| AUGUST 24 - BIRTHS | |
| Albert Claude | |
(source) |
 Born 24
Aug 1898; died 22 May 1983.
Belgian-American cytologist who was awarded the 1974 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for discoveries concerning the structural and functional organization of the cell (shared with Christian de Duve and George E. Palade). With cell fractionization methods he developed using a high-powered centrifuge, Claude was able to separate various organelles in the nucleus of the living cell. He was able to show that mitochondria are the respiration centres of the cell. From 1942, he applied electron microscopy to further elucidate the structure of cells. Modern cell biology is partly based on his work.« |
| Rudolf Oskar Robert Williams Geiger | |
| Born 24
Aug 1894; died 1981.
German meteorologist, one of the founders of microclimatology, the study of the climatic conditions within a few metres of the ground surface. His observations, made above grassy fields or areas of crops and below forest canopies, elucidated the complex and subtle interactions between vegetation and the heat, radiation, and water balances of the air and soil. |
|
| William Francis Gibbs | |
(source) |
Born 24
Aug 1886; died 6 Sep 1967.
American naval architect, one of the most renowned in his time, having designed over 6,000 ships from a fireboat, to freighters, ocean liners and warships. Early in his life, he began building self-taught skills by studying blueprints and existing vessels. In 1915, Gibbs and his brother Frederic H., joined the International Mercantile Marine Company, but had their own firm by 1922 which converted an ex-German liner into the American luxury liner SS Leviathan. The Gibbs firm oversaw the design of 74% of all naval vessels built during WW II, making Gibbs an outstanding contributor to the American war effort. Postwar, he realized his lifelong dream: the 1,000 foot superliner, the SS United States, the fastest ship to cross the Atlantic.« |
| Lyman Reed Blake | |
| Born 24
Aug 1835; died 5 Oct 1883.
American inventor who devised a sewing machine for sewing the soles of shoes to the uppers. |
|
| Sir Daniel Gooch | |
(source) |
Born 24
Aug 1816; died 15 Oct 1889.
English, laid the first successful transatlantic cables. Sir Daniel Gooch was an English railway pioneer and inventor who was trained in George Stephenson & Edward Pease's works at Newcastle upon Tyne. He was locomotive superintendent of Great Western Railway for 27 years, where as Brunel's right-hand man, he designed the best broad-gauge engines and invented "the suspended link motion with the shifting radius link" in 1843. Gooch also experimented with a dynamometer carriage. In 1864 he resigned to concentrate on developing telegraphic communication. Sir Daniel Gooch and his son Charles, were the engineers who laid the first Atlantic Cable from the steamship The Great Eastern. Daniel became member of Parliment. |
|
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| AUGUST 24 - DEATHS | |
| Elisabeth Kubler-Ross | |
(source) |
 Died
24 Aug 2004 (born 8 Jul 1926)
Swiss-American psychiatrist who was a leading authority on the psychology of dying. She is best-known for twelve books, beginning with On Death and Dying (1969), in which she proposed that the terminally ill go through five stages in their attitude. These are denial, anger, bargaining, depression and, perhaps, acceptance. The book offers strategies for caregivers. The work grew from a seminar she founded at the Billings Hospital of the University of Chicago where dying patients talked about their thoughts upon the approach of death. The best-selling success of the book led her into a career of clinical practice to the treatment of dying patients of all ages. Her lectures changed institutional attitudes towards the terminally ill.«  On
Death and Dying, by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross. |
| Louis Essen | |
(source) |
Died
24 Aug 1997 (born 6 Sep 1908)
English physicist who invented the quartz crystal ring clock and the first practical atomic clock. These devices were capable of measuring time more accurately than any previous clocks. He built a cesium-beam atomic clock, a device that ultimately changed the way time is measured. Each chemical element and compound absorbs and emits electromagnetic radiation at its own characteristic frequencies. These resonances are inherently stable over time and space. The cesium atom's natural frequency was formally recognized as the new international unit of time in 1967: the second was defined as exactly 9,192,631,770 oscillations or cycles of the cesium atom's resonant frequency, replacing the old second defined in terms of the Earth's motion. Splitting
the Second: the Story of Atomic Time, by Tony Jones. |
| Harold Masursky | |
(source) |
Died
24 Aug 1990 (born 23 Dec 1923)
American geologist and senior scientist at the U.S. Geological Survey's astrogeology branch supporting space exploration. Starting in the mid 1960s, he helped analyze the photographs from the Ranger, Lunar Orbiter, and Surveyor lunar missions. In mapping the moon, suitable landing spots were being sought for the unmanned Surveyor 5 spacecraft (1967) and the manned Apollo landings (1969-72). Masursky headed the group that interpreted television transmissions from Martian satellite Mariner 9 (1971), producing maps to plan the landing of unmanned Viking spacecraft on Mars (1976). He analyzed data on the geological origins and evolution of the planets. He collaborated in foreign projects such as the Soviet Venus probes.« |
| Giorgio Abetti | |
(source) |
Died
24 Aug 1982 (born 5 Oct 1882)
Italian astronomer known for his studies of the sun at the University of Padua where was director at the Arcetri Observatory (1921-52), taking over from his father who also held the post (1894-1921). In 1913, Giorgio Abetti took part, as a geodetic and geophysical astronomer, in the De Filippi expedition in Karakorum, Himalaya and Turkestan. He went on expeditions to observe eclipses of the sun, including one to Siberia to observe the total eclipse on 19 Jun 1936 and in 1952 to Sudan. With the advice of George Hale, he built a solar tower at the observatory (opened 1925). He wrote a popular text on the sun, a handbook of astrophysics (1936) and a popular history of astronomy (1963). |
| Dame Kathleen Kenyon | |
| Died
24 Aug 1978 (born 5 Jan 1906)
Dame Kathleen Mary Kenyon was an English archaeologist who excavated Jericho to its Stone Age foundation and showed it to be the oldest known continuously occupied human settlement. |
|
| Carl Blegen | |
(source) |
Died
24 Aug 1971 (born 27 Jan 1887)
Carl William Blegen was an archaeologist who unearthed evidence that supported and dated the sack of Troy recorded in Homer's Iliad. Storage jars, skeletons and ash piles (which he interpreted as evidence of the city's fiery destruction) reinforced his conviction. He also discovered, in 1939, clay tablets dating from about 1250 BC. At the fabled palace of King Nestor, a major figure in the Trojan War, nearly 1,100 clay tablet records of palace transactions were found there over 15 years. These were inscribed with the earliest known examples of European writing, enabling cryptographers to find the key by which the ancient tablets could be decoded, proving the existence of a Greek civilization where none was formerly thought to exist.« Troy
and The Trojans, by Carl W Blegen.. |
| Paul Gottlieb Nipkow | |
| Died
24 Aug 1940 (born 22 Aug 1860)
German engineer who discovered television's scanning principle, in which the light intensities of small portions of an image are successively analyzed and transmitted. Nipkow's invention in 1884 of a rotating disk (Nipkow disk) with one or more spirals of apertures that passed successively across the picture made a mechanical television system... |
|
| Anna Botsford Comstock | |
| Died
24 Aug 1930 (born 1 Sep 1854)
(née Anna Botsford) American illustrator, writer, and educator remembered for her work in nature study. |
|
| Jan Ernst Matzeliger | |
| Died
24 Aug 1889 (born 15 Sep 1852 )
Dutch Guianian-American inventor, best known for his shoe-lasting machine that mechanically shaped the upper portions of shoes. He settled in Lynn, Massachussetts, at about age 25, where he became interested in lasting shoes by machines. Over a period of six months, he made a wooden model and received a patent for his invention on 20 Mar 1883. Within two years, the machine quickly replaced hand methods in Lynn. He continued to develop shoe-manufacturing machinery. |
|
| Rudolf Clausius | |
(EB) |
Died
24 Aug 1888 (born 2 Jan 1822 )
Rudolf (Julius Emanuel) Clausius was a German mathematical physicist who formulated the second law of thermodynamics and is credited with making thermodynamics a science. Essentially a theoretical physicist, he published his work in thermodynamics in 1865 wherein he stated the First and Second laws of thermodynamics in the following form: (1) The energy of the universe is constant. (2) The entropy of the universe tends to a maximum. In all Clausius wrote eight important papers on the topic. He restated Sadi Carnot's principle of the efficiency of heat engines. The -Clapeyron equation expresses the relation between the pressure and temperature at which two phases of a substance are in equilibrium. |
| Pierre Berthier | |
(source) |
Died
24 Aug 1861 (born 3 Jul 1782)
French mineralogist and mining engineer who discovered bauxite (aluminium ore) on 23 Mar 1821 near the village Les Baux de Provence in southern France. On 24 May 1806, he joined the central laboratory at the Board of Mines. From 1816, he was chief of the laboratory at the École des Mines, and professor of assaying. Berthier analyzed kaolin along with dozens of other minerals and ores. He sought out phosphate deposits valuable for agriculture. He published a treatise (1943) of practical analytical procedures that were widely used by other mineralogists. In another field, Berthier noticed - before Mitscherlich - that isomorphism occurred whereby chemically different substances can have the same crystalline form and even co-crystallise.«  |
| Benjamin Wright | |
(source) |
Died
24 Aug 1842 (born 10 Oct 1770)
American engineer who directed the construction of the Erie Canal. A one-time judge, he helped survey the Erie Canal route. When the Erie Canal was finally funded in 1817, Wright was selected as one of the three engineers to design and build it, then named chief engineer. Wright made the Erie Canal project a school of engineering. Until mid-century, almost every civil engineer in the U.S. had trained with, or been trained by someone who had worked under, Wright on the Erie Canal. Because he trained so many engineers on that project, Wright has been called the "father of American civil engineering." He also engaged in the design and construction at the outset of the first railroads. He was the first Chief Engineer of the Erie Railroad. |
| Sadi Carnot | |
Age 17 (source) |
Died
24 Aug 1832 (born 1 Jun 1796)
(Nicholas Léonard) Sadi Carnot was a French physicist. He became a captain of engineers in the army, and spent much of his life investigating the design of steam engines. His book Reflections on the Motive Power of Heat (1824) contained a theorem which says that a maximum efficiency of heat engine can be obtained by a reversible engine, and that efficiency depends only on the temperatures of the hot and the cool sources of the engine. This theorem played an essential role for the subsequent development of thermodynamics. It was written to promote the construction of steam engines and other heat engines in France, whose industrial development was lagging behind England's. Reflections
on the Motive Power of Fire, by Sadi Carnot. |
| Thomas Digges | |
| Died
24 Aug 1595 (born 1546?)
English astronomer and mathematician who (with his father, Leonard) was a pioneer in the use of the telescope. He was the leader of the English Copernicans. His observations of the new star of 1572, published in his Alae seu scalae mathematicae (1573) were second only to Tycho Brahe in accuracy. He used his observations of the supernova to justify the heliocentric system. In mathematics, he wrote on platonic and archimedian solids. |
|
| Pliny The Elder | |
| Died
24 Aug 79 A.D. (born 23 A.D.)
Roman savant and author of the celebrated Natural History, in 37 volumes an encyclopaedic work of very uneven accuracy that was nonetheless an authority on scientific matters up to the Middle Ages. He prepared this as a digest of two thousand ancient books written by nearly five hundred writers. He was mostly undiscriminating regarding the accuracy of the content. Though he rejected, for example, the possibility of immortality, he also rejected Pytheas' valid theory that the moon was responsible for tides. Correctly, he accepted the spherical form of the Earth. As another example, he included various theories on the origin of amber, one correct among others fanciful and wrong. The book dealt in subjects ranging from astronomy, geography, and zoology. He died in the eruption of Vesuvius, too anxious to witness the event to retreat from the ashes and toxic gases. Natural
History: A Selection, by Pliny the Elder (translated
by John F. Healey). |
|
| AUGUST 24 - EVENTS | |
| Minor planet Pluto | |
(source) |
In 2006, Pluto was declassified as a planet by the International Astronomical
Union (IAU) following a vote at their 10-day General Assembly in Prague.
It was given status instead as a "dwarf planet," on account of its small
size - smaller than the Moon - and highly elliptical, tilted orbit which
overlaps with that of Neptune. However, only 424 of 2,700 astronomers who
remained
in Prague for the last day of the meeting took part. Those who voted were
about only 4% of the world's 10,000 astronomers. The decision was criticized,
and a petition was started. The vote established other dwarf planets: Ceres
(a small body between Mars and Jupiter) and 2003 UB313 (a small body beyond
Pluto, where dozens more potential dwarf planets exist).« |
| Largest prime number | |
|
In 1997, Gordon Spence discovered the largest known prime number,
2^2976221 - 1, the 36th known Mersenne prime number. It took his 100-MHz
Pentium PC fifteen days to prove it. At 895,932 digits in length, if printed
out the number would stretch for 1.4 miles or if spoken 8 hours a day would
take 28 days to complete. |
|
| Voyager 2 | |
|
In 1989, the U.S. space probe Voyager 2 ended the final planetary
fly-by of its mission, leaving Neptune behind after taking photgraphs showing
three complete rings and six previously unknown moons. It had also collected
data showing that Neptune's atmosphere was stormy, and had a notable magnetic
field oriented at an angle to its axis of rotation. The surface features
of Triton, its largest moon, were also photographed.*«. |
|
| French H-bomb | |
|
In 1968, France exploded
a hydrogen bomb over a South Pacific testing ground and became the world's
fifth thermonuclear power. The Canopus test used a 3 tonne device suspended
at an altitude of 600 m from a balloon over Fangataufa
Atoll, 41 km south east of Moruroa. The project was led by a young
physicist, Roger Dautry.This was France's largest nuclear device. It produced
a yield of 2.6 megatons, and used a lithium-6 deuteride secondary jacketed
with highly enriched uranium. The resulting contamination of the atoll
kept it off limits to humans for six years, after which France resumed
their nuclear program there with underground tests. |
|
| Cosmonauts on Time cover | |
|
In 1962, Russian cosmonauts Andian Nikolayev and Pavel Popvich (who flew
the first 2-man mission in space) appeared on the cover of Time
Magazine. |
|
| Amelia Earhart record | |
 |
In 1932, Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly non-stop across the
United States, traveling from Los Angeles to Newark, N.J., in just over
19 hours. |
| Panama Canal | |
(source) |
In 1909, workers poured the first concrete for the Panama Canal at a lock
site at Gatun. Finishing all the locks
there took nearly four years. A dam holds back the artificial Gatun Lake
to supply water for the locks. The Gatun gate was closed on 27 Jun 1913,
allowing Gatun Lake to fill to its planned depth. A few months later, on
26 Sep 1913, the tugboat Gatun made a trial run through the Gatun
Locks. The control panel was not ready for the event, so the locks were
operated manually. Everything worked perfectly. The Panama Canal crosses
the Isthmus of Panama, joining the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Built 1904-14,
it is only half the length of the Suez Canal. Unlike the Suez, the Panama
Canal uses locks to raise and lower ships.
Path
Between The Seas : The Creation of the Panama Canal,
by David McCullough. |
| First vertical flight | |
|
In 1907, the Bréguet-Richet Gyroplane No. 1 made what is generally
accepted
as the first vertical flight, hovering about 2 feet (0.6 meters) off the
ground for one minute, powered by a 45 h.p. engine. It was built by the
brothers Louis and Jacques Bréguet with assistance from Professor
Charles Richet. It lacked stability, any control system, and it needed
four men to steady it while it hovered, so it did not represent a practical
helicopter. (Some sources give the date as 29 Sep 1907.) |
|
| Waffle iron patented | |
|
In 1869, the first U.S. patent for a waffle iron was issued to Cornelius
Swarthout of Troy, N.Y. (No. 94,093). |
|
| Potato chips | |
|
In 1853, it has been claimed that the first potato chips were prepared
by Chef George Crum, an American Indian, at Moon's Lake House in Saratoga
Springs, NY. When railroad magnate Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt was dining
there, he sent his fried potatoes back to the kitchen, complaining they
were "too thick." The chef, George Crum retaliated by slicing paper thin
strips of potatoes and frying them to a crisp. But Vanderbilt loved these
"Saratoga Chips" and they became an instant success.*
(Note: webmaster seeks a reliable reference for the particular date, but
year 1853 is given by several sources. The story is too good not to include
somewhere, even if the day is not verified!) |
|
| Vesuvius eruption | |
|
In 79, A.D., the long-dormant Mount Vesuvius erupted in Italy, burying
the Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum in volcanic ash. An estimated
20,000 people died. When discovered, the sites became astonishing archaeological
time capsules. |
|
