| SEPTEMBER 2 - BIRTHS | |
| Christa McAuliffe | |
(NASA) |
 Born 2
Sep 1948; died 28 Jan 1986.
Astronaut, first teacher in space, who died on the Challenger Space Shuttle when 73 seconds into its 10th launch, Challenger (STS-51L) exploded in midair, killing its crew of seven. Space shuttle flights were suspended until 1988. An independent U.S. commission blamed the disaster on unusually cold temperatures that morning and the failure of the O-rings, a set of gaskets in the rocket boosters. |
| C. Wilson Markle Jr. | |
 |
Born 2
Sep 1938
Canadian engineer who invented the film colorization process (1983) and head of Colorization Inc., a Toronto-based subsidiary of Hal Roach Studios. His method used computers to assign predetermined colours to shades of gray in each scene. An application for the first patent on the process was made in Canada on on 11 Jul 1983 and issued 1 Dec 1987 (No. 4,710,805). |
| René Frédéric Thom | |
(source) |
Born 2
Sep 1923
French mathematician who was awarded the Fields Medal in 1958 for his work in topology, in particular on characteristic classes, cobordism theory and the Thom transversality theorem. Thom is also known for his later work developing the catastrophe theory (1972), a mathematical treatment of continuous action producing a discontinuous result. Thom's theory is an attempt to describe, in a way that is impossible using differential calculus, those situations in which gradually changing forces lead to so-called catastrophes, or abrupt changes. The theory has widespread application in the physical and biological sciences and in the social sciences, but eventually fell from favour. |
| Nikolay Aleksandrovich Kozyrev | |
Alphonsus (source) |
Born 2
Sep 1908
Russian astronomer who claimed to have discovered volcano-like activity on the Moon. His sightings of apparent gaseous emissions from the lunar surface challenged the long-held theory that the Moon is a dead and inert celestial body. For years, amateur astronomers have reported seeing strange colors on the moon, especially in the Alphonsus and Aristarchus regions. These types of observations gained credibility when on 13 Nov 1958, Kozyrev saw a brightening at the central peak in the crater Alphonsus. He photographed its spectrum, which showed carbon-vapor emissions. |
| Ivan Matveyevich Vinogradov | |
(source) |
Born 2
Sep 1891
Soviet mathematician known for his contributions to the analytical theory of numbers, including a partial solution of the Goldbach conjecture proving that every sufficiently large odd integer can be expressed as the sum of three odd primes. He described his methods in his most celebrated piece of work Some Theorems Concerning the Theory of Prime Numbers (1937). [EB Online gives born 2 Sep 1891; MacTutor gives 14 Sep 1891, died: 20 March 1983] |
| (René-)Maurice Fréchet | |
(source) |
Born 2
Sep 1878; died 4 June 1973.
René-Maurice Fréchet was a French mathematician known chiefly for his contribution to real analysis. He is credited with being the founder of the theory of abstract spaces, which generalized the traditional mathematical definition of space as a locus for the comparison of figures; in Fréchet's terms, space is defined as a set of points and the set of relations. In his dissertation of 1906, he investigated functionals on a metric space and formulated the abstract notion of compactness. In 1907, he discovered an integral representation theorem for functionals on the space of quadratic Lebesgue integrable functions. He also made important contributions to statistics, probability and calculus. |
| Frederick Soddy | |
(source) |
Born 2
Sep 1877; died 22 Sep 1956.
English chemist and physicist who received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1921 for investigating radioactive substances. He suggested that different elements produced in different radioactive transformations were capable of occupying the same place on the Periodic Table, and on 18 Feb 1913 he named such species "isotopes" from Greek words meaning "same place." He is credited, along with others, with the discovery of the element protactinium in 1917. |
| Paul Vieille | |
(source) |
Born 2
Sep 1854; died 14 Jan 1934.
French scientist, known for his invention of smokeless powder. Military commanders since the Napoleonic Wars had problems giving orders on a battlefield swathed in thick smoke from the gunpowder used by the guns. In 1886 Paul Vieille invented a smokeless gunpowder called Poudre B. Made from gelatinized nitrocellulose mixed with ether and alcohol, it was passed through rollers to form thin sheets, which were cut with a guillotine to flakes of the desired size. It revolutionized the effectiveness of small guns and rifles.It was much more powerful than gun powder, giving an accurate rifle range of up to 1000 yards. |
| Friedrich Wilhelm Ostwald | |
(source) |
Born 2
Sep 1853; died 4 Apr 1932.
German chemist who almost single-handedly organized physical chemistry into a nearly independent branch of chemistry. He won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1909 for his work on catalysis, chemical equilibrium, and reaction velocities. |
| Ernst Curtius | |
(source) |
Born 2
Sep 1814; died 1896.
Ernst Curtius was a German archaeologist and historian who directed the excavation of Olympia from 1875-1881, the most opulent and sacred religious shrine of ancient Greece and site of the original Olympic Games (from 776 B.C. to 393 A.D.). The excavations cleared the whole of the sacred precinct and some buildings that lay outside it. The position of the stadium was located by exploratory trenches. Thus the plan of a great Greek sanctuary was revealed for the first time. The excavation also unearthed the only major surviving sculpture by Praxiteles, "Hermes Carrying the young Dionysus" found in the cella of the temple in 1877, now one of the most prized possessions of the Olympia Museum. |
| Hiram Percy Maxim | |
| Born 2
Sep 1869; died 17 Feb 1936.
American inventor and manufacturer known especially for the "Maxim silencer" gun attachment. |
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| SEPTEMBER 2 - DEATHS | |
| Christiaan Barnard | |
(source) |
 Died
2 Sep 2001 (born 8 Nov 1922)
Christiaan (Neethling) Barnard was the South African surgeon who performed the first human heart transplant operation. In a five-hour operation on 3 Dec 1967, Barnard successfully replaced the diseased heart of Louis Washkansky (55) with a healthy heart from Denise Darvall, a woman in her mid-20s with the same blood type, who died in hospital after an automobile accident. Barnard knew it was a surgical success when he first applied electrodes and the heart resumed beating. Washkansky died 18 days later of double pneumonia as a result of his suppressed immune system. It was a milestone, however, in a new field of life-extending surgery. Rheumatoid arthritis and advancing stiffness in his hands forced his retirement from surgery in 1983. |
| Bjorn Kjellstrom | |
(source) |
Died
2 Sep 1995 (born 9 Sep 1910)
Inventor of the Silva compass which featured a rotating compass dial, and a transparent protractor base plate. As founder of Silva, Inc. in North America, Kjellstrom helped introduce the orienteering sport to the U.S. in the1940s, in part as a way to promote his product. He wrote Be Expert with Map and Compass, considered to be the "bible of orienteering." |
| Sir William Rowan Hamilton | |
(source) |
Died
2 Sep 1865 (born 4 Aug 1805)
Irish mathematician in the fields of optics, geometrics, and classical mechanics. By age 12, Hamilton had already learned fourteen languages when he met the American, Zerah Colburn, who could perform amazing mental arithmetical feats, and they joined in competitions. It appears that losing to Colburn sparked Hamilton's interest in mathematics. At 15, he began studied the works of LaPlace and Newton so by age 17 had become the greatest living mathematician. He contributed to the development of optics, dynamics, and algebra. His invention of the calculus of quaternions enabled a three-dimensional algebra or geometry which provided a basis for the later development of quantum mechanics.  Sir
William Rowan Hamilton, by Thomas L. Hankins. |
| William Henry | |
| Died
2 Sep 1836 (born 12 Dec 1775)
English physician and chemist, who proposed (1803) what is now called Henry's law, which states that the amount of a gas absorbed by a liquid is in proportion to the pressure of the gas above the liquid, provided that no chemical action occurs. |
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| Thomas Telford | |
(source) |
Died
2 Sep 1834 (born 9 Aug 1757)
Scottish engineer, who was a road, bridge and canal builder. He began as a stonemason apprentice at age 14, but then taught himself architecture and in 1787 became surveyor of public works for Shropshire. He planned the Ellesmere (1793-1805) and Caledonian (1803-23) canals, the road from London to Holyhead, with the Menai Suspension Bridge (1819-1826), and Katherine's Docks in London (1824-1828). In all, he built over 1000 miles of road and 1200 bridges, as well as aquaducts, harbours, docks, and other buildings. He died in London. |
| Franz Xaver von Zach | |
(source) |
Died
2 Sep 1832 (born 4 June 1754)
(baron) German-Hungarian astronomer patronized by Duke Ernst of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg. Director of observatory near Gotha (1787-1806). There he organized in 1798 the first congress of astronomers with Josef Lalande (1732-1807) as celebrated guest. In last years of the 18th century he formed a group of 24 astronomers chosen from throughout Europe to track down a "missing" planet between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, where they instead discovered the asteroids. His greatest contribution was in the organizational area, for he maintained an enormous correspondence with all the astronomers of his time, and edited 28 volumes of Monatliche Korrespondenz zur Beforderung der Erd- und Himmelskunde (1800-13). |
In 1993, the United States and Russia formally ended decades of competition
in space by agreeing to a joint venture to build a space station.
