| JUNE 7 - BIRTHS | |
| Bernard F(lood) Burke | |
(source) |
 Born 7
June 1928
American astronomer who discovered that the giant planet Jupiter emits radio waves (1955). Burke and Kenneth L. Franklin, astronomers at the Carnegie Institution in Washington, were scanning the sky for radio waves from galaxies. By chance, they found a radio signal that resembled short bursts of static, similar to interference by lightning on home radios. After weeks of study, finding the signals were periodic, four minutes earlier each day, they pin-pointed Jupiter as the source. Never before had radio sounds from a planet in our solar system been detected. Later it was discovered that the radio waves were circularly polarized, so a magnetic field was involved.«  An
Introduction to Radio Astronomy, by Bernard F. Burke,
Francis Graham-Smith |
| Virginia Apgar | |
(EB) |
Born 7
June 1909; died 7 Aug 1974.
American physician, anesthesiologist, and medical researcher who developed the Apgar Score System, a method of evaluating an infant shortly after birth to assess its well-being and to determine if any immediate medical intervention is required. |
| Frederick Emmons Terman | |
(source) |
Born 7
June 1900; died 19 Dec 1982.
American electrical engineer whose research during WW II produced valuable radar countermeasures for the allied forces. He directed the Radio Research Laboratory at Harvard University formed for the purpose of inventing jammers of enemy radar, which included active radio transmitters, passive chaff (aluminium strips to mask targets by producing invalid reflections to enemy radar), and tunable receivers to detect radar signals. Terman also had responsibility for advising industrial contractors (such as RCA, GE, and Western Electric) concerning their manufacture. The radio electronics textbooks were popular because of his clarity. After the war, Terman worked on the design of long-distance electrical transmission and resonant transmission lines.« Fred
Terman at Stanford: Building a Discipline, a University, and Silicon Valley,
by C. Stewart Gillmor. |
| Otto Heinrich Schindewolf | |
(source) |
Born 7
June 1896; died 10 June 1971.
German paleontologist, known for his research on corals and cephalopods. He was an anti-Darwinist, who advocated a cataclysmic theory of evolution to explain the origin of the higher taxonomic categories. Studying different fossil species of coral and ammonites obtained from sequential geological strata, he concluded that the most recent taxonomic categories could not have arisen by slow, intermediate steps, generally thought to characterize evolution, but rather by large, single transformations. Though his views are not accepted by many biologists, particularly the population geneticists, who consider them too controversial, he has drawn attention to fundamental problems in evolution. |
| Robert Sanderson Mulliken | |
(source) |
Born 7
June 1896; died 31 Oct 1986.
American chemist and physicist who received the 1966 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for "fundamental work concerning chemical bonds and the electronic structure of molecules." In 1922, he first suggested a method of isotope separation by evaporative centrifuging. Thereafter, most of his research career was concerned with the interpretation of molecular spectra and with the application of quantum theory to the electronic states of molecules. With Friedrich Hund, he developed the molecular-orbital theory of chemical bonding, based on the idea that atomic orbitals of isolated atoms become molecular orbitals, extending over two or more atoms in the molecule. He also made major contributions to the theory and interpretation of molecular spectra. |
| Karl Spencer Lashley | |
(source) |
Born 7
June 1890; died 7 Aug 1958.
Karl Spencer Lashley was an American psychologist who conducted quantitative investigations of the relation between brain mass and learning ability. He collaborated with Shepherd J. Franz in the study of intelligence and the role of the frontal lobes. Lashley promulgated the theory of cortical specialization for sensory and motor functions. He challenged the ongoing concept of cortical localization. The controversy between localization and holistic emphasis of brain function was brought into focus by Lashley. He is remembered as a great psychologist who approached learning and memory by assessing the effects of brain damage in laboratory animals. |
| Knud Johan Victor Rasmussen | |
(source) |
Born 7
June 1879; died 21 Dec 1933.
Danish-Eskimo explorer and ethnologist, who was an expert on the folklore and history of the Greenland Eskimos. In 1912, his first expedition covered 500 miles by dogsled (using more than fifty dogs) across Greenland's ice cap. On this, and seven more expeditions up to 1920, he studied and mapped the geography of northern Greenland, carried out scientific investigations of the ice cap. By spending a few weeks with various tribes, he studied the Eskimo cultures. Rasmussen investigated the theory that the Inuit and the North American Indians were both descended from migratory tribes from Asia, for his own travels showed that using only traditional Inuit technology it was possible to cover the entire distance using only one dog team.« Across
Arctic America: Narrative of the Fifth Thule Expedition,
by Knud Rasmussen, et al. |
| Charles Barkla | |
(source) |
Born 7
June 1877; died 23 Oct 1944.
Charles Glover Barkla was a British physicist who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1917 for his work on X-ray scattering. This technique is applied to the investigation of atomic structures, by studying how X-rays passing through a material and are deflected by the atomic electrons. In 1903, he showed that the scattering of x-rays by gases depends on the molecular weight of the gas. His experiments on the polarization of x-rays (1904) and the direction of scattering of a beam of x-rays (1907) showed X-rays to be electromagnetic radiation like light (whereas, at the time, William Henry Bragg who held that X-rays were particles.) Barkla further discovered that each element has its own characteristic x-ray spectrum.« |
| Franz Weidenreich | |
(source) |
Born 7
June 1873; died 11 Jul 1948.
German anatomist and physical anthropologist whose reconstructionof prehistoric human remains and work on Peking man (then called Sinanthropus pekinensis) and other hominids brought him to preeminence in the study of human evolution. A Jew, Weidenreich fled Nazi Germany to take a position in Beijing. He worked with Teilhard de Chardin on the Zhoukoudian fossils (at the Cave of Peking Man), next fleeing the Japanese during WW II. His "multiregional" hypothesis of human origins (i.e., that human racial lineages date back to the early Pleistocene) became influential and is still widely debated, but at first it was misinterpreted as arguing that there was no genetic continuity between human races. |
| Sir John Sealy Edward Townsend | |
(source) |
Born 7
June 1868; died 16 Feb 1957.
British physicistwho pioneered in the study of electrical conduction in gases. In 1898 he made the first direct measurement of the unit electrical charge (e). As a postgraduate, he was a research student of J. J. Thomson. In 1897, Townsend developed the falling-drop method for measuring e, using saturated clouds of charged water droplets (extended by Robert Millikan's highly accurate oil-drop method). He was first to explain how electric discharges pass through gases (Electricity in Gases, 1915) whereby motion of electrons in an electric field releases more electrons by collision. These in turn collide releasing even more electrons in a multiplication of charges known as an avalanche. |
| Philipp Lenard | |
(source) |
Born 7
June 1862; died 20 May 1947.
Philipp Edduard Anton Lenard was a German physicist and recipient of the 1905 Nobel Prize for Physics for his research on cathode rays. He discovered they could leave a cathode ray tube, penetrate thin metal sheets, and travel a short distance in the air, which would become conducting.. In 1902, he observed that a free electron (as in a cathode ray) must have at least a certain energy to ionize a gas by knocking a bound electron out of an atom. His estimate of the required ionization energy for hydrogen was remarkably accurate. Also in 1902, he showed that the photoelectric effect produces the same electrons found in cathode rays, that the photoelectrons are not merely dislodged from the metal surface but ejected with a certain amount of energy. |
| Bernhard Lauritz Frederik Bang | |
Brucella (source) |
Born 7
June 1848; died 22 Jun 1932.
Danish veterinarian who in 1897 discovered Brucella abortus (Bang's bacillus), the causative agent of contagious abortion in cattle and of brucellosis (undulant fever) in human beings. Bang's teaching, with the introduction of antiseptics, represented a watershed in veterinary surgery. Although long recognized in human medicine, antiseptics had been met with little attention by veterinaries. Bang was instrumental in showing that tuberculosis could be transmitted by cow's milk and in developing isolation techniques. He was the first to use tuberculin, discovered by Robert Koch in 1890, on cattle. He used it diagnostically, rather than therapeutically, as a means for liberating livestock of tuberculosis and to create clean breeding centres. |
| Sir James Young Simpson | |
(source) |
Born 7
June 1811; died 6 May 1870.
(1st baronet) Scottish inventor and obstertrician who was the the father of modern anesthetics. He employed ether for the first time in Britain, and chloroform ("perchloride of formyle") for the first time as an anesthetic in an operation (1847). He was not the first to use chloroform but it was his persistent roversy about the morality of whether women should use such anesthetics in childbirth. Victoria's leadership broke people free from superstition and fear. Simpson was a natural inventor, always eager to experiment in new directions - the fight against puerperal fever, the invention of new types of forceps and the combating of cholera. |
| William Daniel Conybeare | |
(source) |
Born 7
June 1787; died 12 Aug 1857.
English clergyman, geologist and paleontologist, known for his classic work, with co-author, William Phillips, on the stratigraphy of the Carboniferous (280-345 million years ago) System in England and Wales, Outline of the Geology of England and Wales (1822), one of the most influential textbooks on stratigraphy of the period. He also described and reconstructed saurian fossils from the Lyme Regis area of England. He wrote the first monograph on the ichthyosaur, drawing it as a lizard with paddle-like limbs. In 1821 he described the skeleton of the plesiosaurus. As a friend and collaborator of William Buckland, Conybeare was an influential member of the Oxford School of Geology. |
| John Rennie | |
(source) |
Born 7
June 1761; died 4 Oct 1821
Scottish engineer and architect who designed London Bridge. After working as a millwright with Andrew Meikle he studied at Edinburgh University (1780-83). He was employed by Boulton & Watt for five years In 1791, he moved to London and started his own engineering company. Over the next few years he became famous as a bridge-builder, including Leeds Bridge, Southwark Bridge and Waterloo Bridge. He was also designed and built docks at Hull, Liverpool, Greenock and Leith and improving the harbours and dockyards at Portsmouth, Chatham and Plymouth. His last project was London Bridge, though he died in 1821 before it was finished. The bridge was completed by his son, Sir John Rennie. |
|
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| JUNE 7 - DEATHS | |
| Ronald G.W. Norrish | |
(source) |
 Died
7 June 1978 (born 9 Nov 1897)
Ronald George Wreyford Norrish was a British chemist who shared the 1967 Nobel Prize for Chemistry with fellow Englishman Sir George Porter and German Manfred Eigen for their studies of very fast chemical reactions. From 1949-65 he collaborated with his former pupil George Porter in the development of flash photolysis and kinetic spectroscopy for the investigation of very fast reactions. Norrish also made a significant contribution to chemistry when he corrected Draper's law. In the mid-19th century John Draper proposed that the amount of photochemical change is proportional to the intensity of the light multiplied by the time for which it acts. Norrish showed that the rate was in fact proportional to the square root of the light intensity. |
| Alan M. Turing | |
(source) |
Died
7 June 1954 (born 23 Jun 1912)
Alan Mathison Turing was an English mathematician and logician who pioneered in the field of computer theory and who contributed important logical analyses of computer processes. He made major contributions to mathematics, cryptanalysis, logic, philosophy, and biology and to the new areas later named computer science, cognitive science, artificial intelligence, and artificial life. |
| Géza Róheim | |
(source) |
Died
7 June 1953 (born 12 Sep 1891)
Hungarian-American psychoanalyst who was the first ethnologist to utilize a psychoanalytic approach to interpreting culture, especially to tribes of Australia, New Guinea, and southwestern U.S. He was also among the earliest anthropologists to work within Freudian theory, his earliest works being largely the application of Freudian theory to data gathered from readings. From 1928-30 he carried out field work with the Somali, Aranda, Lirittja, Duau, Dobu, and Yuma. In 1938, Róheim took up residence in the U.S. and shortly was in private psychoanalytical practice in New York. In 1947, he worked with the Navaho. |
| Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin | |
(source) |
Died 7 June 1935 (born 27 Oct 1855)
Russian horticulturist, of little education, who crossbred over 300 new types of fruit trees and berries, some able to survive the winters of Central Russia, and was praised by Soviet officials. His theory of hybridization held the fanciful the idea that acquired characteristics were inheritable. His private orchard at Koslov, became a state institution, and in 1932 the city known as Kozlov for four centuries became Michurinsk. When Mendelian genetics came under attack in the Soviet Union, Michurin's controversial theory became state doctrine. It was elaborated by Trofim D. Lysenko, a Bolshevik bureaucrat, as a uniquely communist approach to agriculture, despite the nearly universal rejection of this doctrine by the world's scientists.« [Image right: noodle squash crossbred by Michurin from bush squash and an early-ripening melon.] |
| William Williams Keen | |
(source) |
Died
7 June 1932 (born 19 Jan 1837)
American physician who was the first brain surgeon in the U.S. In 1887, at St. Mary's Hospital in Philadelphia, Keen performed the first successful removal of a brain tumor in the U.S. He was the first physician to perform a decompression of the skull and also the first physician in Philadelphia to use Lister's antiseptic surgical practices. His interests included focal epilepsy and microcephaly. Keen edited Gray's anatomy in 1883 and wrote numerous articles and monographs. Keen assisted the American surgeon Joseph Bryant in removing the left upper jaw of U.S. president Grover Cleveland (1893) for a malignant tumour. |
| Alfred Newton | |
Great auk (source) |
Died
7 June 1907 (born 11 Jun 1829)
British zoologist, one of the foremost ornithologists of his day. In 1866, he was appointed the first Professor of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy at Cambridge University. Despite the fact that he suffered from diseased hip joints and walked with the aid of two sticks, he traveled throughout Lapland, Iceland, the West Indies, and North America 1854-63. During these expeditions he studied ornithology and became particularly interested in the great auk. He was instrumental in having the first Acts of parliament passed for the protection of birds. He wrote a great deal on the subject, including a 4-volume Dictionary of Birds, and the articles on Ornithology in several 19th century editions of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. |
| Richard March Hoe | |
(source) |
Died
7 June 1886 (born 12 Sep 1812)
American inventor who developed and manufactured the first successful rotary printing press (1846). A cylinder rolled over stationary plates of inked type and the cylinder made an impression on paper. This eliminated the need for making impressions directly from the type plates themselves, which were heavy and difficult to manoeuvre. By constantly turning in only one direction, Hoe's revolving press increased the number of pages that could be printed per hour. |
| Thomas Jackson Rodman | |
(source) |
Died
7 June 1871 (born 30 Jul 1815)
U.S. military inventor of perforated-cake gunpowder. Its hexagonal grains, perforated with several longitudinal holes, increased the burning surface of each grain. By burning evenly, it provided controlled rather than sudden pressure that was maintained as the projectile traveled forward, thus giving increased muzzle velocity. He also invented a system of casting cannon around a hollow core cooled from inside, resulting in a stronger barrel as concentric layers of metal cooled and shrank. His work led to casting of some of the largest cannon ever built: 20-inch muzzleloaders that fired 1,080-pound solid shot. [Image: Rodman Cannon at Fort McHenry.] |
| Alexis Bouvard | |
(source) |
Died
7 June 1843 (born 27 Jun 1767)
French astronomer and director of the Paris Observatory, who is noted for discovering eight comets and writing Tables astronomiques of Jupiter and Saturn (1808) and of Uranus (1821). Bouvard's tables accurately predicted orbital locations of Jupiter and Saturn, but his tables for Uranus failed, leading him to hypothesize that irregularities were caused by an unknown perturbing body. This spurred observations leading to the discovery of Neptune by Adams and Leverrier. |
| Joseph von Fraunhofer | |
(source) |
Died
7 June 1826 (born 6 Mar 1787)
German physicist who was the first to study the dark lines in the solar spectrum, which were seen by Wollaston in 1802, but are called Fraunhofer lines. Fraunhofer was not able to explain them, but measured 576 lines. Over 25,000 have now been found in the solar spectrum. These are caused by selective absorption of those wavelengths by atoms of elements, and their relative positions are the same whether the light is produced by heated metals in the laboratory or seen from those gaseous elements in the sun or viewed from other heavenly bodies. Before other scientists so widely adopted the technique, he used a diffraction grating instead of a prism to disperse the spectrum. He also invented a heliometer.« Spectrum
of Belief: Joseph von Fraunhofer..., by Myles W. Jackson. |
| JUNE 7 - EVENTS | |
| U.S. patent issued to boy | |
(USPTO) |
In 1988, a U.S. patent
was issued to 11-year-old Richard G. Woodbridge for the brush he
designed to clean out sawdust accumulating in chain saw cuts to avoid sawdust
build-up that otherwise can cause the chain saw to jam (No. 4,748,745).
The brush is stationary, mounted on two brackets above to the chain saw
blade, and is used by turning the chain saw upside down and moving the
bristles through the saw cut. He was inspired by the bristles along the
back of windshield snow scrapers. As the son of patent attorney Richard
C. Woodbridge the boy had help in adding an optional brush agitator that
would tranfer vibrations from the chain to the brush to improve the sawdust
removal rate.«  |
| Solar power plant | |
|
In 1980, the first U.S. solar power plant was dedicated. It was sited at
the Natural Bridge National Monument, Utah, and at the time the world's
largest. An array of over 250,000 solar cells arranged in 12 long rows
provided 100-kilowatts. The plant provided elecricity for the park's visitor
center, staff residences, maintenance facilities and water sanitation system,
which were otherwise 38 miles away from the nearest alternate power line.
The power plant was part of a joint venture of MIT's Lincoln Laboratory
and the Dept. of Energy. |
|
| Betamax | |
|
In 1975, the first home videocassette recorder, the Betamax, began sales
in Japan. The format was made by Sony, but a competing system was introduced
by JVC in the following year called VHS - Video Home System. Within a few
years, VHS was the clear winner in the marketplace. |
|
| Ultrasound article | |
(source) |
In 1958, a seminal article that launched the widespread use of ultrasound
in medical diagnosis was published
in The Lancet by Ian Donald, an English
physician. After a few years developing
the experimental use of ultrasound, Donald had applied it to treat patients
in his hospital. In the Lancet article, Investigation of Abdominal Masses
by Pulsed Ultrasound, he described how he was able to make the life-saving
diagnosis of a huge, easily removable, ovarian cyst in a woman who had
been diagnosed by others as having inoperable stomach cancer. Donald knew
about sonar from his service in WW II, and industrial use of reflected
ultrasound waves for flaw detection in materials, and with help from others,
he launched its use in medicine.«  [Image:
a page from the Lancet article.] |
| Microbiology lab | |
|
In 1954, the first U.S. laboratory exclusively built for studies in microbiology
was dedicated in New Brunswick, N.J., as part of Rutgers University. |
|
| European nuclear laboratory urged at Unesco | |
|
In 1950, a European nuclear physics laboratory, complete with cyclotron
was proposed by Nobel Prize winner, Isidor I. Rabi, to UNESCO (United Nations
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization). He represented the
U.S. at the 5th General Conference, but was able to speak also with support
from European scientists. The role of Unesco would be to initiate the project
with a sum of about $5,000 to cover the cost of selecting the site, and
to act "as a catalytic agent in obtaining the practical collaboration of
scientists from various countries in the region. By 1952, the third session
of its provisional Council decided to locate in Switzerland. CERN (Centre
Européenne de Recherche Nucléaire) was ratified on 29
Sep 1954. «
History
of CERN, vol I, by A. Hermann, et al. |
|
| Panama Canal | |
|
In 1914, the Alliance was the first vessel to pass through the Panama
Canal.
Path
Between The Seas : The Creation of the Panama Canal,
by David McCullough. |
|
| Edison patent | |
|
In 1892, Thomas A. Edison received a
series of U.S. patents Nos. 476,527-32 for a "System of Electric
Lighting," an "Incandescent Electric Lamp," a "System of Electrical
Distribution," an "Incandescent Electric Lamp," an "Electric-Lighting System,"
and an "Ore-Screening Apparatus" respectively. |
|
| Bicycle tyre | |
|
In 1892, J. F. Palmer of Chicago, Ill., was granted the first bicycle tyre
patent for a self-healing cord tyre design (U.S. No. 476,680). By designing
the tread portion of the tyre to operate under compression, any puncture
there would tend to close rather than open. It was the B.F. Goodrich Company
of Akron, Ohio that began its manufacture the same year. This patent came
about one year after the first pneumatic bicycle tyre was patented in the
U.S. |
|
| Monotype | |
|
In 1887, Tolbert Lanston of Washington, D.C., patented the monotype typesetting
machine. This cast new type as individual pieces of type for each character
from matrices which were sorted after use and used again. His invention
was covered by five patents (U.S. Nos. 364,521 - 25). It came about three
years after Ottmar Mergenthaler
obtained his first patent for the Linotype machine that cast solid lines
of type from matrices. The first U.S. patent on any kind of typesetting
machine was issued to two French men on 22 Jun 1841, although it was a
machine patented 15 Sep 1857
that was the first to actually operate. |
|
| Edison patent | |
|
In 1870, Thomas A. Edison was issued
a patent for a "Printing Telegraph Instruments" (U.S. No. 103,924). |
|
| Railroad safety | |
|
In 1870, Thomas S. Hall of Stamford, Conn., received a patent for the first
automatic electric block railroad signal system in the U.S. (No.
103,875). When a train entered a block of track, Hall's electromagnetic
device automatically set a signal when the locomotive struck a lever fastened
to the rail. The signal was set to danger until the train cleared the block.
After Hall invented the device in 1867, it was tried out on the New York
and Harlem Railroad. |
|
| British Museum | |
(source) |
In 1753, the British Museum was founded,
the world's oldest public national museum, when King George II gave his
royal assent to an Act of Parliament to accept the collection of Sir Hans
Sloane, a London-based physician, following his death. In his will, he
had offered the British nation the collection
he built over his lifetime: 71,000 objects, mostly plant and animal specimens.
In return, he asked a sum of £20,000 for his heirs (which today would
be more than £2,000,000). The museum
opened to the public 15 Jan 1759 at Bloomsbury. Its current buildings there
date from the mid-19th century. The natural history collection moved to
its own museum in 1881. The British Museum set up a laboratory in 1920
for scientific study of objects.
[Image: Montagu House, a 17th century mansion, first home of the British
Museum.] |
