| SEPTEMBER 26 - BIRTHS | |
| Harrison Brown | |
 |
 Born 26
Sep 1917; died 8 Dec 1986.
Harrison (Scott) Brown was an American geochemist known for his role in isolating plutonium for its use in the first atomic bombs and for his studies regarding meteorites and the Earth's origin. He was one of 67 concerned Manhattan Project scientists at Oak Ridge to sign a July 1945 petition to the President, which said, in part, "...Therefore we recommend that before this weapon be used without restriction in the present conflict, its powers should be adequately described and demonstrated, and the Japanese nation should be given the opportunity to consider the consequences of further refusal to surrender." His later studies included mass spectroscopy, thermal diffusion, fluorine and plutonium chemistry, geochemistry and planetary structure. |
| Sir Barnes Wallis | |
At his drawing board. (source) |
Born 26
Sep 1887; died 30 Oct 1979.
Sir Barnes (Neville) Wallis was an English aeronautical designer and military engineer whose famous 9000-lb bouncing "dambuster" bombs of WW II destroyed the German Möhne and Eder dams on 16 May 1943. He designed the R100 airship, and the Vickers Wellesley and Wellington bombers. The specially-formed RAF 617 Squadron precisely delivered his innovative cylindrical bombs which were released from low altitude, rotating backwards at high speed that caused them to skip along the surface of the water, right up to the base of the dam. He later designed the 5-ton Tallboy and 10-ton Grand Slam earthquake bombs (which used on many enemy targets in the later years of the war). Postwar, he developed ideas for swing-wing aircraft.«  The
Dam Busters, by Paul Brickhill. |
| A.V. Hill | |
(source) |
Born 26
Sep 1886; died 1977.
Archibald Vivian Hill was a British physiologist and biophysicist who received (with Otto Meyerhof) the 1922 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for discoveries concerning the production of heat in muscles, research which helped establish the origin of muscular force in the breakdown of carbohydrates with formation of lactic acid in the muscle. Hill's early experiments researched the effects of electrical stimulation on nerve function, the mechanical efficiency of muscle, energy processes in muscle during recovery, the interaction between oxygen and hemoglobin, and quantitative aspects of drug kinetics on muscle. Hill combined aspects of physics and biology, a discipline which he championed as biophysics. |
| Edward Bausch | |
(source) |
Born 26
Sep 1854
Inventor and developer of microscopes and optical instruments. In business, he became chairman Bausch & Lomb Optical Co. His father, John J. Bausch (1830-1926), was born in Germany, emigrated to America in 1849, and started a spectacle making business (the Vulcanite Optical Instrument Co.) with German immigrant Henry Lomb (1828-1908). By 1866, their company was making a simple microscope. The company name was changed to Bausch & Lomb Optical Co. in 1874, the year they produced their first compound microscope. Edward, with brothers William, and Henry all helped in the design and production of a full product line of microscopes. Edward held a number of patents related to the design of microscopes. |
| Paul Gervais | |
| Born 26
Sep 1816; died 1879.
(François-Louis-) Paul Gervais was a paleontologist and zoologist who succeeded Georges Cuvier and Henri de Blainville as principal French contributor to vertebrate paleontology. |
|
| Christopher Hansteen | |
(source) |
Born 26
Sep 1784; died 15 Apr 1873.
Norwegian astronomer and physicist noted for his research in geomagnetism. In 1701 Halley had already published a map of magnetic declinations, and the subject was studied by Humboldt, de Borda, and Gay-Lussac, among others. Hansteen collected available data and also mounted an expedition to Siberia, where he took many measurements for an atlas of magnetic strength and declination. |
| Joseph-Louis Proust | |
(source) |
Born 26
Sep 1754; died 5 Jul 1826.
French chemist who proved (1808) that the relative quantities of any given pure chemical compound's constituent elements remain invariant, regardless of the compound's source, and thus provided crucial evidence in support of John Dalton's "law of definite proportions," which holds that elements in any compound are present in fixed proportion to each other. |
| Nehemiah Grew | |
Baptised
26 Sep 1641; died 25 Mar 1712
English botanist whose naked-eye and one of the early practitioners of microscopic observations made major advances in knowledge of plant anatomy and plant morphology. He published his work in The Anatomy of Plants (1682). He took a particular interest in determining the physiological nature of the tissues. He observed the pourous structure of plant tissue, suggested that flowers have a sexual function, and was first to use the term "comparative anatomy." His significant contibutions rank Grew as one of the founders of the scientific study of plant anatomy.« |
|
| SEPTEMBER 26 - DEATHS | |
| Nils Bohlin | |
(source) |
 
Died 26 Sep 2002 (born 17 July 1920)
Swedish engineer who invented the familiar three-point lap and shoulder seatbelt which is considered one of the most important innovations in automobile safety. Bohlin left the aircraft industry, where he worked on jet ejector seats, including restraints, and joined AB Volvo in 1958 as safety engineer, where he invented and patented this device. In Aug 1959, Volvo was the first car manufacturer to introduce the three-point seat belt in their cars. They made this design freely available to other car manufacturers to save more lives. Bohlin holds several patents related to automotive and aviation design. After retiring form Volvo in 1985, he continued to give lectures and present papers relating to automotive restraint issues.« [Image right: (source)] |
| Sir Geoffrey Wilkinson | |
(source) |
Died
26 Sep 1996 (born 14 Jul 1921)
British chemist, joint recipient with Ernst Fischer of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1973 for "for their pioneering work, performed independently, on the chemistry of the organometallic, so called sandwich compounds." |
| Paul Kollsman | |
(source) |
Died 26 Sep 1982 (born 22 Feb 1900)
German-American engineer who invented the world’s first accurate barometric altimeter (1928) that became vital to aviation safety. The original barometric altimeter was a simple instrument which displayed altitude by sensing barometric pressure, within an accuracy of 20 feet. On 24 Sep 1929, Jimmy Doolittle’s historic "blind flight" proved that the Kollsman altimeter made navigation possible "flying on the gauges." The guage was widely known as the “Kollsman Window” because it included a window to dial in a manual setting to calibrate the barometric pressure at the current sea-level. The invention played a major role in establishing routine scheduled air service in the U.S. and around the world.« |
| Hans Cloos | |
(source) |
Died 26 Sep 1951 (born 8 Nov 1885)
German geologist who was a pioneer in the study of granite tectonics (the deformation of crystalline rocks) and in model studies of rock deformation. He studied the structure and development of the continents and was one of the first investigators to make use of true scale models to investigate the mechanics of faulting. His publications include Der Mechanismus tiefvulkanischer Vorgänge (1921; "The Mechanism of Deep Volcanic Events"). In his book Conversation with the Earth, (1953) he wrote "geology is the music of the earth." [Image right: granite desert mountains] Conversation
with The Earth, by Hans Cloos. |
| Alexander Alexandrovich Friedmann | |
| Died
26 Sep 1925 (born 17 Jun 1888)
Russian mathematician #1125 |
|
| Jesse Lazear | |
(source) |
Died
26 Sep 1900 (born 1866)
Jesse (William) Lazear was an American physician and bacteriologist, who died of yellow fever in Quemados, Cuba, during his own research into the cause of the disease. He graduated from Columbia's medical school, worked at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, and upon an outbreak of yellow fever in Cuba he was appointed an assistant surgeon in the U.S. Army. As a member of the Yellow Fever Commission with Walter Reed, James Carroll and Aristides Agramonte, he was in Cuba early in 1900. Their investigation yielded proof that the disease was borne by mosquitoes. Unfortunately, Lazear was bitten accidentally by an infected mosquito. Five days later, he developed yellow fever and died on the seventh day of his illness. |
| Levi Strauss | |
(source) |
Died
26 Sep 1902 (born 26 Feb 1829)
Inventor and manufacturer of jeans, Levi Strauss was one of the best-known beneficiaries of California's gold rush economic boom. He was born in Bavaria and trained as a tailor. One of thousands, he travelled to San Francisco in 1850, hoping to make his fortune. His original plan was to manufacture tents and wagon covers, but instead found a market using the stout canvas he had brought with him to make very durable pants for the Forty-niners. Finding that these pants sold as fast as he could make them, Strauss opened a factory, improved the design by adding copper rivets at the stress points in his pants, and adopted a heavy blue denim material called genes in France, that originated the now familiar name of "jeans". |
| August Möbius | |
(source) |
Died
26 Sep 1868 (born 17 Nov 1790)
August Ferdinand Möbius was a German astronomer, mathematician and author, died in Leipzig. He is best known for his work in analytic geometry and in topology, especially remembered as one of the discoverers of the Möbius strip, which he had discovered in 1858. A Möbius strip is a two-dimensional surface with only one side. It can be constructed in three dimensions as follows. Take a rectangular strip of paper and join the two ends of the strip together so that it has a 180 degree twist. It is now possible to start at a point A on the surface and trace out a path that passes through the point which is apparently on the other side of the surface from A. Although his most famous work is in mathematics, Möbius did publish important work on astronomy. |
| James Ferguson | |
/FergusonJames(1797-1867)Thm.jpg)
(source) |
Died
26 Sep 1867 (born 31 Aug 1797)
Scottish-American astronomer who discovered the first previously unknown asteroid to be detected from North America. He recorded it on 1 Sep 1854 at the U.S. Naval Observatory, where he worked 1848-67. This was the thirty-first of the series and is now known as 31 Euphrosyne, named after one of the Charites in Greek mythology. It is one of the largest of the main belt asteroids, between Mars and Jupiter. He was involved in some of the earliest work in micrometry was done at the old U.S. Naval Observatory at Foggy Bottom in the midst of the Civil War using a 9.6 inch refractor. He also contributed to double star astronomy. Earlier in his life he was a civil engineer, member of the Northwest Boundary Survey, and an assistant in the U.S. Coast Survey. (Note: Another astronomer and instrument maker by the same name of James Ferguson lived in Scotland 1710-1776.)« |
| SEPTEMBER 26 - EVENTS | |
| Biosphere 2 | |
(source) |
In 1991, four men and four women entered the Biosphere
2, an airtight, self-contained structure in Oracle, Ariz.,
where they would live for two years. The 7,200,000-cu-ft sealed glass and
space-frame structure contained 5 biomes, including a 900,000-gallon ocean,
a rain forest, a desert, agricultural areas and a human habitat. It was
built in the late 1980s with $150 million in funding by Texas oil magnate
Edward Bass. Biosphere 2 was designed as replica of Earth's environment
(Biosphere 1). During their stay, the crew experienced various problems.
Limited agricultural productivity restricted their diet. Micro-organisms
in the soil reduced oxygen levels in the atmosphere and added nitrous oxide.
The crew emerged on 26 Sep 1993. Unfortunately, the problems with the project's
results brought scientific disdain.« |
| First new U.S. Interstate Highway paved | |
(source) |
In 1956, the first new concrete road surface to be paved as part of the
U.S. Interstate Highway System following the signing of the Federal-Aid
Highway Act of 1956 was poured in Kansas for an 8-mile, two-lane section
of U.S. 40 which became Interstate 70, a few miles west of Topeka. The
1956 Act established 90% federal funding for the U.S. System of Interstate
and Defense Highways. The first State contract to begin new construction
after the Act, had been issued
earlier - on 2 Aug 1956, in Missouri - whereas the Kansas paving contract
was awarded under the Act, but later in the month, on 31 Aug 1956. However,
construction on the Kansas road had been under way prior to the Act, so
Kansas had a head start, and was the first to complete a project under
the Act. The road was opened on 14 Nov 1956.« [Image:
Sign which reads "This is the First Project in the United States completed
under provisions of the new Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956. Eight Miles
Concrete Pavement on US-40, Interstate Route No. 1. State Highway Commssion
of Kansas."] |
| Portland cement US patent | |
(source) |
In 1871, U.S. patent No. 119,413 for the composition of portland cement
was issued to David Oliver Saylor, of Allentown, Pa. In 1871, Saylor tried
his hand at selecting and mixing different kinds of rock from his quarries
to produce portland cement
at the first US plant
in Coplay, Pa. After initial difficulties, he succeeded with a mixture
of magnesium clay with limestone clay. Samples shown at the 1876 Philadelphia
Centennial Exhibition compared well with the best imported portland cements.
In England, William Aspdin had patented "Portland cement," and coined the
name (1852). The first recorded shipment of portland cement to the US was
in 1868, when European manufacturers began shipping cement as ballast in
tramp steamers at very low freight rates. [Image:
Kilns at Coplay, Pa.] |
| First US doctor's license | |
 |
In 1772, the soon-to-be state of New Jersey passed the first law in the
US to license medical practioners, except those who do not charge for their
services, or whose activity is bleeding patients or pulling teeth. There
is no federal medical licensing law. |
