| AUGUST 5 - BIRTHS | |
| Neil Armstrong | |
(source) |
 Born 5
Aug 1930
Neil Alden Armstrong, U.S. astronaut, was the first man to walk on the moon (20 Jul 1969, Apollo 11). He served as a Navy pilot during the Korean War, then joined the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (which became NASA), as a civilian test pilot. In 1962, he was the first civilian to enter the astronaut-training program. He gained experience as command pilot of the Gemini 8 mission, which accomplished the first physical joining of two orbiting spacecraft. Later he was commander of the Apollo 11 lunar mission. From 1971, he worked as professor of aerospace engineering at the University of Cincinnati. He was a member of the commission that investigated the 1986 Challenger space shuttle disaster.«  First
Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong, by James R. Hansen |
| Kenneth V. Thimann | |
(source) |
Born 5
Aug 1904; died 15 Jan 1997.
Thimann was an English-American plant physiologist, who pioneered in the field of plant physiology, especially hormones that control the development of plants. In particular, he identified auxin, a growth hormone, and revealed its chemical structure (very important to agriculture and horticulture industries). He also researched the biosynthesis of pigments responsible for the colors of flowers and fruits, and the action of various zones of the light spectrum on photosynthesis. Later he studied the factors controlling the mechanisms of plant senescence, especially the aging of leaves. |
| Elephant Man | |
(source) |
Born 5
Aug 1862; died 11 Apr 1890.
Joseph Carey Merrick (erroneously referred to as John Merrick) was a disfigured person. Born in Leicester, England, in 1862, Merrick began to develop tumours on his face before his second birthday. His condition quickly worsened as bulbous, cauliflower-like growths grew from his head and body, and his right hand and forearm became a useless club. After a brief career as a professional "freak," dubbed the "Elephant Man" because of a tusklike growth on his face, he became the best-known resident patient of London Hospital from 1886 until his death. The modern diagnosis (1979) is the very rare disorder, Proteus Syndrome. 
"Elephant
Man" by Christine Sparks. |
| William Henry Dines | |
(source) |
Born 5
Aug 1855; died 24 Dec 1927.
William Henry Dines was an English meterologist and inventor of related measurement instruments such as the Dines pressure tube anemometer (the first instrument to measure both the velocity and direction of wind, 1901), a very lightweight meteorograph, and a radiometer (1920). He joined the Royal Meteorological Society study of the cause of the disastrous Tay Bridge collapse of 1879. His measurements of upper air conditions, first with kites and later by balloon ascents (1907), brought an understanding of cyclones from dynamic processes in the lower stratosphere rather than thermal effects nearer to the ground. |
| Ewald Hering | |
(source -- inset) |
Born 5
Aug 1834; died 26 Jan 1918.
(Karl) Ewald (Konstantin) Hering was a German physiologist and psychologist whose chief work concerned the physiology of colour perception. He taught at several universities. Hering challenged the colour-vision theory of Hermann von Helmholtz. Visual sensations, according to Hering’s view, were due to three colour receptors responding in an "opponent" fashion in colour-pairs (white/black, yellow/blue, and red/green) to take account of the after-images of colours. Helmholtz had advocated the three fibre, three color theory (red, green and blue). Hering also is known for a classic optical illusion. [Image: Hering (inset) with his colour-blindness apparatus] |
| Niels Henrik Abel | |
(source) |
Born 5
Aug 1802; died 6 Apr 1829
Niels Henrik Abel was a Norwegian mathematician, who developed several branches of modern mathematics. After a slow start in school, he began to show mathematical genius by the age of 15. In 1823 proved that there was no algebraic formula for the solution of a general polynomial equation of the fifth degree. He developed the concept of elliptic functions independently of Carl Gustav Jacobi, and the theory of Abelian integrals and functions became a central theme of later 19th-century analysis. He had difficulty finding an academic position, was troubled by poverty, and died in poverty in his late twenties. |
| John Wrottesley | |
(source) |
Born 5
Aug 1798; died 27 Oct 1867
John Wrottesley, 2nd Baron Wrottesley, was an English astronomer, who published Catalogue Of The RA Of 1318 Stars. He was a founder member of the Royal Astronomical Society. From his first Observatory in Blackheath, London, he recorded over 12,000 observations. After he inherited the title and the Staffordshire family estate at Wrottesley in 1841, he built an observatory there. In 1855, the city of Wolverhampton nearby decreed that if any ... furnace chimney ...was built ... within three miles of the observatory, it shall be constructed on the best and approved principles "for consuming the smoke arising ... therefrom". This of course was so that observations from the observatory would not be hampered by smoke pollution. |
| AUGUST 5 - DEATHS | |
| Soichiro Honda | |
(source) |
 Died
5 Aug 1991 (born 17 Nov 1906)
Soichiro Honda was the Japanese engineer, race car driver and industrialist who founded the Honda Motor Company, motor cycle and car manufacturer. Born in Iwata Gun, Japan, his career began as a garage apprentice (1922) which led to opened his own garage in 1928. He began manufacturing with a piston-ring factory (1934) expanding to motor cycles in 1948, followed by the release of a sports car and light truck in 1963. Soichiro Honda retired in 1973, and was appointed a "supreme adviser." |
| Jerzy Neyman | |
(source) |
Died
5 Aug 1981 (born 16 Apr 1894)
Russian-American mathematician who was one of the principal architects of modern theoretical statistics. His papers on hypothesis testing (1928-33) helped establish the subject. During 1934-38, he gave a theory of confidence intervals (important in the analysis of data); extended statistical theory to contagious distributions, (for interpretation of biological data); wrote on sampling stratified populations (which led to such applications as the Gallup Poll); and developed the model for randomised experiments (widely relevant across the fields of science, including agriculture, biology, medicine, and physical sciences). His later research applied statistics to meteorology and medicine. In 1968 he was awarded the prestigious National Medal of Science.« |
| Heinrich Otto Wieland | |
(source) |
Died
5 Aug 1957 (born 4 Jun 1877)
German chemist, winner of the 1927 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for his studies of steroid chemistry in which he determined the molecular structure of bile acids. He is also noted for studying the conversion of food into energy. In 1912, he began work on bile acids, secretions of the liver known for the best part of a century to consist of a large number of substances. He studied three of them: cholic acid, deoxycholic acid, and lithocholic acid, finding that they were all steroids, very similar to each other, and all convertible into cholanic acid. After 1921, he studied some curious alkaloids including toxiferin (curare's active ingredient), bufotalin (in venom from toads), and phalloidine and amatine (poisonous ingredients in the deadly amanita mushroom). |
| Ferdinand von Hebra | |
(source) |
Died
5 Aug 1880 (born 7 Sep 1816)
Austrian physician who founded the New Vienna School of Dermatology, which became a basis for modern dermatology. He attributed most diseases of skin to local irritation. He rejected the prevailing belief in skin conditions being an effect caused by a general metabolic upset of blood poisoning. Before Hebra's specialized efforts, dermatology had been a highly neglected field in general hospitals. He wrote one of the most influential books on dermatology, Atlas der Hautkrankheiten (1856-76). Among the many diseases of the skin he described and named are lupus, pityriasis, rubra and tinea cruris, and he was the first to describe dermatitis herpetiformes. He classified skin diseases in accordance with pathological anatomy (1845).« |
| Charles-Eugène Delaunay | |
(source) |
Died
5 Aug 1872 (born 9 Apr 1816)
French mathematician and astronomer whose theory of lunar motion advanced the development of planetary-motion theories. After 20 years of work, he published two volumes on lunar theory, La Théorie du mouvement de la lune (1860,1867). This is an important case of the three body problem. Delaunay found the longitude, latitude and parallax of the Moon as infinite series. These gave results correct to 1 second of arc but were not too practical as the series converged slowly. However this work was important in the beginnings of functional analysis. Delaunay succeeded Le Verrier as director of the Paris Observatory in 1870 but two years later he and three companions drowned in a boating accident. |
| Jacques Boucher de Perthes | |
1831 (source) |
Died
5 Aug 1868 (born 10 Sep 1788)
Jacques Boucher de Crèvecœur de Perthes was a French archaeologist who was the first to establish that Europe had been populated by early man. Further, his discovery (about 1846) of whole handaxes, tools and fragments embedded in and scattered about the fossilized bones of prehistoric mammals in the high banks of the Somme River showed that man existed at least as early as the ancient creature. This disproved the prevailing theologically-based idea that 4004 BC was the year of the creation of man. He recorded his findings in a three volume work, Antiquitis celtiques et antediluviennes (1846). Acceptance was slow, but his ideas gained support when the evidence was validated by Prestwich, William Falconer and Charles Lyell.« |
| Thomas Newcomen | |
(source) |
Died
5 Aug 1729 (born 24 Feb 1663)
Thomas Newcomen, inventor of the atmospheric steam engine, died in London. His invention of c.1711 came into use to pump water out of coal mines by 1725. It had a piston connected to one end of a large crossbeam; the other end was connected to a very heavy pump piston. On each stroke, water chilled and condensed the steam in the cylinder, dropping the piston thus moving the crossbeam and operating the pump. This was wasteful of fuel needed to reheat the cylinder for the next stroke. Although it was slow and inefficient, Newcomen's engine was relied on for the first 60 years of the new steam age it began. |
| AUGUST 5 - EVENTS | |
| Mars 6 | |
(source) |
In 1973, the USSR launchedMars
6, on a Proton SL-12/D-1-e booster. It was one of several Soviet
Mars probes - 4, 5,
6, and 7 - launched in Jul-Aug 1973.
The Mars 6 craft included a flyby bus and a descent module. Upon
reaching Mars, the descent module detached for its mission to study the
Mars atmosphere and surface. After 224 seconds of data were relayed by
the bus - the first data returned from the atmosphere of Mars - contact
with the descent module was lost before its planned surface landing. Sadly,
much of this data was unreadable due to a flawed computer chip. Pressure,
temperature and water vapour information was reported. The flyby module
continued to send its own instruments' measurements.« |
| Mariner 7 | |
(source) |
In 1969, Mariner
7 flew past Mars. It had been launched 27 Mar1969, and was now
3430-km above the Martian surface. Its 7.7 square meter area of photocell
solar panels provided 800 W of power. The probe took 22 near-encounter
images across 20% of the planet's surface. They showed the Martian and
Moon surfaces were very different, and also varied from the earlier Mariner
4 images. These added to the far-encounter sequence of 93 images taken
since 2 Aug 1969 during the approach. Other instruments took atmospheric
measurements, and revealed that the south polar ice cap composition was
mostly frozen carbon dioxide. Radio telemetry provided improved estimates
of the planet's size, shape and mass.« |
| Limited Test Ban Treaty | |
(source) |
In 1963, Britain, America and Russia signed
a Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty at Moscow to prohibit nuclear weapons
tests "or any other nuclear explosion" in the atmosphere, in outer space,
and under water. Underground nuclear explosions must not cause "radioactive
debris to be present outside the territorial limits" their own country.
The nuclear powers thus demonstrated a common goal to "an end to the contamination
of man's environment by radioactive substances." The treaty
was the result of over eight years of negotiations resolving issues of
verification and deep-seated differences in attitudes to arms control and
security. A total of 108 countries had signed before the LNTB Treaty entered
into force 10 Oct 1963.« |
| Quasar | |
(source) |
In 1962, a lunar occultation on August 5 enabled Australian radio astronomers
to more precisely fix the location of the previously known radio source
3C
273, in Virgo. In 1963 this became the first member of a new class
of object eventually to be called quasars or "quasi-stellar radio sources."
Maarten Schmidt, using the Hale optical telescope, saw it as a faint star-like
object with a visible jet. Its spectrum featured unusual emission lines,
which he identified as ordinary hydrogen lines shifted toward longer wavelengths
(redshifted) by 16%. If the shift is due to velocity, it is moving away
at one-sixth the speed of light and one of the most distant objects visible.
Quasars
radiate as much energy per second as a hundred or more galaxies. 3C273
is the brightest quasar known. |
| Traffic lights | |
(source) |
In 1914, a lighting ceremony was held for the first electric traffic lights
used to control
flow of different streams of traffic at the intersection of Euclid Ave.
and E. 105th St. in Cleveland, Ohio. The traffic signals were red and green
lights on street-corner poles, wired to a manually operated switch housed
inside a control booth beside the road. The switch design prevented conflicting
signals. A bell warned the drivers of colour changes. The installation
by the American Traffic Signal Co. was modelled after a system patented
by James Hoge (U.S. No. 1,251,666). The first traffic control light used
a gas-lit lantern, in London, England (10
Dec 1868).« |
| Comet | |
(source) |
In 1864, Giovanni Batista Donati
(1827-73) made the first spectroscopic observations of a comet tail (from
the small comet, Tempel, 1864 II). At a distance from the Sun the spectrum
of a comet is identical to that of the Sun, and its visibility is due only
to reflected sunlight. Donati showed that comet tail formed close to the
Sun contains luminous gas. In the spectrum of light from the comet tail,
Donati saw
three absorption lines bands superimposed on a continuous spectrum, which
he named alpha, beta and gamma, and are now known as the Swan bands.
These bands were also seen in a comet tail viewed by Pietro
Secchi in 1866. Sir William
Huggins (1868) identified that these were due to the presence of carbon
(molecular carbon, C2). [Image:
Comet tail of Comet West 1976 VI, computer generated false colour image.] |
| Transatlantic Cable | |
(source) |
In 1858, the laying of the west end of the first transatlantic cable was
completed when the ship Niagra anchored
at the Newfoundland coast having laid 1,016 miles of cable. It was one
of two ships laying cable from the midpoint in opposite directions. Just
days later the other end of the cable was successfully landed in Ireland.
Cyrus
W. Field had completed the Atlantic cable, establishing telegraphic
communication between the U.S. and England. On 16
Aug 1858, the first official message to cross the Atlantic was sent
from Queen Victoria to President Buchanan. Unfortunately for the company,
the new cable worked fine for about four weeks, then the line went dead.
On 27 Jul 1866, an improved
cable was laid.« |
| Scottish General Post Office | |
|
In 1695, the Scottish Parliament established
a General Post Office. |
|
