| JULY 4 - BIRTHS | |
| John Allen Paulos | |
(source) |
 Born 4
Jul 1945
American mathematician and author of books encouraging people to make sense of the statistics and figures that inform their lives. He represents that mathematics as a subject that is easy to learn and understand. Paulos argues that ignorance of basic mathematical concepts discourages critical thinking and results in costly mistakes and misguided decisions by both political leaders and ordinary people in their everyday lives. |
| Frederick Seitz | |
(source) |
Born 4
Jul 1911
American physicist who made fundamental contributions to the theory of solids, nuclear physics, fluorescence, and crystals. As Eugene Wigner's first doctoral student, late in 1932, Seitz developed the cellular method of deriving solid-state wave functions. The widespread application of this Wigner-Seitz method to the understanding of metals is regarded as the catalyst for the formation of the field of solid-state physics in the U.S. His subsequent research focused on the theory and properties of crystals. He studied dislocations and imperfections in crystal structures, the effect of irradiation on crystals, and the process of diffusion (the movement of atoms or particles caused by random collision) in crystalline materials. |
| Vero Wynne-Edwards | |
(source) |
Born 4
Jul 1906; died 5 Jan 1997.
English zoologist who theorized that a process group selection occured during the evolution of species. In his book Animal Dispersion in Relation to Social Behavior (1962), he proposed that instead of Darwinian individual survival of the fittest dominating, evolution also occured by self-regulatory mechanisms of whole species, manifested in territoriality, dominance hierarchies, and allocation of resources. Thus, evolution often favours not the animal best able to survive alone, but rather the animal best adapted to survive within the social context of the kind. Now, however, it is generally accepted that while this may occur under exceptional circumstances, it has not been a major factor in evolution. |
| Vincent Joseph Schaefer | |
 |
Born 4
Jul 1906; died 25 Jul 1993.
U.S. chemist whose research in meteorology and weather control introduced cloud seeding. He worked on the physics of precipitation at the General Electric (GE) Research Laboratory in Schenectady, New York. Having discovered a method of producing a snowstorm under laboratory conditions, he proved the same was possible outdoors. On 13 Nov 1946, he flew over Mount Greylock in Massachusetts, successfully seeding clouds with pellets of dry ice (solid carbon dioxide) to produce the first snowstorm initiated by man. Later, he became founder and director of Atmospheric Sciences Research Center at State University of New York in Albany.  A
Field Guide to the Atmosphere, by John A. Day, Vincent
J. Schaefer, et al. |
| Rube Goldberg | |
(source) |
Born 4
Jul 1883; died 7 Dec 1970.
American cartoonist who satirized the American preoccupation with technology. His name became synonymous with any simple process made outlandishly complicated because of his series of "Invention" cartoons which use a string of outlandish tools, people, plants and steps to accomplish everyday simple tasks in the most complicated way. Goldberg applied his training as a graduate engineer and used his engineering, story-telling, and drawing skills to make sure that the "Inventions" could work, even though dozens of arms, wheels, gears, handles, cups, and rods were put in motion by balls, canary cages, pails, boots, bathtubs, paddles, and even live animals for simple tasks like squeezing an orange for juice or closing a window in case it should start to rain.  Rube
Goldberg: Inventions! by Maynard Frank Wolfe |
| Fred Allison | |
| Born 4
Jul 1882; died 2 Aug 1974.
American physicist who promoted a magneto-optical technique to detect isotopes (ultimately shown to be non-existent by D. Morey under Merritt at Cornell). This method, he said, was able to distinguish 16 isotopes of lead. In 1931, he thought he had detected the new element 87 in lepidolite, a lithium ore, which he called virginium, now called francium. (This is regarded as erroneous because the element has no long-lived isotopes. The confirmed discovery came in 1939 by Marguerite Perey who discovered it in decay products of actinium). He also thought he had found 2 micrograms of element 85 in monazite, which he named alabamine. (Also now believed erroneous. It was discovered later, and named astatine.)« |
|
| Alfred M Tozzer | |
(source) |
Born 4
Jul 1877; died 5 Oct 1954.
Alfred M(arston) Tozzer was a U.S. anthropologist and archaeologist who was an authority on the culture and language of the Maya Indians of Mexico and Central America. He conducted his initial anthropological fieldwork in California and New Mexico among the Wintun and Navajo nations during his undergraduate summers in 1900 and 1901, focusing on linguistics. He led (1909-10) an expedition to Guatemala, finding ruins at Holmul. His most important works on the Maya include Maya Grammar (1921) and Chichen Itza and its Center of Sacrifice (1957), a major synthesis of American prehistory. He earned his undergraduate and graduate degrees from Harvard, where he taught for over 40 years (1905-47). |
| Henrietta Swan Leavitt | |
(source) |
Born 4
Jul 1868; died 12 Dec 1921.
American astronomer known for her discovery of the relationship between period and luminosity in Cepheid variables, pulsating stars that vary regularly in brightness in periods ranging from a few days to several months. Leavitt's greatest discovery came from her study of 1777 variable stars in the Magellanic Clouds. She determined the periods of 25 Cepheid variables and in 1912 announced what has since become known as the famous Period-Luminosity relation: "since the variables are probably nearly the same distance from the earth, their periods are apparently associated with their actual emission of light, as determined by their mass, density, and surface brightness." Today the Period-Luminosity relation is used to calculate the distances of galaxies. |
| Hugo Winckler | |
(source) |
Born 4
Jul 1863; died 19 Apr 1913.
German archaeologist and historian whose excavations at Bogazköy, in Turkey, disclosed the capital of the Hittite empire, Hattusa, and yielded thousands of cuneiform tablets from which much of Hittite history was reconstructed. He began excavating at Bogazköy in 1906. He found the hardened clay tablets in ruined storage chambers, very likely royal archives, that apparently were destroyed by a great fire. Most were in the then unknown Hittite language. A few, in Akkadian, included a cuneiform version of a peace treaty between the Egyptian pharaoh Ramses II and the Hittite king Hattusilis, which Winckler translated. Winckler continued excavating, revealing the remains of a mighty capital city with temples, palaces, fortifications, and gateways. |
| E. R. Squibb | |
(source) |
Born 4
Jul 1819; died 25 Oct 1900.
E(dward) R(obinson) Squibb was a U.S. chemist and pharmaceutical manufacturer who improved the purity and reliability of drugs. While a U.S. Navy medical officer, he convinced the Navy to manufacture their own drugs to ensure better quality. In 1851, he set up a laboratory to do this at the Brooklyn Naval Hospital. He distilled ether (for use as an anesthetic) using a still heated by a steam coil, thus eliminating the dangers of an open flame. He published the results of his discoveries instead of patenting them. Between 1852-57 he also made chloroform, bismuth salts, fluid extracts and other preparations. By 1858, he had his own business with 38 products, the start of a drug manufacturing enterprise that by1883 offered 324 products.« |
| Sir George Everest | |
(source) |
Born 4
Jul 1790; died 1 Dec 1866.
British military engineer and geodesist, born in Gwernvale, Powys, Wales, UK. He worked on the trigonometrical survey of India (1818-43), providing the accurate mapping of the subcontinent. For more than twenty-five years and despite numerous hardships, he surveyed the longest arc of the meridian ever accomplished at the time. Everest was relentless in his pursuit of accuracy. He made countless adaptations to the surveying equipment, methods, and mathematics in order to minimize problems specific to the Great Survey: immense size and scope, the terrain, weather conditions, and the desired accuracy. Mount Everest, formerly called Peak XV, was renamed in his honour in 1865.
The
Great Arc: The Dramatic Tale of How India Was Mapped and Everest Was Named,
by John Keay. |
| Jean-Pierre-François Blanchard | |
(source) |
Born 4
Jul 1753; died 7 Mar 1809.
French balloonist who made the first aerial crossing of the English Channel. He was inspired by the Montgolfier brothers' demonstrations of hot-air balloon flying in Annonay, France. Blanchard made his first successful ascent on 2 Mar 1784 in a self-built balloon. On 7 Jan 1785, Blanchard and American physician, Dr. John Jeffries, made the first flight over the English Channel, from Dover to Calais.On 9 Jan 1793, Blanchard made the first balloon ascent in North America from the Washington Prison Yard in Philadelphia, PA, and landed in Gloucester County, NJ. Carrying the first airmail letter, this flight was observed by President George Washington. First
Air Voyage in America, by Jean-Pierre Blanchard. |
| JULY 4 - DEATHS | |
| Bengt Strömgren | |
(source) |
Born 4
Jul 1987 (born 21 Jan 1908)
Bengt (Georg Daniel) Strömgren was a Danish astrophysicist who pioneered the present-day knowledge of the gas clouds in space. Researching for his theory of the ionized gas clouds around hot stars, he found relations between the gas density, the luminosity of the star, and the size of the "Strömgren sphere" of ionized hydrogen around it. He surveyed such H II regions in the Galaxy, and he also did important work on stellar atmospheres and ionization in stars. |
| Robert S. Woodworth | |
 Died
4 Jul 1962 (born 17 Oct 1869)
Robert S(essions) Woodworth was a U.S. psychologist who conducted major research on learning and developed a system of "dynamic psychology" into which he sought to incorporate several different schools of psychological thought. |
|
| Marcellin Boule | |
(source) |
Died
4 Jul 1942 (born 1 Jan 1861)
French geologist, paleontologist, and physical anthropologist who made extensive studies of human fossils from Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East and reconstructed the first complete Neanderthal skeleton (1908) from La Chapelle-aux-Saints, France. As the leading French paleoanthropologist around the turn of the century. Boule's classic 1908 monograph convinced the world that Neandertals were a separate species, and indeed a terminal side-branch of the human evolutionary tree. He had a mixed reaction to the Piltdown "discovery," agreeing that the cranium was legimate but correctly recognizing that the jaw belonged to an ape.His best-known work is Les Hommes fossiles (1921; Fossil Men ). |
| Marie Curie | |
(source) |
Died
4 Jul 1934 (born 7 Nov 1867)
Marie Marja Sklodowska Curie was a Polish-born French chemist and physicist. In 1898, her celebrated experiments on uranium minerals led to discovery of two new elements. First she separated polonium, and then radium a few months later. The quantity of radon in radioactive equilibrium with a gram of radium was named a curie (subsequently redefined as the emission of 3.7 x 1010 alpha particles per sec.) With Henri Becquerel and her husband, Pierre Curie, she was awarded the 1903 Nobel Prize for Physics. She was then sole winner of a second Nobel Prize in 1911, this time in Chemistry. Her family won five Nobel awards in two generations. She died of radiation poisoning from her pioneering work before the need for protection was known.  |
| Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli | |
(source) |
Died
4 Jul 1910 (born 14 Mar 1835)
Italian astronomer who is remembered for his observations of Mars over seven oppositions and named the "seas" and "continents". In 1877, he saw on the surface of the planet Mars the markings that he called canali (channels), later misinterpreted as "canals." He made extensive studies, both observational and theoretical, of comets, determining from the shapes of their tails that there was a repulsive force from the sun. He showed that meteor swarms travel through space in cometary orbits. He explained the regular meteor showers as the result of the dissolution of comets and proved it for the Perseids. He suggested that Mercury and Venus rotate on their axes, discovered the asteroid Hesperia (1861) and was a major observer of double stars. |
| Peter Guthrie Tait | |
| Died
4 Jul 1901 (born 28 Apr 1831)
Scottish physicist and mathematician who helped develop quaternions, an advanced algebra that gave rise to vector analysis and was instrumental in the development of modern mathematical physics. |
|
| Karl Ferdinand von Gräfe | |
| Died
4 Jul 1840 (born 8 Mar 1787)
German surgeon who helped to create modern plastic surgery. A superintendent of German military hospitals during the Napoleonic Wars (1800-15), he also served as professor of surgery and director of the surgical clinic at the University of Berlin (1810-40). He improved the English surgeon Joseph Carpue's adaptation of the "Indian method" which used a skin graft from the forehead for plastic surgery on the nose. He also revived the "Italian method" which similary used a graft from the upper arm. Gräfe contributed techniques for a cleft palate operation, and blood transfusion. Albrecht von Gräfe, his son, followed in the medical profession also, as an eminent eye surgeon. |
|
| Thomas Jefferson | |
| Died
4 Jul 1826 (born 13 Apr 1743)
U.S. president who was throughout his lifetime an extraordinarily learned man, including interests in mathematics and natural sciences. He corresponded with such men as Joseph Priestley, and sometimes contributed time and money to progress in these fields. He collected and classified fossils. He was interested in the experiments being made in ballons and submarines. While visiting Europe, he sent home various mechanical and scientific gadgets produced including a polygraph and phosphorus matches. At his Monticello estate, he practiced scientific farming, and was always on the lookout for a significant new plant or seed. Jefferson died shortly before 1pm. His old friend, John Adams, died a few hours later. |
|
| Ebenezer Kinnersley | |
(source) |
Died
4 Jul 1778 (born 30 Nov 1711)
English-born American experimenter and inventor who investigated electricity. In 1748 Kinnersley demonstrated that the electric fluid actually passed through water, using a 10-ft long trough of water. In 1751, as one of the earliest popularizers of science, he began delivering lectures on "The Newly Discovered Electrical Fire." His experiments discovered the difference between the electricity that was produced by the glass and sulphur globes, which he communicated to Benjamin Franklin at Philadelphia, since they showed beyond a doubt that the positive and negative theory was correct. He also sought ways to protect buildings from lightning, invented an electric thermometer (c. 1755), and demonstrated that electricity can produce heat.« [Image: simplified version of Kinnersley's electrical air thermometer in which colored water in the airtight cylinder pushed water up the capillary tube when sparking between electrodes heated and expanded the air.] Ebenezer
Kinnersley - Franklin's Friend, by J. A. Leo Lemay |
| JULY 4 - EVENTS | |
| Elephant dental caps | |
(source) |
In 2002, an elephant's two tusks were fitted
with stainless steel dental caps 19-in (50cm) long by 5-in (13-cm) diameter,
the world's record
largest dental caps, in a 3½-hr operation, on Spike, a 20-year-old
Asian elephant at the Calgary Zoo,
Alberta, Canada. After about one-third of its left tusk broke off, a crack
in the remaining tusk needed protection against further damage to avoid
a future medical problem of infection and pain that could require a complicated
root canal treatment. The 28-lb (13-kg) prostheses were computer-designed
by the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology. The other tusk was shortened
and capped to maintained balance. Dental adhesive was supplied
by 3M.« |
| Nozomi | |
|
In 1998, Japan launched Nozomi("Hope")
from Kagoshima Launch Centre, to become the third nation (after Russia
and the U.S.) to reach for Mars. The spacecraft made two fly-bys of the
Moon in Sep and Dec in order to reshape its trajectory for an intended
arrival in a highly elliptical Mars Orbit in Oct 1999. Unfortunately, the
attempt failed, and the plans were changed to alter the spacecraft's trajectory
to reach Mars in 2003. The mission was designed to measure the interaction
between the solar wind and Martian upper atmosphere. |
|
| Mars probe | |
|
In 1997, the Mars Pathfinder, an unmanned space vehicle, reached the Martain
atmosphere. It had taken seven months to travel there since its launch
on 4 Dec 1996. Its main science mission was to study the Martian atmosphere
and investigate the geology and chemical composition of the planet's rocks
and soils. The descent was braked by a heat shield, a parachute and rockets.
Using a new NASA effort for "cheaper, faster, better," the Mars Pathfinder
used airbags to cushion its landing on the surface. It carried Sojourner,
a 10-kg (22-lb) wheeled rover device designed to travel slowly across the
surface of Mars taking photographs and collect other scientific data, while
also testing autonomous-vehicle technology on the Martain terrain. |
|
| Explorer 38 | |
|
In 1968, the Explorer 38, an unmanned U.S. spacecraft was launched to measure
galactic radio sources and study low frequencies in space. It was one of
a series of 55 scientific satellites launched between 1958-75. |
|
| Pacific cable | |
|
In 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt sent the first official message over
the new cable across the Pacific Ocean between Honolulu, Midway, Guam and
Manila. |
|
| Haynes automobile | |
1894 (source) |
In 1894, Elwood
Haynes successfully tested his one-horsepower, one-cylinder vehicle
at 6 or 7 mph at Kokomo, Indiana. He was an American pioneer whose vehicle
was one of the first automobiles
built. Now on exhibition at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.,
Hayne's vehicle is the oldest American-made automobile in existence. He
manufactured automobiles 1898-1925. He was a trained engineer and chemist
who discovered
several alloys, including a stainless steel (discovered 1911, patented
1919). He was the first to use aluminum in an automobile engine. |
| Double-deck streetcar | |
|
In 1892, the first double-deck streetcar in the U.S. was operated in San
Diego, California. |
|
| Electric plant | |
 |
In 1883, the first three-wire
central-station incandescent-lighting plant in the U.S. started operations
in Sunbury, Pennsylvania built by the Edison Electric Illuminating Co.
The plant
was a simple wooden structure. An Armington & Sims steam engine drove
two 110-volt direct-current generators. The electricity was delivered by
overhead wires. Edison had patented his three-wire system on 20 Nov 1882
to supercede the distribution system used at his first commercial central
generating station in New York (4 Sep 1882) because it gave savings of
over 60 per cent in copper used in conductors. This meant a smaller investment
which made it economically possible to build generating plants in many
smaller communities.« [Images
- top: Sunbury
generators at the Edison Ford Museum; bottom:
Thomas Edison] |
| Steel-arch bridge | |
(source) |
In 1874, the first steel-arch bridge
in the U.S. was opened. The Mississippi River Bridge, known as the Eads
Bridge after James Buchanan Eads the American
engineer
who designed it, is a two-tier triple-arch steel bridge over the river
at St. Louis, Missouri. It was the first major bridge to use steel and
cantilevered construction Work began about two years after the Civil War,
in 1867. Each roughly 500-ft span rested on piers built on bedrock about
100 feet beneath the river bottom using
pneumatic caissons.When finished, the top road level carried street cars,
with a lower level for two lines of railroad traffic. Use for trains ceased
in 1974.) At the end of the 20th century it was closed for restoration,
and reopened in 2003.« [Image:
Eads Bridge during construction of the cantilevers. Image right: (source)
]
James
B. Eads, by Louis How. |
| First U.S. cast-iron bridge | |
(source) |
In 1839, the first iron cast bridge in the U.S. was dedicated.
The 80-foot long, 25-ft wide, Dunlap's Creek Bridge in Brownsville, Pennsylvania
was the fourth bridge at the site, where three earlier
bridges had failed. The designer and builder, Captain Richard Delafield
of the US Army Corps of Engineers, could not know of the coming automobile
age, but his bridge has withstood time and carries a modern road. The bridge,
started in 1935, consists
of "five parallel arches, each consisting of nine segments." Subsequent
building development has encroached on the bridge and obscures much of
the superstructure. However, early photographs show the span as it first
appeared, and the detailed railings remain attractive.«
[Image
left: detail of span superstructure; right: an early photograph] |
| Hotel with indoor bathrooms | |
|
In 1828, the first U.S. hotel to install bathrooms was the Tremont House,
Boston, Mass., for which the cornerstone was laid today. |
|
| Iron castings | |
|
In 1826, the first malleable iron castings made in the U.S. were produced
in Newark, N.J. by Seth Boyden. |
|
| Erie Canal | |
| In
1817, construction started on the Erie
canal, the first significant canal in the U.S. The first boat passed
through the completed middle section of the canal on 23 Oct 1819.
Wedding
of the Waters: The Erie Canal and the Making of a Great Nation,
by Peter L. Bernstein. |
|
| Typhoon | |
(source) |
In 1687, an early experience
of a tropical revolving storm was made by Captain William Dampier, whose
ship survived what he called a "tuffoon" off the coast of China. In New
Voyage Round the World, (1697) Dampier wrote
that this violent whirlwind storm had a calm central eye, and its winds
moved from opposite directions as the storm moved passed. This was one
of the earliest known European descriptions of a typhoon, which also presented
a new understanding that storms somehow move, rather than remain stationary.
During his ocean travels, he kept a detailed journal, noting native cultures,
and made careful descriptions of natural history which in effect made him
an early contributor to scientific exploration.«  [Image
right: satellite view of a typhoon (source)]
William
Dampier's Voyages, by William Dampier, Gerald Norris
(Editor) |
| Supernova | |
|
In 1054, Chinese and other astronomers saw a supernova, a violently exploding
star that was visible in daylight for 23 days and at night for almost 2
years. It is believed the Crab Nebula in the constellation Taurus is the
remanant of this supernova. Rock paintings in North America suggest that
Indians in Arizona and New Mexico saw it. There are no European records
of the event. |
|
