| AUGUST 8 - BIRTHS | |
| Sir Roger Penrose | |
(source) |
 Born 8
Aug 1931
British mathematician and theoretical physicist who in the 1960s calculated many of the basic features of black holes. |
| Svetlana Savitskaya | |
 |
Born 8
Aug 1948
Svetlana Yevgeniyevna Savitskaya was a Russian cosmonaut, the second woman in space (Soyuz T-7, T-12) |
| Paul A. M. Dirac | |
(source) |
Born 8
Aug 1902; died 20 Oct 1984.
English theoretical physicist known for his work in quantum mechanics and for his theory of the spinning electron. In 1933 he shared the Nobel Prize for Physics with the Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger.  Paul
Dirac: The Man and his Work, by Abraham Pais, et. al |
| Ernest Orlando Lawrence | |
(source) |
Born 8 Aug 1901; died 27 Aug 1958.
American physicist who was awarded the 1939 Nobel Prize for Physics for his invention of the cyclotron, the first device for the production of high energy particles. His first device, built in 1930 used a 10-cm magnet. He accelerated particles within a cyclinder at high vacuum between the poles of an electromagnetic to confine the beam to a spiral path while a high A.C. voltage increased the particle energy. Larger models built later created 8 x 104 eV beams. By colliding particles with atomic nuclei, he produced new elements and artificial radioactivity. By 1940, he had created plutonium and neptunium. He extended the use of atomic radiation into the fields of biology and medicine. Element 103 was named Lawrencium as a tribute to him.« [Image right: Ernest Lawrence standing with his back to the larger portion of his cyclotron] An
American Genius: The Life of Ernest Orlando Lawrence,
by Childs Herbert. |
| Fay-Cooper Cole | |
| Born 8
Aug 1881
American anthropologist who became an authority on the peoples and cultures of the Malay Archipelago and who promoted modern archaeology. He also wrote several popular works on evolution and the growth of culture. |
|
| William Bateson | |
(source) |
Born 8
Aug 1861; died 8 Feb 1926
British biologist who published the first English translation (1900) of Gregor Mendel's work on heredity which he confirmed with his own experiments, and further demonstrated that heredity was apparent in animals as well as plants. His support of Mendel was as effective in awakening modern understanding of heredity as Huxley provided for Darwin on evolution. Bateson coined (1905) the term genetics for the new science. He recognized gene linkage by which some characteristics are inherited together, rather than all characteristics being inherited independently (as later explained by Morgan). Earlier, he had contributed to understanding of embryology when, in 1885, proposed that the chordates evolved from primitive echinoderms.« Mendel's
Principles of Heredity, by William Bateson. |
| Henry Fairfield Osborn | |
(source) |
Born 8
Aug 1857; died 6 Nov 1935.
American paleontologist and museum administrator who greatly influenced the art of museum display and the education of paleontologists in the United States and Great Britain. In 1891, the American Museum of Natural History hired Osborn as the first curator of the new Department of Vertebrate Paleontology because the trustees had realized that the Museum was falling behind other institutions in developing a collection of dinosaurs and other fossil vertebrates. Within a decade, Osborn assembled a talented staff of curators and collectors, and fossils were soon streaming into the Museum from all over the world. One of Osborn's favorite groups for study was the brontotheres, and he was the first to carry out comprehensive research on them. |
| Benjamin Silliman | |
(source) |
Born 8
Aug 1779; died 24 Nov 1864.
American geologist and chemist who founded the American Journal of Science and wielded a powerful influence in the development of science in the U.S. He was Yale's first professor of chemistry and natural history (1802). He is best known for researching the chemical composition of a meteorite that fell in 1807, his report being the first scientific account of any American meteor, showed that meteorites are made of materials that exist on the earth. The mineral sillimanite was named after Silliman. In 1811, while experimenting with the oxy-hydric blow-pipe, he reduced many minerals previously considered as elements. His son, also named Benjamin Silliman, became a chemist who recognized that petroleum could be distilled into separate fractions. |
| David Hartley | |
(EB) |
Born 8
Aug 1705
English physician and philosopher credited with the first formulation of the psychological system known as associationism. Attempting to explain how thought processes occur, Hartley's associationism, with later modifications, has endured as an integral part of modern psychological theory. Image: Detail of an engraving. |
| Gilles Personne de Roverval | |
| Born 8
Aug 1602; died 27 Oct 1675.
French mathematician who made important advances in the geometry of curves. |
|
| AUGUST 8 - DEATHS | |
| Sir Frank Whittle | |
(source) |
 Died
8 Aug 1996 (born 1 Jun 1907)
English aviation engineer and pilot who was a pioneer in the field of jet propulsion, which he used to develop aircraft that could fly at faster speeds and higher altitudes than piston-engine propeller airplanes of the 1920s. While he was at Cranwell, still only 21 years of age, Whittle began to consider the possibilities of jet propulsion as applied to aircraft. By 1930, he had designed and patented a jet aircraft engine. After 11 years, Whittle's engine, tested and modified, successfully powered a Gloster-Whittle E.28/39, on a historic 17-min flight on 15 May 1941. Design work continued, and by the end of WW II, the Gloster Meteor became the RAF's first jet fighter that would fly 200-mph faster than the RAF's Spitfires and Hurricanes.  Genesis
of the Jet: Frank Whittle and the Invention of the Jet Engine, by
John Golley |
| Sir Nevill F(rancis) Mott | |
(source) |
Died
8 Aug 1996 (born 30 Sep 1905)
English physicist who shared (with P.W. Anderson and J.H. Van Vleck of the U.S.) the 1977 Nobel Prize for Physics for his independent researches on the magnetic and electrical properties of amorphous semiconductors. Whereas the electric properties of crystals are described by the Band Theory - which compares the conductivity of metals, semiconductors, and insulators - a famous exception is provided by nickel oxide. According to band theory, nickel oxide ought to be a metallic conductor but in reality is an insulator. Mott refined the theory to include electron-electron interaction and explained so-called Mott transitions, by which some metals become insulators as the electron density decreases by separating the atoms from each other in some convenient way. |
| Rolla N(eil) Harger | |
(source) |
Died 8 Aug 1983 (born 14 Jan 1890)
American toxicologist and biochemist who was at Indiana University when he invented the first successful machine for testing human blood alcohol content, called the Drunkometer (1931). When someone blows into a breath-test bag, any alcohol in his breath is turned into acetic acid (vinegar), changing the color of crystals in the blowing tube. The more crystals that change color, the more alcohol is in the body. The Blood Breath Partition Ratio assumes that 2100mL of breath contains the same amount of alcohol as 1 mL of blood. Harger turned over the patent to the IU Foundation, for whom it became a surprise moneymaker. After Harger persuaded the Indiana legislature to pass laws restricting alcohol use by drivers, alcohol related traffic deaths were decreased. [Image right: Drunkometer] |
| Feodor Lynen | |
(source) |
Died
8 Aug 1979 (born 6 Apr 1911)
German biochemist who shared (with Konrad Bloch) of the 1964 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for his research "concerning the mechanism and regulation of the cholesterol and fatty acid metabolism." These processes comprise series of reactions with a great number of individual steps. Providing this detailed knowledge of the mechanisms of lipid metabolism makes possible addressing medical problems related to them.« |
| Archibald Gowanlock Huntsman | |
(source) |
Died
8 Aug 1973 (born 23 Nov 1883)
Canadian marine ecologist, zoologist and educator who was a pioneer oceanographer and fisheries biologist. Although he received a MD degree, he never practiced medicine. Instead, he conducted biological oceanographic research in the early years of this century at both Nanaimo and St. Andrews. While best known for his research on Atlantic salmon, his scientific interests were very broad and he made important contributions to oceanography, marine invertebrates, marine ecology, growth and fatigue in fishes, fish migration, philosophy, the economics of fishing, and fish technology. He also was a pioneer in the methods of packaging frozen fish fillets, which enabled more people abroad to sample Canada's ocean fish. |
| Viktor Meyer | |
|
Died
8 Aug 1897 (born 8 Sep 1848)
German chemist who contributed greatly to knowledge of both organic and inorganic chemistry and invented an apparatus for determining vapour densities (and hence molecular weights), now named after him. In 1871, Meyer experimentally proved Avogadro's hypothesis by measuring the vapour densities of volatile substances (molecular weight, or relative molecular mass, is twice the vapour density). He went on to determine the vapour densities of inorganic substances at high temperatures. From benzene obtained from petroleum, Meyer in 1883 isolated thiophene, a heterocyclic compound containing sulphur, which much later was to become an important component of various synthetic drugs.  |
| Nicolas Louis Robert | |
(source) |
Died 8 Aug 1828 (born 2 Dec 1761)
French inventor of the continuous paper-making machine, while working at Essonnes, France, papermill of the Didot family of printers and publishers. He made his first model for the process in 1797, a prototype by 1798, and secured a patent on 18 Jan 1799. Paper was formed and carried on a moving belt of wire gauze. Didot was at first sceptical, then encouraged Robert to improve the as yet imperfect invention. After Robert became dissatisfied with the financial arrangements for his efforts, he left and tried to set up his own paper mill. When this venture failed for lack of capital, he sold the patent rights to Didot. Eventually his idea was more successfully developed in England by the Fourdrinier brothers assisted by mechanic Bryan Donkin.« [Image right: model of Robert's machine showing vat containing pulp, and delivery belt at top left.] |
| Girolamo Fracastoro | |
(source) |
Died
8 Aug 1553 (born c. 1478)
Italian physician, poet, astronomer, and geologist, who proposed a scientific germ theory for how diseases are transmitted In De contagione et contagiosis morbis et curatione (On Contagion, Contagious Diseases, and Their Cure, 1546), he described the spread of disease by so-called "seeds", that could be transported by air, upon clothing, by an animal or from one person to another. (He was extending Lucretius's earlier idea that everything was composed of small bits of atomic matter.) Fracastoro's ideas helped make unpopular public health measures more accepted, such as destroying animals, or thorough cleaning or burning of infected possessions during a plague. His ideas preceded the work of Pasteur and Koch by more than 3 centuries. |
| AUGUST 8 - EVENTS | |
| Teacher launched on Space Shuttle Endeavour | |
In 2007, Barbara Morgan became the first educator to safely reach space
was launched on the U.S. Space Shuttle Endeavour. en route to the
International Space Station. In 1986, she was the alternate for the first
teacher selected for a space mission, Christa McAuliffe (who died with
six astronauts in the explosion of the Challenger space shuttle
73-sec after its launch). Immediately after the Endeavour reached
orbit, Mission Control announced: "For Barbara Morgan and her crewmates,
class is in session." During the flight, Morgan spoke with students in
Idaho, where she had taught elementary classes. In 1998, she moved to Houston
for astronaut training. Since its previous flight in 2002, the Endeavour
had a massive overhaul.« |
|
| Daylight savings time | |
|
In 2005, the U.S. Energy Policy Act of 2005 was signed
by President George W. Bush. At over 1,700 pages long, the Act was intended
to establish a comprehensive, long-range energy policy. Among hundreds
of provisions, it gave incentives for traditional energy production; for
newer, more efficient energy technologies; and for conservation. However,
in "authorizing" certain programs, no actual "appropriation" of the necessary
funding was made. Whereas tax breaks and concessions were given to mature
energy industries, the result was to weak
to reduce dependance on petroleum. The Act extended Daylight Saving Time,
effective in 2007, to begin three weeks earlier on the second Sunday of
March and end a week later on the first Sunday of November.« |
|
| Atomic energy conference | |
|
In 1955, Geneva conference held to discuss peaceful uses of atomic energy. |
|
| Zeppelin worldwide flight | |
|
In 1929, German airship Graf Zeppelin began a round-the-world flight. |
|
| Protectograph | |
|
In 1904, the protectograph patented by Libanus McLouth Todd; protects against
check forgers. |
|
| Refrigerator | |
|
In 1899, A.T. Marshall of Brockton, MA patented the refrigerator. It took
quite a few more years for refrigerators to become common in households. |
|
| Stencil duplicator | |
|
In 1876, Thomas A. Edison received a patent for his mimeograph, which he
described as a "method of preparing autographic stencils for printing." |
|
| Streamlined train | |
|
In 1865, the streamlined railroad train was patented by Samuel Calthorp. |
|
| Bullets | |
|
In 1854, metal bullet cartridges were patented by Smith & Wesson. |
|
| Steam locomotive | |
|
(source) |
In 1829, the first steam locomotive
for railroad use in the U.S., the Stourbridge Lion, made its first
run in America. It travelled at 10 m.p.h. on the wooden tracks faced with
wrought iron that already existed as a gravity railway, used to carry coal
from mines at Carbondale to the canal terminus at Honesdale, Pennsylvania.
The 7-ton engine was built by Foster, Rastrick & Co., of Stourbridge,
England for the Hudson Railroad Company. However, after the trials, it
was deemed to be too heavy for continued use hauling loads of coal on those
tracks.« [Image: replica
of the Stourbridge Lion built at the Delaware and Hudson Railroad's Colonie
Shops, NY, in 1933] |
| Hot air balloon ascent | |
|
In 1709, first known ascent in a hot-air balloon was made in Portugal by
Father Bartolomeu de Gusmão - indoors - as a demonstration before
the Portuguese court.*« |
|
