| SEPTEMBER 29 - BIRTHS | |
| James Watson Cronin | |
(source) |
 Born 29
Sep 1931
American particle physicist, who shared (with Val Logsdon Fitch) the 1980 Nobel Prize for Physics for "the discovery of violations of fundamental symmetry principles in the decay of neutral K-mesons." Their experiment proved that a reaction run in reverse does not follow the path of the original reaction, which implied that time has an effect on subatomic-particle interactions. Thus the experiment demonstrated a break in particle-antiparticle symmetry for certain reactions of subatomic particles.«  Nobel
Laureates and Twentieth-Century Physics, by Mauro Dardo. |
| Paul MacCready | |
(source) |
Born 29
Sep 1925; died 28 Aug 2007.
Paul Beattie MacCready was an American engineer who invented not only the first human-powered flying machines, but also the first solar-powered aircraft to make sustained flights. On 23 Aug 1977, the pedal-powered aircraft, the Gossamer Condor successfully flew a 1.15 mile figure-8 course to demonstrate sustained, maneuverable manpowered flight, for which he won the £50,000 ($95,000) Kremer Prize. MacCready designed the Condor with Dr. Peter Lissamen. Its frame was made of thin aluminum tubes, covered with mylar plastic supported with stainless steel wire. In 1979, the Gossamer Albatross won the second Kremer Prize for making a flight across the English Channel.« More
With Less: Paul McReady and the Dream of Efficient Flight,
by Paul Ciotti. |
| John H(eyburn) Gibbon | |
(source) |
Born 29
Sep 1903; died 5 Feb 1973.
American surgeon who invented the heart-lung machine. He was prompted when in 1930, as a Harvard research fellow in surgery, he saw a patient undergoing heart-lung surgery suffocate on his own blood. On 10 May 1935, he had built his first external pump, and was able to maintain the cardiac and respiratory functions of a cat. In the late 1940's, Gibbon received financial and technical assistance from the IBM Corporation to develop an oxygenator with sufficient capacity for a human. By 6 May 1953, with his improved machine he was able to perform the first successful open-heart operation - the repair of an atrial septal defect on 18-yr-old Cecelia Bavolek - maintaining the patient's heart and lung functions on the machine for 26 minutes.« A
Dream of the Heart: The Life of John H. Gibbon, Jr. Father of the Heart-Lung
Machine, by Harris B. Shumacker. |
| Enrico Fermi | |
 |
Born 29
Sep 1901; died 29 Nov 1954
Italian-born American physicist who was one of the chief architects of the nuclear age. He developed the mathematical statistics required to clarify a large class of subatomic phenomena, discovered neutron-induced radioactivity, and directed the first controlled chain reaction involving nuclear fission. Enrico
Fermi, Physicist, by Emilio Segre. |
| Trofim Denisovich Lysenko | |
1938 (source) |
Born 29
Sep 1898; died 20 Nov 1976.
Soviet biologist and agronomist who not only believed the Mendelian theory of heredity to be wrong, but with Stalin's support for two decades actively obstructed the course of Soviet biology. He caused the imprisonment and death of many of the country's eminent biologists. He followed I. V. Michurin's fanciful idea that plants could be forced to adapt to any environmental conditions, for example converting summer wheat to winter wheat by storing the seeds in ice. As director of the Institute of Genetics of the Soviet Academy of Sciences (1940-65) his interference contributed to the disastrous decline of Soviet agriculture. After Stalin's death in 1956, he lost support and eventually in 1965 was exiled to an experimental farm.« The
Rise and Fall of T.D. Lysenko, by Zhores A Medvedev. |
| Hermann M. Biggs | |
(source) |
Born 29
Sep 1859; died 28 June 1923.
Hermann Michael Biggs was an American physician who pioneered the use of bacteriological studies in the field of public health for the prevention and control of contagious diseases. From 1884 he learnt about current advances in bacteriology by visiting Europe. In 1892, he was appointed the first director of a new Division of Pathology, Bacteriology and Disinfection within the New York City Department of Health - the first municipal bacteriological laboratory in the U.S. - to address the scare of cholera from immigrants arriving at the harbour. He became general medical officer of New York City (1901) and then commissioner of health for the state of New York (1914). The measures he developed for public health spread through the nation. The
Sanitarians: A History of American Public Health, by
John Duffy |
| Charles-François Sturm | |
|
(source) |
Born 29
Sep 1803; died 18 Dec 1855
French mathematician whose work resulted in Sturm's theorem, an important contribution to the theory of equations. With Swiss engineer Daniel Colladon, he made the first accurate determination of the velocity of sound in water (1826) and a year later wrote a prizewinning essay on compressible fluids. Since the time of René Descartes, a problem had existed of finding the number of solutions of a given second-order differential equation within a given range of the variable. Sturm provided a complete solution to the problem with his theorem which first appeared in Mémoire sur la résolution des équations numériques (1829; "Treatise on Numerical Equations"). Those principles have been applied in the development of quantum mechanics, as in the solution of the Schrödinger equation and its boundary values. |
|
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| SEPTEMBER 29 - DEATHS | |
| Theron G. Randolph | |
 Died
29 Sep 1995 (born 1906?)
U.S. pioneering allergist who founded the field of environmental medicine and characterized environmental illness as one that included such symptoms as chronic headache, fatigue, and mental depression. |
|
| Leonard Colebrook | |
| Died
29 Sep 1967 (born 2 Mar 1883)
English medical researcher who introduced the use of Prontosil, the first sulfonamide drug, as a cure for puerperal, or childbed, fever, a condition resulting from infection after childbirth or abortion. |
|
| L. L. Thurstone | |
| Died
29 Sep 1955 (born 29 May 1887)
Louis Leon Thurstone was an American psychologist who was instrumental in the development of psychometrics, the science that measures mental functions, and who developed statistical techniques for multiple-factor analysis of performance on psychological tests. |
|
| Édouard Claparède | |
| Died
29 Sep 1940 (born 24 Mar 1873)
Swiss psychologist who conducted exploratory research in the fields of child psychology, educational psychology, concept formation, problem solving, and sleep. One of the most influential European exponents of the functionalist school of psychology, he is particularly remembered for his formulation of the law of momentary interest. |
|
| Willem Einthoven | |
|
(source) |
Died
29 Sep 1927 (born 21 May 1860)
Dutch physiologist who introduced a new era in the diagnosis and treatment of diseases of the heart with his invention of the electrocardiograph. He received the 1924 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for for his discovery of the mechanism of the electrocardiogram. His device is an essential clinical instrument for displaying the electrical properties of the heart. It became especially useful to diagnose of heart disease.« Willem
Einthoven: Father of Electrocardiography: Life and Work...,
by H.A. Snellen. |
| Rudolf Diesel | |
(source) |
Died
29 Sep 1913 (born 18 Mar 1858)
Rudolf (Christian Karl) Diesel was a German thermal engineer who invented the internal-combustion engine that bears his name. After studying the four-stroke internal combustion engines developed by Nikolaus Otto, Diesel conceived of an engine that would approach the thermodynamic limit established by Sadi Carnot in 1824. If the fuel in a cylinder could be expanded at constant pressure, it could get closer to Carnot's limit. He patented the concept in 1892, while working at the firm of the refrigeration engineer Carl von Linde in Berlin. He threw himself over the rail of an English Channel steamer in 1913 after having lost control over his invention and after receiving a great deal of criticism in the German engineering journals for his theories. |
| Chapin Aaron Harris | |
| Died
29 Sep 1860 (born 6 May 1806)
American dentist who was one of the founders of dentistry as a profession. He began as a partner in his brother's medical practice (1827). The next year, he turned to dentistry fulltime until 1835, during which time he moved to Baltimore and began a prodigious output of scientific articles and several books, including his most influential text, The Dental Art: A Practical Treatise on Dental Surgery (1839). He was a cofounder of the first dental school in the world, Baltimore College of Dental Surgery (1840), and cofounder of the first dental journal in the world, the American Journal of Dental Science (1849), serving as its editor for over 20 years. He is credited for placing dental education, literature, and organization on a permanent basis. |
|
| SEPTEMBER 29 - EVENTS | |
| Space Shuttle | |
In 1988, the space shuttle Discovery blasted off from Cape Canaveral,
Fla., marking America's return to manned space flight following the Challenger
disaster. |
|
| CERN | |
In 1954, the CERN convention was ratified by the 12 founding Member States,
which, as stated by CERN's Director General Robert Aymar, "gave the new
organization a mission to provide first class facilities, to coordinate
fundamental research in particle physics, and to help reunite the countries
of Europe after two world wars." Thus, the Centre Européenne de
Recherche Nucléaire was officially founded.
In 1952, the third session of the provisional Council chose Geneva, Switzerland,
to be the home of the new CERN Laboratory. Official ground-breaking took
place at the Meyrin site on 17
May 1954.« 
History
of CERN, vol I, by A. Hermann, et al. |
|
| Transcontinental radio telephone | |
|
In 1915, a transcontinental radio telephone demonstration was given in
New York City. Speech was transmitted via Arlington, Va. to Mare Island
at San Francisco, Cal. (2,500 miles). The same night, speech was also transmitted
to Honolulu. |
|
| Edison patent | |
|
In 1914, a patent for a "Phonograph-Record" was granted to Thomas A. Edison
(U.S. No. 1111999). |
|
| Edison patent | |
|
In 1891, Thomas A. Edison was issued U.S. patent No. 460122 for a "Process
of and Apparatus for Generating Electricity" and No. 460123 for a "Phonogram-Blank
Carrier." |
|
