the complex overtones and timbre shared characteristics with voice vibrations.
[Image:
diagram of earlier device under test in Winter 1873] |
| Screw-blank feeder mechanism | |
(source) |
In 1856, Cullen Whipple, of Providence,
RI, patented a screw-blank feeder mechanism (U.S. No. 15,052).
In Oct 1840, he was one of ten incorporators of The New England Screw Co.
He invented a
machine for the company to use cutting the threads of screws (patented
18 Aug 1842) which he later improved by adding more cutters to also point
the screws in the same machine (patent No. 9,477,
14 Dec 1852). He patented various other devices for improving the manufacture
of screws. He has been credited*
as the inventor of the first practical machine for pointing screws. Early
screws had no point and required that a starter hole be drilled before
use.«
[Note: Famous First Facts by Joseph Nathan Kane incorrectly cites this screw-blank feeder mechanism's 3 Jun 1856 date and patent number as the first practical screw-pointing machine patent. In fact, Whipple invented his screw pointing machine four years earlier - in 1852.] |
