| FEBRUARY 8 - BIRTHS | |
| Chester F. Carlson | |
(source) |
 Born 8
Feb 1906; died 19 Sep 1968.
Chester Floyd Carlson was an American physicist who invented xerography (22 Oct 1938), an electrostatic dry-copying process that found applications ranging from office copying to reproducing out-of-print books. The process involved sensitizing a photoconductive surface to light by giving it an electrostatic charge Carlson developed it between 1934 and 1938, and initially described it as electrophotography It was immediately protected by Carlson with an impenetrable web of patents, though it was not until 1944 that he was able to obtain funding for further development. In 1947 he sold the commercial rights for his invention to the Haloid Company, a small manufacturer of photographic paper (which later became the Xerox Corporation).  Copies
in Seconds... Chester Carlson and the Birth of the Xerox Machine,
by David Owen. |
| Rudolf Dreikurs | |
(source) |
Born 8
Feb 1897; died 25 May 1972.
American psychiatrist and educator who developed the Austrian psychologist Alfred Adler's system of individual psychology into a pragmatic method for understanding the purposes of reprehensible behaviour in children and for stimulating cooperative behaviour without punishment or reward. |
| Wilhelm Koppers | |
(source) |
Born 8
Feb 1886; died 23 Jan 1961.
Roman Catholic priest and cultural anthropologist who advocated a comparative, historical approach to understanding cultural phenomena and whose investigations of hunting and food-gathering tribes produced theories on the origin and development of society. |
| Lionel Walter Rothschild | |
(source) |
Born 8
Feb 1868; died 27 Aug 1937.
(2nd Baron Rothschild (of Tring)) British zoologist and collector who founded the Walter Rothschild Zoological Museum, Tring, which opened to the public in 1892 and is now part of the Natural History Museum. His interest in natural history began when he was a child, collecting butterflies. Numerous species and sub-species of animals were named after him. From Tring, he issued Novitates Zoologicae, and published scores of scientific papers. He was the eldest son of financier Nathan Mayer Rothschild, 1st Baron Rothschild, whom he disappointed by devoting his life to natural history instead of the family banking business. He received his titles on the death of his father in 1915.« Dear
Lord Rothschild: Birds, Butterflies and History, by Miriam
Rothschild. |
| Moses Gomberg | |
(source) |
Born 8
Feb 1866; died 12 Feb 1947.
Russian-born American chemist who initiated the study of free radicals in chemistry when in 1900 he prepared the first authentic one, triphenylmethyl. Organic free radicals are essential to body functioning as well as being implicated in aging and diseases. Also, they play a major role in the production of plastics and other widely used synthetic materials. Organic free radicals contain a form of carbon with an unpaired electron which allows the radical to react readily with another molecule. Until Gomberg synthesized triphenylmethyl, free radicals containing carbon had been thought not to exist. Gomberg's discovery led to modern theories of the structure and reactivity of organic molecules, and led to the development of an entire field of research. |
| Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleev | |
(source) |
Born 8
Feb 1834; died 2 Feb 1907.
(Also spelled Mendeleyev) Russian chemist who developed the periodic classification of the elements. In his final version of the periodic table (1871) he left gaps, foretelling that they would be filled by elements not then known and predicting the properties of three of those elements.
"Dmitry
Ivanovich Mendeleyev: His Life and His Work" by O. N.
Pisarzhevsky |
| H. W. Bates | |
(source) |
Born 8
Feb 1825; died 16 Feb 1892.
H(enry) W(alter) Bates was a naturalist and explorer whose demonstration of the operation of natural selection in animal mimicry (the imitation by a species of other life forms or inanimate objects), published in 1861, gave firm support to Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. He and Alfred Russel Wallace left England in 1842 to explore and collect insects in the Amazon basin. Bates spent 11 years in Amazonia amassing large collections of insects that were sent back to museums and collectors in Europe. Bates was quick to embrace Darwin's and Wallace's theory of evolution by natural selection. Bates' own theory of mimicry, which now bears his name (Batesian mimicry), provided evidence for evolution by natural selection. |
| Friedlieb Ferdinand Runge | |
(source) |
Born 8
Feb 1795; died 25 Mar 1867.
German chemist considered to be the originator of the widely used analytic technique of paper chromatography. In the course of his research on synthetic dyes, he isolated and named several important components of coal-tar oil, among them carbolic acid (1934, now called phenol), pyrrole, rosolic acid (aurin), and cyanol (aniline). He did not analyze any of these compounds, however. In 1850, Runge published the first systematic study of chromatography: concentric circles of different coloured substances diffused through paper. He also noted the ability of belladonna to induce long-lasting dilation of the pupil of the eye (mydriasis), and he developed a process for obtaining sugar from beet juice. He investigated dry distillation and the composition of matter. |
| Bernard Courtois | |
(source) |
Born 8
Feb 1777; died 27 Sep 1838.
French chemist who discovered the element iodine. As the son of a saltpeter manufacturer from Dijon, he grew interested in chemistry and was apprenticed to a pharmacist. While in military service as a pharmacist, he became the first to isolate pure morphine from opium (1804). He returned to assist at his father's saltpeter business, where the ashes of kelp seaweed were leached for sodium and potassium salts using sulphuric acid. In 1811, from the mother liquor, he observed rising clouds of purple vapour which condensed on cold surfaces as dark crystals with a metallic lustre. He thought these could be a new element, but lacked ability to fully confirm his suspicion. This was later verified by Joseph-Louis Gay-Lussac and Humphry Davy.« |
| Jean André Deluc | |
| Born 8
Feb 1727; died 7 Nov 1817.
Swiss-born British geologist and meteorologist whose theoretical work was influential on 19th-century writing about meteorology. Deluc was educated in mathematics and the natural sciences. While a businessman in Switzerland during the first half of his life, during his travels, he collected mineral and plant specimens in the Alps. A commercial failure in 1773 induced him to emigrate to England and devote himself to science, his long-time avocation. He held the doctrine of catastrophism to explain present geological formations, opposing the view that present processes have acted continuously during past ages. |
|
| Daniel Bernoulli | |
| Born 8
Feb 1700; died 17 Mar 1782.
the most distinguished of the second generation of the Bernoulli family of Swiss mathematicians. He investigated not only mathematics but also such fields as medicine, biology, physiology, mechanics, physics, astronomy, and oceanography. Bernoulli's theorem, which he derived, is named after him. |
|
| Pierre-Daniel Huet | |
| Born 8
Feb 1630; died 26 Jan 1721.
French scholar, antiquary, scientist, and bishop whose incisive skepticism, particularly as embodied in his cogent attacks on René Descartes, greatly influenced contemporary philosophers. Huet wrote a number of philosophical works that asserted the fallibility of human reason in addition to scientific work in the fields of astronomy, anatomy, and mathematics. |
|
| FEBRUARY 8 - DEATHS | |
| Dennis Gabor | |
(source) |
 Died
8 Feb 1979 (born 5 Jun 1900)
Hungarian-born British electrical engineer who won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1971 for his invention of holography, a system of lensless, three-dimensional photography that has many applications. He first conceived the idea of holography in 1947 using conventional filtered-light sources. Because such sources had limitations of either too little light or too diffuse, holography was not commercially feasible until the invention of the laser (1960), which amplifies the intensity of light waves. He also did research on high-speed oscilloscopes, communication theory, physical optics, and television. Gabor held more than 100 patents. |
| Sir Robert Robinson | |
| Died
8 Feb 1975 (born 13 Sep 1886)
British chemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1947 for his research on a wide range of organic compounds, notably alkaloids (complex, naturally occurring, nitrogen-containing organic compounds that can have profound effects on living things). In his early research, he studied plant pigments and synthesized anthocyanins and flavones. Later, working with alkaloids, he discovered the structures of morphine (1925) and strychnine (1946). |
|
| Fritz Zwicky | |
| Died
8 Feb 1974 (born 14 Feb 1898)
Swiss astronomer and physicist, who made valuable contributions to the theory and understanding of supernovas (stars that for a short time are far brighter than normal). |
|
| Ernst Kretschmer | |
(source) |
Died
8 Feb 1964 (born 8 Oct 1888)
German psychiatrist who attempted to correlate body build and physical constitution with personality characteristics and mental illness. Kretschmer analyzed over 4,000 criminal cases using his 3 body type model: (1) leptosome or asthenic [tall and thin], (2) athletic [well developed muscles], and (3) pyknic [short and fat]. His conclusion was that were is a greater number of violent criminals who correspond to the athletic type, while the asthenic are more likely to be involved in petty theft and fraud. Finally, Kretschmer found that the pyknic tended toward crimes involving deception and fraud but were also sometimes involved in violent crimes. |
| John von Neumann | |
 |
Died
8 Feb 1957 (born 3 Dec 1903)
Hungarian-American mathematician who made important contributions in quantum physics, logic, meteorology, and computer science. He invented game theory, the branch of mathematics that analyses strategy and is now widely employed for military and economic purposes. During WW II, he studied the implosion method for bringing nuclear fuel to explosion and he participated in the development of the hydrogen bomb. He also set quantum theory upon a rigorous mathematical basis. In computer theory, von Neumann did much of the pioneering work in logical design, in the problem of obtaining reliable answers from a machine with unreliable components, the function of "memory," and machine imitation of "randomness." Image: Von Neumann with ENIAC computer. [This date of birth is given by the Encyclopedia Britannica; some other reference sources give 28 Dec 1903.] John
Von Neumann: The Scientific Genius Who Pioneered...,
by Norman MacRae. |
| Walther Bothe | |
(source) |
Died
8 Feb 1957 (born 8 Jan 1891)
Walther Wilhelm Georg Bothe was a German physicist who developed the coincidence method of detecting the emission of electrons by x-rays in which electrons passing through two adjacent Geiger tubes at almost the same time are registered as a coincidental event. He used it to show that momentum and energy are conserved at the atomic level. In 1929 he applied the method to the study of cosmic rays and was able to show that they consisted of massive particles rather than photons. This research brought him a share (with Max Born) in the Nobel Prize for 1954. In 1930, he observed a strange radiation emitted from beryllium when it was exposed to alpha particles, later identified by Chadwick as consisting of neutrons. He built Germany's first cyclotron (1943). |
| William Bateson | |
(source) |
Died
8 Feb 1926 (born 8 Aug 1861)
British biologist who published the first English translation (1900) of Gregor Mendel's work on heredity which he confirmed with his own experiments, and further demonstrated that heredity was apparent in animals as well as plants. His support of Mendel was as effective in awakening modern understanding of heredity as Huxley provided for Darwin on evolution. Bateson coined (1905) the term genetics for the new science. He recognized gene linkage by which some characteristics are inherited together, rather than all characteristics being inherited independently (as later explained by Morgan). Earlier, he had contributed to understanding of embryology when, in 1885, proposed that the chordates evolved from primitive echinoderms.« Mendel's
Principles of Heredity, by William Bateson. |
| Peter Alekseyevich Kropotkin | |
(source) |
Died
8 Feb 1921 (born 21 Dec 1842)
Russian geographer and revolutionist, who combined biological and historical fact to arrive at his theory of Mutual Aid (1902). While an army officer in Siberia (1862-67), he studied the native animals, made geographical surveys, and examined the effects of the Ice Age in Asia and Europe. His investigation of the structural lines of mountain ranges revised the cartography of eastern Asia. He wrote a series of articles against social Darwinism and its tenet of the benefits of competition. Kropotkin asserted that sociability characterized animals. Thus, he held, cooperation rather than struggle guided the evolution of man and human intelligence. His greatest renown, though, was as an anarchist.« Mutual
Aid: A Factor of Evolution, by Peter Kropotkin. |
| Jean Jacques Theophile Schloesing | |
| Died
8 Feb 1919 (born 9 July 1824)
French soil scientist who (with A. Muntz) proved (1877) that nitrification is a biological process in the soil by using chloroform vapors to inhibit the production of nitrate. Although years before (1859), Louis Pasteur theorized that the process was biological, he was never able to prove it. Schloesing and Muntz used antiseptic followed by heating to sterilize a soil sample, thus completely halting the nitrification process. They demonstrated that by mixing a small amount of non-sterile soil into sterile soil, the nitrification process would be restored. One of the greatest practical applications of this knowledge has been to utilize a community of nitrifying bacteria in the treatment of sewerage. [Schloesing, J., and Muntz, A., 1877, Sur La Nitrification Par Les Ferments Organises, Comptes Rendus de l’Academie des Sciences, Paris, LXXXXIV:301] « |
|
| Arnold Henry Guyot | |
(source) |
Died
8 Feb 1884 (born 28 Sep 1807)
Swiss geologist, geographer and educator. With glaciologist Louis Agassiz, he studied the glaciers of his native Switzerland and proved that they were moving - building a foundation for the theory of ice ages. Upon moving to the United States (1848), Guyot began the first systematic instruction in geology at Princeton University. Later, as head of the meteorological department at the Smithsonian Institution, he set up a system of 50 weather observatories that utimately grew into the U. S. Weather Bureau. Using a barometer to measure altitude, he proved that Newfound Gap is the lowest pass through Appalachia's Great Smoky Mountains. The guyot, a flat-topped volcanic peak rising from the ocean floor, is named after him.«  |
| Elias Fries | |
(source) |
Died
8 Feb 1878 (born 15 Aug 1794)
Elias (Magnus) Fries was a Swedish botanist, one of the fathers of mycology, who developed the first system used to classify fungi, which had been an area of difficulty and confusion in the pre-Darwin era. His interest in the subject began as a school-boy. His three-volume work, Systema mycologicum (1821-32) remains an important source for nomenclature. The major taxonomic characteristics he applied were spore color and arrangement of the hymenophore (such as smooth surfaces, lamellae, folds, tubes, or toothlike). He also investigated algae and lichens, and published works to educate lay persons.« |
| Agostino Bassi | |
B.bassiana fungus on soybean loopers (source) |
Died
8 Feb 1856 (born 25 Sep 1773)
The pioneer Italian bacteriologist Agostino Bassi de Lodi (the "Father of Insect Pathology"), 10 years before Louis Pasteur, found disease-causing microorganisms. Bassi showed (1835-6) that a silk worm disease was contagious and could be transmitted naturally by direct contact or infected food, or experimentally by means of a pin previously sterilized in a flame. The causative agent was later shown to be a fungus that multiplied in and on the body of the insect. This was the first microorganism to be recognized as a contagious agent of animal disease. Indeed, the first animal pathogen to be understood was of insects, not humans! In 1844, he believed that "contagion by living organisms" also infected humans with measles, syphilis, and the plague. |
| Baron Guillaume Dupuytren | |
(source) |
Died 8 Feb 1835 (born 5 Oct 1777)
French surgeon and pathologist, noted as diagnostician, lecturer, and surgeon; best known for his development of surgical procedures for alleviating "Dupuytren's contracture" (1832), in which fibrosis of deep tissues of the palm causes permanent retraction of one or more fingers. He wrote about congenital dislocation of the hip, the nature of callus formation, subungal exostosis, the Trendelenburg sign, tenotomy in torticollis, differentiated osteosarcoma from "spina ventosa", and a treatise on gunshot wounds. Dupuytren was not an original investigator in surgical subjects, but he was an excellent observer and a great worker, who knew how to adopt and adapt others' ideas very practically. He founded the chair of pathological anatomy at the Univ. of Paris. |
| FEBRUARY 8 - EVENTS | |
| Skylab mission ends | |
 |
In 1974, the third and final astronaut crew returned from the U.S. earth-orbiting
Skylab
Space Station, completing their mission in space that began on 16 Nov 1973.
Overall, Skylab
had orbited Earth 2,476 times during the 171 days of its occupation during
a total of three manned Skylab missions which started with the first crew
on 25 May 1973. During that time, about 2,000 hours of scientific
and medical experiments had been conducted by the three crews, many of
which concerned how astronauts adapted to prolonged time spent under conditions
of microgravity. The coronal holes in the Sun were discovered. After spending
time in a parking orbit, the vacant Skylab was steered to Earth, disintegrated
in its atmosphere on 11 Jul 1979.« |
| Meteorite | |
(source) |
In 1969, pieces of a large meteorite were recovered in Chihuahua, Mexico.
It fell at 1:05 am as a huge fireball that scattering several tons of material
over an area measuring 48 by 7 km. Named after the nearby village of Allende,
samples of this carbonaceous chondrite stone contain an aggregated mass
of particles several of which can be easily identified
as chondrules. This ancient material comes from before our Solar System
formed, thus over 4.6 billion years old. Since these remnants represent
the most primitive geological material from which planets were formed,
and carry information to help explain the evolution of the our galaxy,
Allende is one of the most studied meteorites in the world.« [Image:
A piece of the Chihuahua meteorite shown again a one-centimeter grid] |
| First giant panda living in U.S. | |
(source) |
In 1937, the first giant panda to live outside China, Su Lin, was acquired
by Brookfield Zoo, Chicago, U.S., from Ruth Harkness who brought the infant
back from an expedition into the bamboo forests of the mountains between
Tibet and China. She sailed back to Manhattan, arriving
18 Dec 1936. Su Lin caused a media sensation. She first offered
the panda to the Bronx Zoo, New York, in return for funding her next expedition,
but they declined. Instead, the Brookfield Zoo underwrote her next quest
for another panda. Su Lin was first exhibited there to the public in August
1937, and the zoo had its highest attendance since its opening day. The
public loved Su Lin and attitudes changed to reject any trophy hunt to
ever shoot a panda.« [Image:
Ruth Harkness with Su Lin]
The
Lady and the Panda: The True Adventures of Ruth Harkness...,
by Vicki Constantine Croke. |
| Transatlantic TV | |
(source) |
In 1928, John Logie Baird's transmission of a TV image was received across
the Atlantic ocean using short wave radio, from station 2 KZ at Purley,
England to Hartsdale, NY. Though imperfect, an image showed the face of
Mrs. Mia Howe. Baird's system
was electromechanical: a light sensitive camera behind a rotating disc.
The picture was crudely formed from a scan of thirty lines at twelve frames
per second. The television receiver displayed a tiny, uneven image. This
caused a sensation. The New York Times compared the event to Marconi's
sending of the letter "S" by radio across the Atlantic, 27 years earlier.
Television
And Me: The Memoirs of John Logie Baird, by John Logie
Baird, Malcolm Baird. |
| Envelope machine | |
|
In 1898, the first envelope folding and gumming machine recieved patent
No. 598,716. John Ames Sherman of Worcester, Mass., had designed a "mechanism
for folding and sealing envelopes, which reduced the manufacturing cost
per thousand from 60 cents to 8 cents. |
|
| Fountain pen | |
|
In 1883, Louis Waterman began experimenting with ideas that would lead
to the invention of the fountain pen. |
|
| Mendel's first scientific paper | |
(source) |
In 1865, Gregor Mendel, aged 42, who
first discovered the laws of genetics, read his first scientific paper
to the Brünn Society for the study of Natural Sciences in Moravia
(published 1866). He described his investigations
with pea plants. Although he sent
40 reprints of his article to prominent biologists throughout Europe, including
Darwin,
only one was interested enough to reply. Most of the reprints, including
Darwin’s, were discovered later with the pages uncut, meaning they were
never read. Fortunately, 18 years after Mendel's death, three botanists
in three different countries researching the laws of inheritance, in spring
1900, came to realize that Mendel had found them first. Mendel was finally
acknowledged as a pioneer in the field which became known as genetics.« |
| India’s Jamalpur locomotive works | |
|
In 1862, the East Indian Railway set up the first full-fledged railway
workshop facility in India at Jamalpur. This site
was was close to not only the main trunk route of the Sahibganj loop, but
also to Bihar for a source of skilled mechanical craftsmen. "Lady Curzon,"
CA 764 was the first locomotive completed in 1899. A training school associated
with the Jamalpur workshops eventually became the Indian Railway Institute
of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering.« |
|
| Banjo clock | |
|
In 1802, Simon Willard, of Grafton, Massachusetts, patented his eight-day
"Improved Timepiece," a wall clock that came to be known as the "banjo
clock." With the advent
of the Revolutionary War and subsequent problems with Great Britain on
the high seas, imports had been curtailed and for the next sixty years
brass and spring steel were scarce and expensive. There was need for a
small inexpensive clock that could be purchased by the less affluent citizens
of the new democracy. Willard recognized this need when he invented his
clock. Subsequently, the early 19th century became the era of industrialization,
and clockmaking, like so many other crafts, became a mechanized industry. |
|
| Newton's first optics paper | |
 |
In 1672, Isaac Newton read his first optics paper before Royal Society
in London. He had been elected a member only the previous month, recognising
his original design of the first reflecting telescope. Newton had already
spent several years investigating optics, beginning in 1665. His studies
of the colours from glass prisms with their dispersion of light were recorded
in his essay New Theory about Light and Colors (1672), and expanded
later in Opticks (1704).« |
| See 18 Feb 1677 for the date of birth of Jaccques Cassini, although 8 Feb 1677 is given by Encyclopedia Britannica. More in this note.] | |