| AUGUST 21 - BIRTHS | |
| Dr. Roy K. Marshall | |
 Born 21
Aug 1907; died 27 May 1972.
Astronomer with the Fels Planetarium, Philadelphia, then the first director of Morehead Planetarium, Chapel Hill, N.C. He contributed to the slim but classic work Star Maps For Beginners, by I.M. Levitt, a book on skylore and learning the constellations which first appeared in 1942 with periodic revisions over 50 years. He combined his scientific expertise with showmanship as a pioneering TV science broadcaster with a weekly Nature of Things half-hour program. It premiered on the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) network on 13 Dec 1948 with a broadcast from the Fels Planetarium. It became so popular it ran year-round until 1954.«  The
Nature Of Things, by Roy K. Marshall. |
|
| Edward Thomas Copson | |
| Born 21
Aug 1901; died 16 Feb 1980.
Scottish mathematician known for his contributions to analysis and partial differential equations, especially as they apply to mathematical physics. |
|
| Karl Gegenbaur | |
(source) |
Born 21
Aug 1826; died 14 Jun 1903.
German anatomist who laid emphasis on comparative anatomy. This research led him to become one of Europe's strongest supporters of the theory of evolution. Gegenbaur's work on fishes provided evidence in support of Huxley's stand against a theory that held that the skull originated from expanded vertebrae. From studies in embryology, he asserted that all eggs are simple cells (1861) as suggested earlier by Schwann (1838). Thus not only the eggs and sperm of mammals, but all eggs and sperm were single cells, and so were even the relatively huge eggs of birds and reptiles. « |
| Charles Gerhardt | |
(source) |
Born 21
Aug 1816; died 19 Aug 1856.
Charles (-Frédéric) Gerhardt was a French chemist who, with Auguste Laurent, developed a classification of organic compounds. Like most chemists he was aware that the dualistic system of Jöns Berzelius was unsatisfactory and tried to create an alternative. He adopted what became known as type theory in which he thought all organic compounds were based on four main types - hydrogen, hydrogen chloride, ammonia, and water. Organic compounds were referred to these types by replacing a hydrogen atom in one of these compounds by a radical (i.e., by a group of atoms). His idea was opposed by his contemporaries and was later abandoned, but it proved important in the subsequent rationalization of structural organic chemistry. |
| Jean Servais Stas | |
(source) |
Born 21
Aug 1813; died 13 Dec 1891.
Belgian chemist, notable for his accurate determinations of atomic weights. He had worked under the direction of Dumas, with whom he established the atomic weight of carbon. Stas worked assiduously to make more accurate measurements of other atomic weights than had ever been done before. Stas wished to prove the hypothesis of Proust, that all atoms were conglomerations of hydrogen atoms, though this could not be achieved. Stas was probably the most skilful chemical analyst of the nineteenth century. |
| William Kelly | |
(source) |
Born 21
Aug 1811; died 11 Feb 1888.
American ironmaster who invented the pneumatic process of steelmaking, in which air is blown through molten pig iron to remove unwanted impurities. While a Kentucky manufacturer of iron kettles, he discovered that cold air blown on red-hot iron caused the metal to become white-hot by igniting the carbon and thus eliminating impurities. He tried to apply the new "air boiling" technique to his own product, but his customers decried "Kelly's fool steel," and his business declined. His patent of 23 Jun 1857 won priority over the U.S. patent of Sir Henry Bessemer of Great Britain, gradually the Bessemer-Kelly process won acceptance. This process produced the first inexpensive steel, crucial in the industrial age.  |
| Augustin-Louis Cauchy | |
| Born 21
Aug 1789; died 23 May 1857.
(Baron) French mathematician who pioneered in analysis and the theory of substitution groups (groups whose elements are ordered sequences of a set of things). He was one of the greatest of modern mathematicians. |
|
| William Murdock | |
(source) |
Born 21
Aug 1754; died 15 Nov 1839.
Scottish inventor, the first to make extensive use of coal gas for illumination and a pioneer in the development of steam power. He joined James Watt and Matthew Boulton and in 1784 he was sent to supervise the installation of Boulton & Watt steam engines working pumping equipment in Cornish tin mines. While there, he tested his ideas to use the gas given off by burning coal. From an iron retort in the backyard of his home, he ran a metal tube into his living room. On 29 Jul 1792, Murdock achieved a gas flame inside the room. In 1802, Boulton installed two gas lamps outside his Soho factory. Next year, the foundry was entirely illuminated by gas. Shortly, Boulton & Watt began to sell lighting and heating equipment with Murdock as a partner in the business. |
| Hubert Gautier | |
(source) |
Born 21
Aug 1660; died 27 Sep 1737.
French scientist and engineer, who authored the first book on bridge building, Traité des Ponts, in 1716. It covered bridges in masonry and timber, foundations, piers and centering, the velocity of water, and such reference tools as a dictionary of terms and a list of edicts. He had previous written a treatise of roads, published in 1693. Originarily a medical doctor, he became a naval engineer and later on general inspector of the Ponts et Chaussées. He also authored books on fortifications, the antiquities of his native town Nîmes, and a first manual for watercolor practitioners. Watercolor had also some military interest, as it was needed for mapmakers in order to impart the correct hue, and this explains why Gautier choose to write this treatice. |
|
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| AUGUST 21 - DEATHS | |
| Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar | |
 Died
21 Aug 1995 (born 19 Oct 1910)
Indian-born U.S. astrophysicist who shared with William A. Fowler the 1983 Nobel Prize for Physics for formulating the currently accepted theory on the later evolutionary stages of massive stars, work that subsequently led to the discovery of neutron stars and black holes. |
|
| David Barnard Steinman | |
(source) |
Died
21 Aug 1960 (born 11 Jun 1886)
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. |
| H.U. Sverdrup | |
(source) |
Died
21 Aug 1957 (born 15 Nov 1888)
Harald Ulrik Sverdrup was a Norwegian meteorologist and oceanographer known for his studies of the physics, chemistry, and biology of the oceans. He explained the equatorial countercurrents and helped develop the method of predicting surf and breakers. As scientific director of Roald Amundsen's polar expedition on Maud (1918-1925), Sverdrup worked extensively on meteorology, magnetics, atmospheric electricity, physical oceanography, and tidal dynamics on the Siberian shelf, and even on the anthropology of Chukchi natives. In 1953, Sverdrup quantified the concept of "critical depth", explaining the onset of the spring phytoplankton bloom in newly stratified water columns. |
| Count Benjamin Thompson Rumford | |
(source) |
Died
21 Aug 1814 (born 26 Mar 1753)
American-born British physicist, government administrator, and a founder of the Royal Institution of Great Britain, London. Because he was a Redcoat officer and an English spy during the American revolution, he moved into exile in England. Through his investigations of heat he became one of the first scientists to declare that heat is a form of motion rather than a material substance, as was popularly believed until the mid-19th century. Among his numerous scientific contributions are the development of a calorimeter and a photometer. He invented a double boiler, a kitchen stove and a drip coffee pot. Count
Rumford on the nature of heat, by Benjamin Rumford. |
| Reinier de Graaf | |
c.1664 (source) |
Died
21 Aug 1673 (born 30 July 1641)
Dutch physician who discoveredthe follicles of the ovary (known as Graafian follicles), in which the individual egg cells are formed (1672) and also published on male reproductive organs (1668). He was also important for his studies on pancreatic juice (1663) and on the reproductive organs of mammals. He is considered one of the creators of experimental physiology. He used a technique of injecting dye into organs in order to be able to observe them better. It was on this technique that a bitter priority dispute with Swammerdam developed. He wrote a brief tract on the use of the syringe in anatomy (1669). He died, perhaps by suicide, at only 32 years of age. |
| AUGUST 21 - EVENTS | |
| Mars Observer lost | |
In 1993, contact was lost with the Mars Observer spacecraft, following
the pressurization of the rocket thruster fuel tanks, three days before
it was to begin orbiting the Red Planet. The Mars Observer was to be the
first U.S. spacecraft to study Mars since the Viking missions 18 years
earlier. The fate of the $980 million mission remains unknown, though a
commission
studied possible causes for the failure. |
|
| Triton | |
(source) |
In 1989, the U.S. space probe Voyager 2 fired its thrusters to bring
it closer to Neptune's mysterious moon Triton. This later photograph
(left) shows a false-color image of Triton, taken two days before closest
approach. At 2,700 km diameter, Triton is Neptune's largest satellite.
The smallest features resolvable in this image are about 47 km across.
The image is a composite of three images taken through ultraviolet, green,
and violet filters. |
| Volcanic lake gases | |
(source) |
In 1986, more than 1700 people died when toxic gas erupted
from Lake
Nyos, a volcanic lake
in the West African nation of Cameroon. The gas was carbon dioxide which,
being more dense than air, hugged the ground and flowed down valleys. The
cloud travelled as far as 15 miles (25 km) from the lake. It was moving
fast enough to flatten vegetation, including a few trees. In addition to
the human deaths caused by suffocation,
845 people were hospitalized and 3,000 cattle died. Lake Nyos is a few
square kilometres in area, and is around 200 m deep. It is situated
in the crater formed from the collapse of the pipe feeding a now extinct
volcano. |
| Transcontinental Packard | |
(source) |
In 1903, a 12 horsepower single-cylinder Model F Packard mud-covered automobile
arrived in New York, completing
a trip across the U.S. from San Francisco. It was driven by "Tommy" Fetch
from the Packard Motor Car works, with Marius Krarup, a journalist. They
left San Fransisco on 21 Jun after dipping the car's rear wheels in the
Pacific Ocean. The 51 days of actual running time gave an average run of
almost 80 miles per day. They had crossed the Utah desert and the Colorado
mountains and, according to the New York Times report, during their
journey replaced only three tires and a broken front spring. Vermont doctor
Horatio Nelson with mechanic Crocker Sewell, had completed
a similar - but two days slower - trip in a Winton car the previous month.« |
| Adding machine patent | |
(source) |
In 1888, William Seward Burroughs
of St. Louis, Missouri, received patents on four adding machine applications
(No. 388,116-388,119), the first U.S. patents for a "Calculating-Machine"
that the inventor would continue to improve
and successfully market. One year after making his first patent application
on 10 Jan 1885, he incorporated his business
as the American Arithmometer Corporation of St. Louis, in Jan 1886, with
an authorized capitalization of $100,000. After Burrough's early death
in 1898, after moving from St. Louis to Detroit, Michigan, that company
reorganized as the Burroughs Adding Machine Co., incorporated in Jan 1905,
with a capital of $5 million. The new name was in tribute to the inventor.« |
| Venetian blind patent | |
(source) |
In 1841, the first U.S. patent for a venetian blind was issued to John
Hampson of New Orleans, Louisiana on a "manner of retaining in any desired
position the slats of Venetian Blinds" (No. 2223)
It is said the first U.S. installation of Venetian blinds was in 1761 in
St. Peter's Church, Third and Pine streets, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. |
