| JULY 17 - BIRTHS | |
| Gordon Gould | |
(source) |
 Born 17
Jul 1920; died 16 Sep 2005.
American physicist who coined the word "laser" from the initial letters of "Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation." Gould was inspired from his youth to be an inventor, wishing to emulate Marconi, Bell, and Edison. He contributed to the WWII Manhattan Project, working on the separation of uranium isotopes. On 9 Nov 1957, during a sleepless Saturday night, he had the inventor's inspiration and began to write down the principles of what he called a laser in his notebook Although Charles Townes and Arthur Schawlow, also successfully developed the laser, eventually Gould gained his long-denied patent rights.  Laser:
The Inventor, the Nobel Laureate, and the Thirty-Year Patent War,
by Nick Taylor. |
| Nils Bohlin | |
(source) |
Born 17 Jul 1920; died 26 Sep 2002.
Swedish engineer who invented the familiar three-point lap and shoulder seatbelt which is considered one of the most important innovations in automobile safety. Bohlin left the aircraft industry, where he worked on jet ejector seats, including restraints, and joined AB Volvo in 1958 as safety engineer, where he invented and patented this device. In Aug 1959, Volvo was the first car manufacturer to introduce the three-point seat belt in their cars. They made this design freely available to other car manufacturers to save more lives. Bohlin holds several patents related to automotive and aviation design. After retiring form Volvo in 1985, he continued to give lectures and present papers relating to automotive restraint issues.« [Image right: (source)] |
| Georges Lemaître | |
(source) |
Born 17
Jul 1894; died 20 June 1966.
Georges (Henri) Lemaître was a Belgian astronomer and cosmologist, born in Charleroi, Belgium. He was also a civil engineer, army officer, and ordained priest. He did research on cosmic rays and the three-body problem. Lemaître formulated (1927) the modern big-bang theory. He reasoned that if the universe was expanding now, then the further you go in the past, the universe’s contents must have been closer together. He envisioned that at some point in the distant past, all the matter in the universe was in an exceedingly dense state, crushed into a single object he called the "primeval super-atom" which exploded, with all its constituent parts rushing away. This theory was later developed by Gamow and others. |
| Alexius Meinong | |
(source) |
Born 17
Jul 1853; died 27 Nov 1920.
Alexius Meinong was an Austrian philosopher and psychologist who worked at the University of Graz. He was a pupil of Franz Brentano and is most famous for his belief in nonexistent objects. He distinguished several levels of reality among objects and facts about them. Thus, existent objects participate in actual (true) facts about the world; subsistent (real but non-existent) objects appear in possible (but false) facts; and objects that neither exist nor subsist can only belong to impossible facts. He is remembered for his contributions to axiology, or theory of values, and for his Gegenstandstheorie, or the Theory of Abstract Objects. |
| Ephraim Shay | |
1880 (source) |
Born 17
Jul 1839; died 19 Apr 1916
American logger who invented the Shay geared, small steam locomotive to haul heavy logging trains at low speeds over rough terrain with poorly-laid, uneven track, sharp curves, and grades up to 14 percent. His 1880 prototype had a steam boiler mounted amidships; fuel and water on opposite ends; and the unusual arrangement of two vertical cylinders. The wheels were driven by bevelled gears on a shaft. Power was transferred through a crankshaft and universal joints. On 14 Jun 1881, he was issued a U.S. patent for a Locomotive Engine (No. 242,992). In 1882, Ephraim assigned manufacturing rights to the company that would become Lima Locomotive Works. By the end of production in 1945, 2,771 Shays had been built.« [Image right: Shay locomotive and tender.] |
| Sir Frederick Abel | |
(source) |
Born 17 Jul 1827; died 6 Sep 1902.
Sir Frederick (Augustus) Abel was an English chemist and military explosives specialist who, with the chemist Sir James Dewar, invented cordite (1889). This smokeless gunpowder was later adopted as the standard explosive of the British army, and proved vital in WWI. Battles could now be fought without the obscuring smoke clouds of gunpowder weapons. Cordite was mixed from purified ingredients of nitroglycerine, nitrocellulose and petroleum jelly then extruded as cords. When dried, this explosive could be measured more precisely and handled more safely than gunpowder. Abel also studied dust explosions in coal mines, invented a device for testing the flash point of petroleum, and found a way to prevent guncotton from exploding. [Image right: Cordite mill (1942) Dynamite Company Museum, Zaire. (source) ] |
| Amanz Gressly | |
| Born 17
Jul 1814; died 1865.
Swiss geologist and paleontologist who originated the study of stratigraphic facies when he discovered lateral differences in the character and fossil content of strata in the Jura Mountains, reflecting a variation of the original environment of deposition. The "Gressly's lizard" dinosaur was named Gresslyosaurus (1857) to honour Amanz Gressly. (to replace the preoccupied Dinosaurus Ruetimeyer 1856) |
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| JULY 17 - DEATHS | ||
| Sir James Lighthill | ||
(source) |
 Died
17 Jul 1998 (born 23 Jan 1924)
Sir Michael James Lighthill was a British mathematician who contributed to supersonic aerofoil theory and, aeroacoustics which became relevant in the design of the Concorde supersonic jet, and reduction of jet engine noise. Lighthill's eighth power law which states that the acoustic power radiated by a jet is proportional to the eighth power of the jet speed. His work in nonlinear acoutics found application in the lithotripsy machine used to break up kidney stones, the study of flood waves in rivers and road traffic flow. Lighthill also introduced the field of mathematical biofluiddynamics. Lighthill followed Paul Dirac as Lucasian professor of Mathematics (1969) and was succeeded by Stephen Hawking (1989).« Waves
in Fluids, by James Lighthill. |
|
| Percy Gardner | ||
Parthian coin (source) |
Died
17 Jul 1937 (born 24 Nov 1846)
English classical archaeologistand historian of Greek antiquities and numismatics. In 1871, he joined the British Museum as assistant in the department of coins and metals. He acted as field assistant for W. M. Flinders Petrie in the excavation of the Greek settlement of Naucritus in Egypt. In 1883, his Types of Greek Coins, the first of the modern accounts of classical numismatics, Gardner demonstrated how the history and art of a period is shown by its coinage. While professor of archaeology at Oxford University, (1887-1925), Gardner actively expanded its archaeology library and built a collection of classical sculpture busts. He supervised repair of inept prior restorations of the Arundel marbles held by the University Galleries.« Archaeology
and the types of Greek coins, by Percy Gardner |
|
(source) |
Died
17 Jul 1912 (born 29 Apr 1854)
(Jules) Henri Poincaré was a French mathematician, physicist, astronomer and a gifted interpreter of science to the public. His Poincaré Conjecture holds that if any loop in a given three-dimensional space can be shrunk to a point, the space is equivalent to a sphere. Its proof remains an unsolved problem in topology. He influenced cosmogony, relativity, and topology. In applied mathematics he also studied optics, electricity, telegraphy, capillarity, elasticity, thermodynamics, potential theory, quantum theory, and cosmology. He is often described as the last universalist in mathematics. He studied the three-body-problem in celestial mechanics, and theories of light and electromagnetic waves. He was a co-discoverer (with Albert Einstein and Hendrik Lorentz) of the special theory of relativity.« |
|
| Isaac Roberts | ||
| Died
17 Jul 1904 (born 27 Jan 1829)
British astronomer who was a pioneer in photography of nebulae. |
||
| John Roebuck | ||
| Died
17 Jul 1794 (born 1718)
British physician, chemist, and inventor, perhaps best-known for having subsidized the experiments of the Scottish engineer James Watt that led to the development of the first commercially practical condensing steam engine (1769). |
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| JULY 17 - EVENTS | |
| Genome sequence | |
In 1998, biologists reported
in the journal Science how they sequenced the genome of the bacterium that
causes syphilis, Treponema pallidum. |
|
| Humber Bridge | |
 |
In 1981, The Humber Bridge at Kingston-upon-Hull, England, was opened by
the Queen Elizabeth II. It is the longest single-span bridge in the world
(1.4 km) and took nine years to build. Each tower consists of two tapered
vertical reinforced concrete legs braced together with four horizontal
beams. The legs are 155m high, and vary from 6m by 6m wide at the bottom
to 4.5m by 4.75m at the top. The piers are reinforced concrete structures
which support the towers. The north pier is founded on the hard chalk bank
at a depth of about 8 metres. In the river, 500 metres from the south bank,
the south pier sits on Kimmerage clay about 36m below the level of the
river bed. |
| New hominid discovered | |
(source) |
In 1959, Mary
Leakey, the wife of Dr Louis Leakey,
discovered*
an ancient hominid skull, a very significant
find - the first specimen of this species. The location was the Olduvai
Gorge in the Serengeti Plains of Tanganyika (now Tanzania, East Africa),
where the Leakeys dedicated nearly three decades of their lives in careful
exploration. The young male skull is an almost complete cranium, with a
brain size is about 530-cm3. Louis Leakey briefly considered
this a human ancestor, but the claim was dropped when Homo habilis
was found soon afterwards. Zinjanthropus boisei (the nutcracker
man) has since been reclassified
(1967) as Australopithecus boisei. It has has been accurately dated
to 1.8 million years BC.«
Ancestral
Passions: The Leakey Family and the Quest for Humankind's Beginnings,
by Virginia Morell. |
| Nuclear powered town | |
(source) |
In 1955, the American town of Arco,
Idaho, became the first community in the world to have all its electrical
needs provided by nuclear power. During the one-hour test, the town was
cut off from all other sources of electrical power. Arco, a town of about
1,000 residents was about 20 miles away from the Atomic Energy Commission's
(AEC) National Reactor Testing Station (NRTS) where the Boiling Water Reactor
Experiment (BORAX), an experimental uranium-fuelled nuclear reactor, was
operated by the Argonne National Laboratory. The demonstration was made
to show the safety of nuclear-powered electricity and its ability to sustain
the load. (NRTS is now the Idaho National Laboratory.)«  |
| Carrier invents air conditioner | |
(source) |
In 1902, Willis Haviland Carrier
completed drawings
for what came to be recognized as the world's first scientific air conditioning
system. In 1901, he started working in research and development for Buffalo
Forge Co., a leading manufacturer of fan heating equipment. Shortly, he
was assigned to solve a problem for a printing plant where humidity control
was necessary for paper handling in the machinery. The system he designed
with cooling coils was installed at the Sackett and Wilhelms Co. in Brooklyn
in 1902, though it was retrofitted to an existing hot-blast heating system
instead of being properly designed from scratch as a total system. However,
Carrier went on to improve on his invention, and began the air-conditioning
industry.
Willis
Haviland Carrier Father of Air Conditioning, by Margaret
Ingels. |
| Graville Woods patent | |
(USPTO) |
In 1888, African-American inventor Granville
Woods was issued a U.S. patent titled "Tunnel-Construction For Electric
Railways" (No. 386,282). The tunnel referred to was not for the train itself,
but for electric conductors in the railbed to be below the surface of the
ground, with a slot at the railbed surface for travelling conductors to
transfer power to the motor on the electric car. As the most prolific African-American
inventor by career of the late 19th and early 20th century, Woods has been
called the Black Edison.« [Image:
detail from patent diagram.]
Black
Inventors in the Age of Segregation, by Rayvon Fouche |
| Dental School | |
(source) |
In 1867, Harvard School of Dental Medicine was established in Boston, MA
on this day. It was the first university-based dental school in America.
The parent institution, Harvard College opened in Cambridge, Massachusetts,
in 1636, with an enrollment of 12 students and one Master to teach all
subjects. Harvard expanded during the 19th century, opening graduate and
professional schools. Thus the School
of Dental Medicine was established in close affiliation with the Harvard
Medical School, another first which made the full scholarly and scientific
resources of a university available to dental education. |
| Chicago River Tunnel | |
(source) |
In 1866, authorization was given this day to build a tunnel beneath the
Chicago
River. As Chicago grew, river traffic became increasingly heavy and
slow so that the bridges over the river would be raised, open as much as
a quarter of the time during the navigation season to accommodate large
numbers of masted vessels, causing extensive traffic jams. Given the easy-to-excavate
blue clay that underlies the city, Chicago planned the tunnel. Work began
30 Nov 1866 on this first US underwater highway tunnel. In July 1867, the
city awarded a contract to J. K. Lake to construct the Washington Street
traffic tunnel. Completed 1 January 1869, the tunnel was 1605 feet long
and cost over $512,000. The Washington Street tunnel was in use until 1953.
[Image:
Drawbridge across the Chicago River.] |
| First Star Photograph | |
(source) |
In 1850, the Harvard Observatory (founded 1839) took the first photograph
of a star. The observatory
director, W.C. Bond and a Boston photographer J.A. Whipple took a daguerreotype
of Vega. A daguerreotype used a copper base with a thin film of polished
silver sensitized by iodine vapors to form a thin yellow layer of silver
iodide. After the photograph was taken, the plate was developed in a current
of magnesium vapor at 75ºC, which adhered to the light-struck parts
of the plate. The plate was then fixed in sodium thiosulfate, and rinsed.
However, the astronomers could not be thrilled with the prospect of waiting
hours and hours to get an image of a single star or nebula. Fortunately
better photographic materials were later invented. |
| Sewing Machine | |
(source) |
In 1790, Thomas Saint, a London cabinet maker, patented possibly
the first sewing machine, fitted with an awl that makes a hole in leather
and allows a needle to pass through it. This machine made a chain stitch
with a tambour-type needle to produce a mechanical crochet or chain stitch.
No evidence exists that Saint produced a single machine, and those who
in the 1880's followed his patent specifications failed. An earlier English
patent (24 Jun 1755) by German mechanic, Charles Weisenthal, had described
a two-pointed needle for mechanical sewing, but there was no mention of
a machine to go with it. Image:
Wilcox-Gibbs sewing machine, c.1890. |
| Earliest Record Solar Eclipse | |
 |
In 709 BC, the earliest record of a confirmed total solar eclipse was written
in China. From: Ch'un-ch'iu, book I: "Duke Huan, 3rd year, 7th month,
day jen-ch'en, the first day (of the month). The Sun was eclipsed and it
was total." This
is the earliest direct allusion to a complete obscuration of the Sun
in any civilisation. The recorded date, when reduced to the Julian calendar,
agrees exactly with that of a computed solar eclipse. Reference to the
same eclipse appears in the Han-shu ('History of the Former Han Dynasty')
(Chinese, 1st century AD): "...the eclipse threaded centrally through
the Sun; above and below it was yellow." Earlier Chinese writings that
refer to an eclipse do so without noting totality. |
