| JUNE 11 - BIRTHS | |
| David Bryant Mumford | |
(source) |
 Born 11
Jun 1937
British-born mathematician who was awarded the Fields Medal in 1974 for his work in algebraic geometry. In the 1980s he turned to applied mathematics with the question "Is there a mathematical approach to understanding thought and the brain?" This is part of "Pattern Theory," as introduced by Ulf Grenander in the 70's to give a theoretical setting for a large number of related ideas, techniques and results from fields such as computer vision, speech recognition, image and acoustic signal processing, pattern recognition and its statistical side, neural nets and parts of artificial intelligence. |
| Keith Roberts Porter | |
(source) |
Born 11
Jun 1912; died 2 May 1997.
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. |
| Jacques-Yves Cousteau | |
(source) |
Born 11
Jun 1910; died 25 Jun 1997.
French naval officer, oceanographer, marine biologist and ocean explorer, known for his extensive underseas investigations. He was co-inventor of the aqualung which made SCUBA diving possible (1943). Cousteau the developed the Conshelf series of manned habitats, the Diving Saucer, a process of underwater television and numerous other platforms and specialized instruments of ocean science. In 1945 he founded the French Navy's Undersea Research Group. He modified a WWII wooden hull minesweeper into the research vesselCalypso, in 1950. An observation dome added to the foot of Calypso's bow was found to increase the ship's stability, speed and fuel efficiency. |
| David Barnard Steinman | |
(source) |
Born 11
Jun 1886; died 21 Aug 1960.
American engineer whose studies of airflow and wind velocity helped make possible the design of aerodynamically stable bridges. Steinman's thesis for his Ph.D. from Colombia University (1911) was published as "The Design of the Henry Hudson Memorial Bridge as a Steel Arch, and more than 20 years later he built the bridge he had planned over the Harlem River. Steinman designed more than 400 bridges, for instance Sidney Harbor Bridge in Australia, Mackinac Straits Bridge, Carquinez Strait Bridge, San Francisco (1937), Saint Johns Bridge, Portland, Ore, Deer Isle Bridge, Maine, Mount Hope Bridge, Rhode Island. |
| A.L. Kroeber | |
(source) |
Born 11
Jun 1876; died 5 Oct 1960.
Alfred Louis Kroeber was an influential American anthropologist of the first half of the 20th century, whose primary concern was to understand the nature of culture and its processes. He graduated from Columbia University in 1896, and received a Ph.D. under Franz Boas there in 1901, then moved west to found the anthropology department at the University of California at Berkeley where he remained until 1946. His chief scholarly interest was California Indians. He developed the concept of cultures as patterned wholes, each with its own style, and each undergoing a growth process analogous to that of a biological organism. Kroeber also made valuable contributions to the archaeology of New Mexico, Mexico, and Peru. |
| Charles Fabry | |
(source) |
Born 11
Jun 1867; died 11 Dec 1945.
French physicist who specialized in optics, devising methods for the accurate measurement of interference effects. He worked with Alfred Pérot, during 1896-1906, on the design and uses of a device known as the Fabry-Pérot interferometer, specifically for high-resolution spectroscopy, composed of two thinly silvered glass plates placed in parallel, producing interference due to multiple reflections. In 1913, Fabry demonstrated that ozone is plentiful in the upper atmosphere and is responsible for filtering out ultraviolet radiation from the Sun, protecting life on the surface of Earth from most of its harmful effects. |
| Mary Jane Rathbun | |
(source) |
Born 11
Jun 1860; died 4 Apr 1943.
American marine zoologist known for establishing the basic taxonomic information on Crustacea. For many years she was the Smithsonian's complete department of marine invertebrates where she studied, cataloged, and preserved specimens. Through her basic studies and published works, she fixed the nomenclature of Crustacea and was the recognized, and the much sought after, authority in zoology and carcinology (thestudy of crustacea). When the department needed an assistant, she resigned as superintendent and used her salary to hire someone. She continued to work without pay as a dedicated volunteer carcinologist. She published over 160 papers on a wide variety of scientific subjects. Image: Blue crab, Callinectes sapidus, named by Rathbun. |
| Leland Ossian Howard | |
(source) |
Born 11
Jun 1857; died 1 May 1950.
American entomologist noted for pioneering efforts in applied entomology and his experiments in the biological control of harmful insects. He is regarded as the founder of agricultural and medical entomology. He proposed that natural enemies rather than pesticides be used for controlling pests. Howard was head of the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture for over 30 years. He described 20 new species of mosquitoes, and 47 new groups of parasitic wasps. Howard revealed that houseflies carry and transmit many diseases. He was the first to suggest covering standing water with oil to control egg-laying by mosquitoes and kill larvae to reduce disease transmission. His work led to belief that great natural balances are mainly due to the action of the parasites. |
| Carl von Linde | |
1932 (EB) |
Born 11
Jun 1842; died 16 Nov 1934.
Carl Paul Gottfried von Linde was a German engineer who invented mechanical refrigeration. His first refrigeration equipment was tested in a Munich brewery. Brewing good lager beer required low temperatures, limiting brewing to winter, or in deep cellars with the use of large quantities of block ice. Through Linde's invention of refrigeration, beer brewing became seasonally independent. Linde also invented a continuous process of liquefying gases in large quantities which provided both impetus and means for conducting scientific research at low temperatures and very high vacuums. Linde's original industry has now grown to 120 companies around the world.  Linde:
History of a Technology Corporation, 1879-2004, by Hans-Liudger
Dienel
 Booklist
for Carl von Linde |
| Alfred Newton | |
Great auk (source) |
Born 11
Jun 1829; died 7 Jun 1907.
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. |
| Orson Munn | |
(source) |
Born 11
Jun 1824; died 28 Feb 1907.
Orson Desaix Munn was publisher of Scientific American. The Munn & Company, formed with Salem H. Wales and editor Alfred Beach, bought the six-month-old Scientific American magazine from Rufus Porter. Together, they built it over the years into a great and unique periodical. Because they published a weekly list of all patents, and dealt with inventions and inventors, their enterprise led to Munn & Co. establishing the Scientific American Patent Agency. This was partially responsible for the rapid growth of the American patent system. In its percentage-peak years around 1860, one-third of all patents issued by the U.S. Patent Office were prosecuted by Munn & Co |
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| JUNE 11 - DEATHS | |
| Wolfgang Köhler | |
(source) |
 Died
11 Jun 1967 (born 21 Jan 1887)
German psychologist and a key figure in the development of Gestalt psychology, which seeks to understand learning, perception, and other components of mental life as structured wholes. Köhler is best known for his experiments with problem-solving in apes as director of the Anthropoid Station at Tenerife, Canary Islands. Köhler's tests with chimpanzees suggested that these animals solved problems by understanding, rather than a gradual trial-and-error process. Köhler placed chimps in an enclosed play area and placed fruit out of reach. The chimps learned to use boxes and sticks to get the fruit. For example, chimps stacked boxes to get to fruit hung above. If the boxes were next replaced with tables, the chimp would immediately use the tables instead. |
| Alfred V(incent) Kidder | |
(source) |
Died
11 Jun 1963 (born 29 Oct 1885)
Alfred V(incent) Kidder was the foremost American archaeologist of the southwestern U.S. and Middle America of his day and the force behind the first comprehensive, systematic approach to North American archaeology. His excavations included Pecos in New Mexico and the Maya in Guatemala. In spite of his great efforts and diligence he was criticized for his lack of integrated conclusions drawn from his numerous reports from the field without any synthesis and interpretation of that data. In his time, archeology was still considered as "gentlemanly adventure" with the goal of adding "artifacts" to museums. Kidder emphasized archeology's need for the scientific "eye" was the development of fact collecting techniques and clear definitions. |
| R.J. Mitchell | |
(source) |
Died
11 Jun 1937 (born 20 May 1895)
Reginald Joseph Mitchell was a British aircraft designer, developer of the eight-gun Spitfire (1936), one of the best-known fighters in World War II. He was an engineer and designer for Supermarine Aviation Works (1916-37), chief engineer (from 1919) and was also known for design of a series of flying boats and high-speed seaplanes. In the years from 1920 to 1936, he designed no less than twenty-four different aircraft. The Spitfire was a derivative of his earlier S.6B seaplane racing aircraft. (image right source) |
| Julius Arthur Nieuwland | |
(source) |
Died
11 Jun 1936 (born 14 Feb 1878)
Belgian-born American organic chemist who studied reactions of acetylene and invented neoprene. He was ordained as a priest (1903) before earning his Ph.D. (1904). He did not pursue his own discovery of the reaction between acetylene and arsenic trichloride, but it led to the development of the chemical-warfare agent lewisite dubbed "the dew of death", a poison gas and vesicant used in WW I. He collaborated with DuPont chemists in thepolymerization of acetylene and development of chloroprene, which in turn could be polymerized to the first really successful synthetic rubber, neoprene. This was superior to rubber in many ways such as in its resistance to sunlight, abrasion, and temperature extremes. |
| Franklin H(enry) Giddings | |
(source) |
Died
11 Jun 1931 (born 23 Mar 1855)
American sociologist, one of the first in the United States to turn sociology from a branch of philosophy into a research science dependent on statistics. He was noted for his doctrine of the "consciousness of kind," which he derived from Adam Smith's conception of "sympathy," or shared moral reactions. His explanation of social phenomena was based this doctrine - his theory that each person has an innate sense of belonging to particular social groups. He encouraged statistical studies in sociology. |
| Carl Remigius Fresenius | |
(source) |
Died
11 Jun 1897 (born 28 Dec 1818)
German analytical chemist who devised a method for systematic identification and separation of individual metal and non-metal ions, selecting the most suitable reactions from the many that were known. The book he wrote expounding this system (Anleitung zur qualitativen chemischen Analyse, 1941) enjoyed great success. As it was the first to address this need, it became an enduring textbook. He followed this with a book on quantitative analysis (1846). Aged only 29, he founded the first chemical analysis and teaching laboratory, the Fresnius Training and Research Institute, in Wiesbaden, Germany. He founded the Zeitschrift für Analytische Chemie (Journal of Analytical Chemistry, 1862) which he edited until his death.« |
| Daniel Kirkwood | |
(source) |
Died
11 Jun 1895 (born 27 Sep 1814)
American mathematician and astronomer who noted in about 1860 that there were several zones of low density in the minor-planet population. These gaps in the distribution of asteroid distances from the Sun are now known as Kirkwood gaps. He explained the gaps as resulting from perturbations by Jupiter. An object that revolved in one of the gaps would be disturbed regularly by the planet's gravitational pull and eventually would be moved to another orbit. Thus gaps appeared in the distribution of asteroids where the orbital period of any small body present would be a simple fraction of that of Jupiter. Kirwood showed that a similar effect accounted for gaps in Saturns rings. |
| William Gregor | |
(source) |
Died
11 Jun 1817 (born 25 Dec 1761)
English English clergyman, chemist and minerologist who found the element titanium, contained in a magnetic, black sand (now known as ilmenite, FeTiO3) from Manachan Valley, Cornwall, which was in his parish. He analyzed the presence of iron and manganese in it, but not another red-brown oxide he derived from it. This unidentified material gave a yellow solution when acid was added to it. Naming it menacchanine, in 1791, he published his results in Crell's Annalen. Four years later, in 1795, Martin Klaproth extracted from another ore the same oxide which he identified as a compound of a new element. He named titanium. It wasn't until 1887 that a sample of titanium metal (95% pure) was separated by Nilson and Pettersson.« |
| John Strachey | |
| Died
11 Jun 1743 (born 10 May 1671)
English geologist who was the first to suggest the theory of stratified rock formations. He wrote Observations on the Different Strata of Earths and Minerals (1727) and stated that there was a relation between surface features and the rock structure, an idea that was not commonly accepted until a century later. He studied the stratigraphy of coal mines, and published two geological papers on the subject in the Philosophical Transactions. In them he sketched cross-sections of strata, using fossils to identify one stratum. His 1725 paper contained the first clear indication of an angular unconformity, the importance of which was not realised until much later. He mapped Somerset, showing among other things the sites of coal and metalliferous mines. |
|
| Roger Bacon | |
(source) |
Died
11 Jun 1292 (born c.1219)
English scholar who was one of the first to propose mathematics and experimentation as appropriate methods of science. He studied mathematics, astronomy, optics, alchemy, and languages. He elucidated the principles of refraction, reflection, and spherical aberration, and described spectacles, which soon thereafter came into use. He developed many mathematical results concerning lenses, proposed mechanically propelled ships, carriages, and flying machines, and used a camera obscura to observe eclipses of the Sun. Bacon was the first European give a detailed description of the process of making gunpowder. |
| JUNE 11 - EVENTS | |
| DNA | |
 |
In 1998, scientists deciphered the last of the genetic material of bacterium
that causes tuberculosis. |
| Ozone depletion | |
|
In 1975, Harvard professor
Michael McElroy and other scientists concerned about atmospheric ozone
depletion proclaim their support for banning chlorofluorocarbons as a propellant
in spray cans. (The U.S. government implemented the prohibition three years
later.) |
|
| Mercury capsule patent | |
(USPTO) |
In 1963, the Mercury space capsule was patented by Faget, Meyer, Chilton,
Blanchard, Kehlet, Hammack and Johnson (U.S. No. 3,093,346). It was assigned
to NASA. The invention was described as a "manned capsule configuration
capable of being launched into orbital flight and returned to the earth's
surface." The invention was to provide "protection for its occupant from
the deleterious effects of large pressure differentials, high temperatures,
micrometerorite collisions, high level acoustical noise, and severe inertial
and impact loads." The patent was applied for on 6 Oct 1959. Mercury 1
had already flown, on 5 May 1961, in a 15-min sub-orbital flight carrying
Alan B. Shepard before the patent was issued. |
| Edison patent | |
|
In 1901, Thomas A. Edison was granted a patent for a "Phonographic Recording
Apparatus" (U.S. No. 676,225). |
|
| Duryea patent | |
1986 (source) |
In 1895, the first U.S. patent for a gasoline-driven automobile by a U.S.
inventor was issued to Charles
E. Duryea (No. 540,648). Early in 1896, the Duryea
Motor Wagon Co. set up shop in Springfield, Mass. to manufacture multiple
units to a gasoline-powered vehicle that he built with his brother, Frank.
The company's assembly of 13 identical machines that year is considered
to be the first instance of serial production of American cars. The only
surviving 1896 Duryea is on exhibit at the Henry Ford Museum. As this is
the first U.S. automobile company, and the first to produce any quantity,
the Duryea brothers are considered "Fathers of the American Automobile
Industry".
Carriages
Without Horses: J. Frank Duryea and the Birth of the American Automobile
Industry, by Richard P. Scharchburg. |
| Folding chair | |
(USPTO) |
In 1889, a folding chair was patented by black American inventors John
E. Purdy and James R. Sadgwar of Washington, D.C. (U.S. No. 405,117). They
described a design for a "cheap, strong and durable chair which is capable
of being folded into small compass, so as to be easily portable. The invention
consists in the peculiar manner of jointing or hinging the frame and in
details of construction." Each leg had two sections hinged together. The
seat could be canvas, carpet, or any such ordinary flexible material. "When
folded, this chair makes a remarkable small and compact bundle... in very
convenient form to be carried in a bag or shawl-strap... making a most
convenient article for artists, tourists, &c."
The
Inventive Spirit of African Americans: Patented Ingenuity,
by Patricia Carter Sluby. |
| Edison patent | |
|
In 1889, Thomas A. Edison was issued a patent for an "Electrical Distribution
System" (U.S. No. 404,902). |
|
| Stove patent | |
|
In 1793, Robert Haeterick of Pennsylvania was issued the first American
patent for a stove design of cast iron. His name is spelled in various
ways in the early records, including "Heterick." His patent was issued
about three years after the very first U.S. patent, and like others of
the period, it was not numbered. The original record of this patent was
destroyed in the 1836 Patent Office fire. Most of the lost records were
not reconstructed, and the full patents no longer exist in the Patent Office
records. However, a list
of titles and inventors was compiled from printed (usually annual) lists
of patents which had been issued, and this list preserves some knowledge
of the early patents. |
|
| Franklin stove | |
(source) |
In 1742, Benjamin Franklin invented
the Franklin stove. The wood fuel burns on an iron surface over a cold
air duct which heats
air which then passes through baffles in the back wall. The heated air
is released through vents on each side of the stove. Rather than patent
it, he chose to write about it in a book
so that others could freely copy his design. As he wrote, "That as we enjoy
great Advantages from the Inventions of others, we should be glad of an
Opportunity to serve others by any Invention of ours, and this we should
do freely and generously."*
(Image right: source) |
| Barometer | |
 |
In 1644, Florentine scientist, Evangelista Torricelli described in a letter
the invention of a barometer, or "torricellian tube." |
