| JULY 9 - BIRTHS | |
| Oliver Wolf Sacks | |
(source) |
 Born 9
July1933
English neurologist and writer. Many of his books relate case histories of neurologically damaged people. His empathy with those afflicted with strange conditions, including. Tourette's syndrome, amnesia, and autism, has been the hallmark of his writings. In his first book, Migraine: Evolution of a Common Disorder (1970, he began his approach of considering mental and emotional states while stressing links between them and physical afflictions. In the late 1960's in New York, he encountered some 80 people suffering from a "sleeping sickness" (known from its spread around the world about 1916-20). He experimented by giving some of them the drug L-DOPA and obtained seemingly amazing results, an "awakening," but most soon regressed. |
| Ben R. Mottelson | |
(source) |
Born 9
Jul 1926
American-Danish physicist, born in Chicago, Ill., who shared the 1975 Nobel Prize for Physics with Aage N. Bohr and James Rainwater for "for the discovery of the connection between collective motion and particle motion in atomic nuclei and the development of the theory of the structure of the atomic nucleus based on this connection." This work in determined the asymmetrical shapes of certain atomic nuclei and the reasons behind such asymmetries. Later research investigated the fact that nuclear matter has properties reminiscent of superconductors. |
| John Wheeler | |
(source) |
Born 9
Jul 1911; died 13 Apr 2008.
John Archibald Wheeler was the first American physicist involved in the theoretical development of the atomic bomb. He also originated a novel approach to the unified field theory. Wheeler was awarded the 1997 Wolf Prize "for his seminal contributions to black hole physics, to quantum gravity, and to the theories of nuclear scattering and nuclear fission." After recognizing that any large collection of cold matter has no choice but to yield to the pull of gravity and undergo total collapse, Wheeler first coined the term "black hole" in 1967. |
| Percy Spencer | |
|
Born 9
Jul 1894; died 7 Sep 1970.
Percy Le Baron Spencer invented the microwave oven. In 1940, Sir John Randall and Dr. H. A. Boot invented the magnetron tube to produce radar microwaves. After the war, Dr. Percy Spencer at the Raytheon Company was investigating the magnetron tube. During one experiment, he discovered that a chocolate bar in his pocket had totally melted, though the heating effect of microwaves was known earlier. Dr. Spencer deduced the magnetron radiation had melted the chocolate, not his body heat. This led Spencer to researched cooking food. The first commercial microwave ovens were made for restaurants. |
| Franz Boas | |
|
Born 9
Jul 1858 ; died 22 Dec 1942
German-born American anthropologist who is best known for his work with the Kwakiutl Indians from Northern Vancouver, B.C., Canada. While studying the Kwakiutl, he established a culture-centred school of thought in anthropology that came to the forefront in the 20th century. He maintained that cultural traits - behaviors, beliefs, and symbols - were to be examined in their local context with historical, social and geographic conditions. The approach he established was continued by his students, which included Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict, linguist Edward Sapir and Alfred L. Kroeber, who in turn influenced Claude Lévi-Strauss.«  Anthropology
and Modern Life, by Franz Boas. |
| Nikola Tesla | |
(source) |
Born 9
Jul 1856; died 7 Jan 1943
Serbian-American inventor and researcher (born on the stroke of midnight) who designed and built the first alternating current induction motor in 1883. He emigrated to the United States in 1884. Having discovered the benefits of a rotating magnetic field, the basis of most alternating-current machinery, he expanded its use in dynamos, transformers, and motors. Because alternating current could be transmitted over much greater distances than direct current, George Westinghouse bought patents from Tesla the system when he built the power station at Niagara Falls to provide electricity power the city of Buffalo, NY.« Wizard:
The Life and Times of Nikola Tesla : Biography of a Genius,
by Marc Seifer |
| Edwin Houston | |
 |
Born 9
Jul 1847; died 1 Mar 1914.
Edwin J(ames) Houston was a U.S. electrical engineer. Together with another Philadelphia high school teacher, Elihu Thomson, he experimented with electricity, invented (patented 1881) and manufactured arc street-lighting. He presented the first paper, Notes on Phenomena in Incandescent Lamps, to The American Institute of Electrical Engineers when it began in 1884 (AIEE - the predecessor society of the present IEEE, The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.) . The merger of Thomson-Houston and Edison General Electric companies (1892) formed General Electric. In 1894 he joined with Arthur Kennelly (who resigned from Edison's laboratory) to form a consulting company. |
| Sir George Darwin | |
|
Born 9
Jul 1845; died 7 Dec 1912.
Sir George (Howard) Darwin, the second son of the famous biologist Charles Darwin, was an English astronomer who championed a theory (no longer accepted) that the Moon was once part of the Earth, in what is now the Pacific Ocean. His was the first mathematical analysis of the evolution of Earth's Moon. He suggested that since the effect of the tides has been to slow the Earth's rotation and to cause the Moon to recede from the Earth, then by extrapolating back 4.5 billion years ago the Moon and the Earth would have been very close, with a day being less than five hours. Before this time the two bodies would actually have been one, until the Moon was torn away from the Earth by powerful solar tides that would have deformed the Earth every 2.5 hours. |
| Wilhelm His | |
|
Born 9
Jul 1831; died 1904.
Wilhelm His, born in Basel, Switzerland, was a German anatomist and embryologist who created the science of histogenesis, or the study of the embryonic origins of different types of animal tissue. His discovery, in 1886, that each nerve fibre stems from a single nerve cell was essential to the development of the neuron theory. He invented the microtome - a device to slice very thin serial specimens for microscope slides (1865). With it, he could examine embryos. He was the first to accurate describe the human embryo. |
| Jean Jacques Theophile Schloesing | |
| Born 9
Jul 1824; died 8 Feb 1919
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] |
|
| Elias Howe | |
|
Born 9
July 1819; died 3 Oct 1867
Elias Howe, American inventor, was born in Spencer, Mass. It was Walter Hunt, in 1834, who built America's first sewing machine, then thought about it as a destroyer of home stitchers' jobs, and didn't pursue it. Howe did. Howe was granted a patent on his own machine on 10 Sep 1846. Commercial success came slowly, requiring the defense of his patent against Isaac Singer's better marketed machine. Eventually he gained riches, but died young at 49. By then, his sewing machine helped revolutionize garment manufacture in the factory and in the home.  |
| Thomas Davenport | |
|
Born 9
Jul 1802; died 6 Jul 1851
American inventor of what was probably the first commercially successful electric motor, which he used with great ingenuity to power a number of established inventions. Though several other inventors had experimented with motors, Davenport was the first to secure a U.S. patent (No. 132 on 25 Feb 1837) for his direct current motor. He incorporated the concept of the electromagnet invented by Joseph Henry in a way that produced a rotary motion using his own idea of a commutator and brushes to control the direction of current flow. He used a motor he built to power shop machinery, and also built the first electric model railroad car. |
| Jacob Perkins | |
(source) |
Born 9
Jul 1766; died 30 July 1849.
Jacob Perkins was an American inventor, of Newburyport, Mass., a Freemason, who produced innovations in diverse fields. For example, in 1794, under his patent of January 16 of that year, he made the first nails which were both cut and headed by machine in America. Around 1817, he installed a hot air furnace of his own design in the Massachusetts Medical College. While living in London, England, he advocated high pressure steam techniques and designed in 1827-28 a steam gun for the French Government. Also, Perkins advanced the art of engraving and platemaking for bank notes. In 1834, he was issued the first US patent for a refrigerating machine for sulphuric ether compression in a closed cycle. (It utilized a concept displayed by Oliver Evans, 1805.) Back in England, he printed 64 million of the first penny postage stamp in 1840. |
| JULY 9 - DEATHS | |
| Douglas Chapman | |
(source) |
 Died
9 Jul 1996 (born 20 Mar 1920)
Douglas George Chapman was a Canadian-born U.S. mathematical statistician and an expert on wildlife statistics. He was one of the scientific advisors to the International Whaling Commission that warned in the 1960s that the number of whales being taken by the whaling industry was far in excess of what the population could stand, and proposed annual fin whale catch quotas that would permit the depleted populations of this species to recover. His later research on fish farming expanded to include mollusk aquaculture and he directed a program to develop quantitative methods to aid in the management of fisheries resources.« |
| Loren Eiseley | |
(source) |
Died
9 Jul 1977 (born 3 Sep 1907)
Loren (Corey) Eiseley was a U.S. anthropologist, educator, and was one of the preeminent literary naturalists of our time. He wrote for the lay person in eloquent, poetic style about anthropology, the history of the civilatization and our relationship with the natural world. Scientific American published Loren Eisleys' first popular essay, The Folsum Mystery (1942). Eiseley's best-known book, The Immense Journey, combines science and humanism in a collection of essays, many with origins to his own early Nebraska experiences. Eiseley became known internationally, winning major prizes and honorary degrees for his unique work. |
| King C. Gillette | |
|
Died
9 Jul 1932 (born 5 Jan 1855)
King Camp Gillette was the inventor and manufacturer of the safety razor with disposable blades. After persistent efforts to invent something that everyone would use, by 1895 produced a crude version of a disposable razor blade. it took another six years to refine his invention. On 15 Nov 1904 he was issued U.S. patent No. 775,134 for his idea and founded the Gillette Safety Razor Company in Boston, Mass., to make his razor and blades. In 1903, he sold 168 blades, but in the following year he sold 90,000 razors and over 12 million blades. Although he remained president of the company until 1931, he retired to Los Angeles in 1913, having become a millionaire. A utopian, he wrote four books translating his business experience into social theories, culminating with The People's Corporation (1924).« King
C. Gillette, the Man and his Wonderful Shaving Device,
by Russell B Adams. |
| Paul Broca | |
(source) |
Died
9 Jul 1880 (born 28 Jun 1824)
French surgeon who was closely associated with the development of modern physical anthropology in France and whose study of brain lesions contributed significantly to understanding the origins of aphasia, the loss or impairment of the ability to form or articulate words. His research was largely devoted to the comparative study of the craniums of the various human races. He established (1861) that the seats of articulate speech were in the left frontal region of the brain, now known as the convolution of Broca. This was the first time an anatomical link had been made between a location and in the brain and its function. He founded the anthropology laboratory at the École des Hautes. |
| Count Amedeo Avogadro | |
(source) |
Died
9 Jul 1856 (born 9 Aug 1776)
Italian chemist and physicist who found that at the same temperature and pressure equal volumes of all perfect gases contain the same number of particles, known as Avogadro's Law (1811) leading to the Avogadro's constant being 6.022 x 1023 units per mole of a substance. He realized the particules could be either atoms, or more often, combinations of atoms, for which he coined the word "molecule." This explained Gay-Lussac's law of combining volumes (1809). Further, Avogadro determined from the electrolysis of water that it contained molecules formed from two hydrogen atoms for each atom of oxygen, by which the individual oxygen atom was 16 times heavier than one hydrogen atom (not 8 times as suggested earlier by Dalton.)« Amedeo
Avogadro: A Scientific Biography, by M. Morselli. |
| JULY 9 - EVENTS | |
| Tzar DNA identified | |
 |
In 1993, British and Russian scientists using DNA genetic fingerprinting
tests, identified the bone fragments discovered in Ekaterinburg in 1979
to be those of the Russian Tzar Nicholas II and members of his
family executed on 17 July 1918. This was work done by Drs. Peter Gill
and Kevin Sullivan of the British Forensic Science Service in Birmingham.
However, a slight ambiguity remained for the identification of the Tzar
until a heteroplasmy was confirmed. Additional mitochondrial DNA (MtDNA)
testing was carried in 1995 out by the US Armed Forces DNA Identification
Laboratory (AFDIL) who identified
the Tzar using sequence analysis and comparison of the profiles with remains
of Georgij Romanov, the Tzar's younger brother, exhumed in 1994. They shared
the same rare genetic partial mutation called heteroplasmy. Together with
with other physical and circumstantial data, this provided indisputable
evidence for identification of the Tzar. |
| Voyager 2 | |
|
In 1979, Voyager 2, passed by Jupiter. It was one of a pair of unmanned
U.S. interplanetary probes launched in 1977. Although it was launched first
(20 Aug), followed by the launch of Voyager 1 (5 Sep), Voyager
2 was designed to travel more slowly, and pass all the giant planets.
Voyager
1 visited Jupiter (Mar 1979) and Saturn (Nov 1980) then to leave the
Solar System. Voyager 2 passed Saturn (25 Aug 1981), but continued
on to Uranus (24 Jan 1986) and Neptune (24 Aug 1989). Data from the two
probes included photographs of Jupiter showing a variety of cloud forms
around Jupiter, and volcanic activity on its moon, Io. |
|
| Thresher submarine | |
|
In 1960, Thresher was launched, the first of a class of U.S. nuclear-powered
attack submarines. During sea trials after commissioning it sank
in Apt 1963 for reasons that remain unknown. With 129 persons on board,
it was the worst loss in submarine history. It was armed with Subroc antisubmarine
missiles that could be fitted with either high explosives of a nuclear
warhead. The wreckage was observed from the bathyscaphe Trieste at
a depth of about 8,500-ft. |
|
| Nobelium | |
|
In 1957, an announcement was made of the discovery
of element 102, and the name of nobelium proposed, for an isotope believed
found with a half-life of 10 minutes at 8.5 MeV. Later tests showed that
no isotopes of nobelium have this half-life. Nobelium was truly discovered
by A. Ghiorso, T. Sikkeland, J.R. Walton, and G.T. Seaborg in Apr 1958.
However, IUPAC accepted the name Nobelium given to the prematurely discovered
element. Ten isotopes of nobelium are known to exist, with No-255 having
the longest half-life of 3 minutes. Nobelium is an artificially made, radioactive,
"rare earth metal" named after Alfred Nobel who discovered dynamite. |
| Barbituric acid | |
 |
In 1902, a patent is obtained for barbituric acid - hope for insomniacs.
In 1864 Adolf von Baeyer, a twenty-nine-year-old assistant of Friedrich August Kekule (the discoverer of the molecular structure of benzene) in Ghent, synthesized barbituric acid, the first barbiturate. In 1903, the German chemist Emil Fischer and his collaborator Joseph von Mering modified a class of drugs originally synthesized in 1864 in a way that made them effective as sedatives and hypnotics. Fischer and Mering realized that their new drug, "diethyl barbituric acid," or barbital, was a sedative. It improved vastly upon the congeries of previous sedatives by not tasting unpleasant, by having few side effects, and by acting at therapeutic levels far beneath the toxic dose (unlike potassium bromide, which tasted awful and had a therapeutic level close to the toxic dose). Diallyl barbituric acid is a colourless crystalline organic compound. used in medicine as a soporific. |
| Heart surgery | |
|
In 1893, the suture of the pericardium (the fluid sac surrounding the heart
muscle) performed by Dr. Daniel
Hale Williams. When a 24-yr-old victim of a stabbing during a bar-fight
was brought to Provident Hospital in Chicago, Williams operated
without using anesthesia to remove the knife, open the thoracic cavity,
then suture the wound to the pericardium, a daring procedure for the time.
He allowed a small (1/10" long) nick to heal on its own. The patient recovered
and lived for at least 20 years afterward. Dr. Williams was the only African-American
in a group of 100 charter members of the American College of Surgeons in
1913. He founded and became the first vice-president of the National Medical
Association.«
Daniel
Hale Williams: Negro Surgeon, by Helen Buckler. |
| Doughnut cutter | |
(source) |
In 1872, New England sea captain, John F. Blondel of Thomaston,
Maine, patented the doughnut cutter, (but can't take credit for the hole).
The origin
of the doughnut as a deep-fried egg-batter pastry was from Holland
with the Dutch name of olykoeks -- "oily cakes." In 1847, another
New England ship captain's enjoyed his mother's pastries. Made using a
deep-fried spiced dough, Elizabeth Gregory put hazelnuts or walnuts
in the center, where the dough might not cook through - "doughnuts." Captain
Hanson Gregory claimed credit for originating the hole in the doughnut.
Originally, he cut the hole using the top of a round tin pepper box. This
made more uniform frying possible with increased surface area, commemorated
by a bronze plaque at his hometown, Rockport, Maine. |
| Corncob pipe | |
|
In 1878, an improved corncob pipe was patented by Henry
Tibbe in Washington, Missouri, which he assigned to himself and Anton
Tibbe, his son. (No.205,816)« |
|
| Corncob pipe | |
|
In 1869, the corncob
pipe was invented by Dutch immigrant woodworker, Henry Tibbe, who founded
the Missouri Meerschaum Company. The
pipe was made from a special type of white kernel corn with smaller
kernels on the cob (the kind used to make taco and tortilla flour).
Famous corncob smokers included presidents Ford and Eisenhower, Gen. Douglas
MacArthur, Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and of course, Popeye, Mammy Yokum
and Frosty the Snowman. |
| First U.S. natural gas well | |
(source) |
In 1815, the first developed natural gas well in the U.S. was discovered
accidentally at Burning Springs during the digging of a salt brine well
near Charleston, West Virginia. In the U.S., natural seepage had been observed
centuries earlier in various places, but here, there was development and
use of the natural gas and oil. In 1921, Fredonia,
New York, the first gas well dug specifically for natural gas in the U.S.
was drilled to 27 feet by gunsmith, William Hart to develop the seepage
seen on the banks of Canadaway Creek. Early use was limited. The first
industrial use of natural gas in the US was to evaporate brine for its
salt, in 1841 by William
Tompkins. Earlier, manufactured
gas was first used in the U.S. for street lamps in Baltimore (1816).« |
| Leather splitting machine | |
|
In 1808, The leather splitting machine was patented this day by Samuel
Parker of Billerica, MA. (located 20 miles northwest of Boston.) |
| Kepler's Universe | |
(source) |
In 1595, Johannes Kepler published Mysterium cosmographicum (Mystery
of the Cosmos) He described an invisible underlying structure determining
the six known planets in their orbits. Thinking as a mathematician, he
devised a structure based on only five convex regular solids. The path
of each planet lay on a sphere separated from its neighbors by touching
an inscribed polyhedron. An inscribed cube separated the spheres of the
outermost planets, Saturn and Jupiter. Inside the path of Jupiter, an inscribed
tetrahedron contained the sphere for Mars. Spheres for the Earth, Venus
and Mercury were respectively nested within a regular dodecahedron, icosohedron,
and regular octahedron. The orbital data fitted this model so surprisingly
well. It was, nevertheless, wrong-headed! |