This Day in Science History

yevaud · Jun 9, 2006

June 9 People Ben L. Abruzzo Born 9 June 1930; died 11 Feb 1985. American balloonist who, with three crew mates, made the first transpacific balloon flight hat was also the longest nonstop balloon flight, in the Double Eagle V. Thirteen-stories high, helium filled Double Eagle V, piloted by Ben Abruzzo, Larry Newman, Ron Clark and Rocky Aoki of Japan, launched from Nagashimi, Japan on 10 Nov 1981. When it landed 84 hours, 31 minutes later in Mendocino National Forest, Cal., the new distance record was set at 5,768 miles. He also accompanied Maxie Anderson and Larry Newman on the first tranatlantic balloon flight in the Double Eagle II (11 Aug 1978). Abruzzo died when his twin-engine airplane crashed in Albuquerque. Johann Gottfried Galle Born 9 June 1812; died 10 Jul 1910. German astronomer who on 23 Sep 1846, was the first to observe the planet Neptune, whose existence had been predicted in the calculations of Leverrier. Leverrier had written to Galle asking him to search for the 'new planet' at a predicted location. Galle was then a member of the staff of the Berlin Observatory and had discovered three comets. In 1838, while assistant to Johann Franz Encke, Galle discovered the dark, inner C ring of Saturn at the time of the maxium ring opening. In 1851, he became professor of astronomy at Breslau and director of the observatory there. In 1872, he proposed the use of asteroids rather than regular planets for determinations of the solar parallax, a suggestion which was successful in an international campaign (1888-89). Alvan Graham Clark Died 9 June 1897 (born 10 Jul 1832) U.S. astronomer, one of an American family of telescope makers and astronomers who supplied unexcelled lenses to many observatories in the U.S. and Europe during the heyday of the refracting telescope. He began a deep inte <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Differential Diagnosis: "I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are." </div>

yevaud · Jun 10, 2006

June 10 People Pierre Duhem Born 10 June 1861; died 14 Sep 1916. French physicist, mathematician, and philosopher of science who emphasized a history of modern science based on evolutionary metaphysical concepts. He had a wide variety of mathematical interests from mechanics and physics to philosophy and the history of mathematics. Duhem studied magnetism following the work of Gibbs and Helmholtz and also worked on thermodynamics and hydrodynamics producing over 400 papers. He maintained that the role of theory in science is to systematize relationships rather than to interpret new phenomena. James Short Born 10 June 1710; died 14 Jun 1768. British optician and astronomer who produced the first truly parabolic and elliptic (hence nearly distortionless) mirrors for reflecting telescopes. During his working life of over 35 years, Short made about 1,360 instruments - not only for customers in Britain but also for export: one is still preserved in Leningrad, another at Uppsala and several in America. Short was principal British collator and computer of the Transit of Venus observations made throughout the world on 6th June 1761. His instruments travelled on Endeavour with Captain Cook to observe the next Transit of Venus on 3rd June 1769, but Short died before this event took place. John Dollond Born 10 June 1706; died 30 Nov 1761. British maker of optical and astronomical instruments who developed (1758) and patented an achromatic (non- colour- distorting) refracting telescope and a practical heliometer, a telescope used to measure the Sun's diameter and the angles between celestial bodies. In the 1730's, Chester More Hall, an attorney with an interest in telescopes, first discovered that flint glass appeared to have a greater color dispersion than crown glass did at the same magnifications. Hal <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Differential Diagnosis: "I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are." </div>

yevaud · Jun 11, 2006

June 11 People Jacques-Yves Cousteau Born 11 June 1910; died 25 Jun 1997. French naval officer, oceanographer, marine biologist and ocean explorer, known for his extensive underseas investigations. He was co-inventor of the aqualung which made SCUBA diving possible (1943). Cousteau the developed the Conshelf series of manned habitats, the Diving Saucer, a process of underwater television and numerous other platforms and specialized instruments of ocean science. In 1945 he founded the French Navy's Undersea Research Group. He modified a WWII wooden hull minesweeper into the research vessel Calypso, in 1950. An observation dome added to the foot of Calypso's bow was found to increase the ship's stability, speed and fuel efficiency. Charles Fabry Born 11 June 1867; died 11 Dec 1945. French physicist who specialized in optics, devising methods for the accurate measurement of interference effects. He worked with Alfred Pérot, during 1896-1906, on the design and uses of a device known as the Fabry-Pérot interferometer, specifically for high-resolution spectroscopy, composed of two thinly silvered glass plates placed in parallel, producing interference due to multiple reflections. In 1913, Fabry demonstrated that ozone is plentiful in the upper atmosphere and is responsible for filtering out ultraviolet radiation from the Sun, protecting life on the surface of Earth from most of its harmful effects. Orson Munn Born 11 June 1824; died 28 Feb1907. Orson Desaix Munn was publisher of Scientific American. The Munn & Company, formed with Salem H. Wales and editor Alfred Beach, bought the six-month-old Scientific American magazine from Rufus Porter. Together, they built it over the years into a great and unique periodical. Because they published a weekly list of all patents, and dealt with inventions a <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Differential Diagnosis: "I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are." </div>

yevaud · Jun 12, 2006

June 12 People Sir David Gill Born 12 June 1843; died 24 Jan 1914. Scottish astronomer known for his measurements of solar and stellar parallax, showing the distances of the Sun and other stars from Earth, and for his early use of photography in mapping the heavens. From his first training as a watchmaker, he progressed to the timekeeping requirements of astronomy. He designed, equipped, and operated a private observatory near Aberdeen. In 1877, Gill and his wife measured the solar parallax by observing Mars from Ascension Island. To determine parallaxes, he perfected the use of the heliometer, a telescope that uses a split image to measure the angular separation of celestial bodies. He later redetermined the solar parallax to such precision that his value was used for almanacs until 1968. Silvanus Phillips Thompson Died 12 June 1916 (born 19 Jun 1851) British physicist and historian of science. He was a recognised authority upon electricity, magnetism and acoustics and his writings are numerous including Elementary Lessons in Electricity and Magnetism published in 1881 which ran through some 40 editions and reprints. He was also known for contributions in electrical machinery, optics, and X rays. In 1884, he published his epoch-making work Dynamo-electric Machinery: a Manual for Students of Electrotechnics. Practically every designer of electrical machines gleaned his first information on the subject from this work. His lectures to the Royal Institution on Light, visible and invisible in book form and Polyphase Electric Currents and Motors were published in 1896. Fleeming Jenkin Died 12 June 1885 (born 25 Mar 1833) British engineer noted for his work in establishing units of electrical measurement. After earning an M.A. (1851), he worked for the next 10 years with engineering firms engaged i <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Differential Diagnosis: "I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are." </div>

yevaud · Jun 13, 2006

June 13 People Luis W. Alvarez Born 13 June 1911; died 1 Sep 1988. American experimental physicist who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1968 for work that included the discovery of many resonance particles (subatomic particles having extremely short lifetimes and occurring only in high-energy nuclear collisions). Alvarez invented a radio distance and direction indicator. During World War II, he designed a landing system for aircrafts and a radar system for locating planes. He participated in the development of the atomic bomb at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, Los Alamos, N.M. (1944-45). He suggested the technique for detonating the implosion type of atomic bomb. Later, he helped develop the hydrogen bubble chamber, used to detect subatomic particles. This research led to the discovery of over 70 elementary particles and resulted in a major revision ofnuclear theories. Erwin Wilhelm Muller Born 13 June 1911; died 17 May 1977. German-U.S. physicist who invented the field emission microscope (FIM), which provided magnifications in excess of one million. For the first time made it possible to take pictures of individual atoms. Images of the atomic structures of tungsten were first published in 1951 in the journal Zeitschrift für Physik. In FIM, a voltage of about 10kV is applied to a sharp metal tip, cooled to below 50 kelvin in a low-pressure helium gas atmosphere. Gas atoms are ionized by the strong electric field in the vicinity of the tip and repelled perpendicular to the tip surface. A detector images the spatial distribution of these ions giving a magnification of the curvature of the surface. William Harrison Bennett Born 13 June 1903; died 28 Sep 1987. American physicist who discovered (1934) the pinch effect, an electromagnetic process that may offer a way to magnetical <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Differential Diagnosis: "I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are." </div>

yevaud · Jun 14, 2006

June 14 People Atle Selberg Born 14 June 1917 Norwegian-born mathematician who is one of the foremost analytic number theorists. After working in isolation during WW II, due to the occupation of Norway by the Nazis, his accomplishments in the theory of the Riemann zeta function became known. During the 1950's he developed the Selberg trace formula, his most famous accomplishment. It establishes a duality between the length spectrum of a Riemann surface and the eigenvalues of the Laplacian which is analogous to the duality between the prime numbers and the zeros of the zeta function. He was awarded the Fields Medal in 1950 for his work in number theory on generalisations of the sieve methods of Viggo Brun. In 1986 he won the Wolf Prize. Charles-Auguste De Coulomb Born 14 June 1736; died 23 Aug 1806. French physicist best known for the formulation of Coulomb's law, which states that the force between two electrical charges is proportional to the product of the charges and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. Coulombic force is one of the principal forces involved in atomic reactions. The inverse-square relationship is also seen in the relationship of the gravitation force between masses. In 1777, he invented a torsion balance which he subsequently modified for electrical measurements. He also did research on friction of machinery, on windmills, and on the elasticity of metal and silk fibres. William Wallace Campbell Died 14 June 1938 (born 11 Apr 1862) astronomer known particularly for his spectrographic determinations of the radial velocities of stars--i.e., their motions toward the Earth or away from it. In addition, he discovered many spectroscopic binary stars, and in 1924 he published a catalog listing more than 1,000 of them. Heinrich Louis D’ <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Differential Diagnosis: "I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are." </div>

yevaud · Jun 15, 2006

June 15 People Herbert Alexander Simon Born 15 Jun 1916; died 9 Feb 2001. American social scientist who was a pioneer of the development of computer artificial intelligence. In 1956, with his long-time colleague Allen Newell, Simon produced the computer program, The Logic Theorist, a computer program that could discover proofs of geometric theorems. It was the first computer program capable of thinking, and marked the beginning of what would become known as artificial intelligence. It proved many of the theorems of symbolic logic in Whitehead and Russell's Principia Mathematica. He is further known for his contributions in fields including psychology, mathematics, statistics, and operations research, all of which he synthesized in a key theory for which he won the 1978 Nobel Prize for economics. Hubertus Strughold Born 15 Jun 1898; died 1986 German-American physiologist, known as the "father of space medicine." In the late 1920's, he began investigaing the physiological aspects of what he called the "vertical frontier" in Germany, when even simple aeromedicine was considered far-fetched. He emigrated to the U.S. to join the staff of the United States Air Force School of Aviation Medicine after WW II. Among the fundamental studies initiated were those in acceleration, noise and vibration, atmospheric control, weightlessness and nutrition. He invented the space cabin simulator for testing human reactions in a manned satellite, and contributed enormously to such space-travel problems as weightlessness, visual disturbances, and disruption of normal time cycles. George Wust Born 15 Jun 1890; died 8 Nov 1977. Georg Adolf Otto Wüst was a German oceanographer who, by collecting and analyzing many systematic observations, developed the first essentially complete understanding of the physical structure <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Differential Diagnosis: "I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are." </div>

yevaud · Jun 16, 2006

June 16 People Julius Plucker Born 16 June 1801; died: 22 May 1868. German mathematician and physicist whose work suggested the far-reaching principle of duality, which states the equivalence of certain related types of theorems. He also discovered that cathode rays (electron rays produced in a vacuum) are diverted from their path by a magnetic field, a principle vital to the development of modern electronic devices, such as television. At first alone and later with the German physicist Johann W. Hittorf, Plücker made many important discoveries in spectroscopy. Before Bunsen and Kirchhoff, he announced that spectral lines were characteristic for each chemical substance and this had value to chemical analysis. In 1862 he pointed out that the same element may exhibit different spectra at different temperatures. Jule Gregory Charney Died 16 June 1981 (born 1 Jan 1917) American meteorologist who, working with John von Neumann, first introduced the electronic computer into weather prediction (1950) and improved understanding of the large-scale circulation of the atmosphere. The entire Oct 1947 issue of the Journal of Meteorology published his Ph.D. dissertation, (UCLA, 1936) Dynamics of long waves in a baroclinic westerly current. It emphasized the influence of "long waves" in the upper atmosphere rather than the existing practice of emphasis on the polar front. It also simplified analysis of perturbations of these waves using mathematically rigorous methods that yielded useful physical interpretation. He helped the U.S. Weather Bureau set up (1954) a numerical weather prediction unit. Wernher Von Braun Died 16 June 1977 (born 23 Mar 1912) Wernher Magnus Maximilian von Braun was a German-born American engineer who was one of the most important developers of rockets and their evolution to applica <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Differential Diagnosis: "I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are." </div>

yevaud · Jun 17, 2006

June 17 People Alexander Alexandrovice Friedman Born 17 Jun 1888; died 16 Sep 1925 Russian mathematician who was the first to work out a mathematical analysis of an expanding universe consistent with general relativity, yet without Einstein’s cosmological constant. In 1922, he developed solutions to the field equations, one of which clearly described a universe that began from a point singularity, and expanded thereafter. In his article On the Curvature of Space received by the journal Zeitschrift für Physik on 29 Jun 1922, he showed that the radius of curvature of the universe can be either an increasing or a periodic function of time. In Jul 1925, he made a record-breaking 7400-m balloon ascent to make meteorological and medical observations. A few weeks later he fell ill and died of typhus. Sir William Crookes Born 17 June 1832; died 4 Apr 1919. British chemist and physicist who discovered the element thallium and showed that cathode-rays were fast-moving, negatively-charged particles. The Crookes dark space is the dark region around a cathode making electrical discharges at low pressure. He invented the radiometer (1875) in which four vanes suspended on a needle in a vacuum with one side black and the other side white are observed to rotate by the effect of incident light. He also invented the spinthariscope (1903) which reveals alpha particles emitted by radium as light flashes when they impact a zinc sulphide screen viewed under magnification. His interests included spiritualism, but provided more practical guidance for improving sanitation and artifical fertilizers. Lord Rosse Born 17 June 1800; died 31 Oct 1867. William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse was an Irish astronomer who built the largest reflecting telescope of the 19th century. He learned to polish metal mirrors (1827) and spent the n <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Differential Diagnosis: "I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are." </div>

alokmohan · Jun 18, 2006

Please discuss 666.It is current news.

yevaud · Jun 18, 2006

June 18 People Allan Rex Sandage Born 18 Jun 1926. U.S. astronomer who (with Thomas A. Matthews) discovered, in 1960, the first optical identification of a quasi-stellar radio source (quasar), a starlike object that is a strong emitter of radio waves. Although a strange source of radio emission, in visible light, it looked like a faint star. Yet this object was emitting more intense radio waves and ultraviolet radiation than a typical star. William Lassell Born 18 Jun 1799; died 5 Oct 1880. William Lassell was a wealthy amateur English astronomer. He set up an observatory at Starfield, near Liverpool. England, He built his own 24" diameter telescope, and devised steam-driven equipment for grinding an polishing the speculum metal mirror. This telescope was the first of its size to be mounted "equitorially" to allow easy tracking of the stars. He discovered Triton, a moon of Neptune, and Ariel and Umbriel, satellites of Uranus. Later, Lassell built a 48" diameter telescope with th same design and took it to Malta for observations with clearer skies. Harry Fielding Reid Died 18 Jun 1944 (born 18 May 1859) U.S. seismologist and glaciologist who introduced the term "elastic rebound" in a report (1910) on the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. His early career was as a glaciologist, but then the study of earthquakes became his most significant work. Reid was the first to establish that it is the fault that causes an earthquake, rather than a fault results from an earthquake. His elastic rebound theory, said that an earthquake occurs upon the sudden release of a large amount of stored energy after a long gradual accumulation of stress along a fault line. Later, modern science explained that Earth's surface consists of huge tectonic plates slowly moving relative to each other, and stress (elastic strain <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Differential Diagnosis: "I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are." </div>

yevaud · Jun 19, 2006

June 19 People Victor Ivanovich Patsayev Born 19 June 1933; died 29 Jun 1971. Soviet cosmonaut, design engineer on the Soyuz 11 mission, in which he, mission commander Georgy Dobrovolsky, and flight engineer Vladislav Volkov remained in space a record 24 days and created the first manned orbital scientific station by docking their spacecraft with the unmanned Salyut station launched two months earlier. Soyuz 11 was guided automatically to 100 m, then hand-docked to the Salyut 1 scientific station. Equipment aboard Salyut 1 included a telescope, spectrometer, electrophotometer, and television. The crew checked improved on-board spacecraft systems in different conditions of flight and conducted medico-biological research. They died in cabin depressurization of Soyuz 11 during its return trip to earth. Aage N. Bohr Aage Niels Bohr is a Danish physicist, son of physicist Niels Bohr. They both contributed to the building of the atomic bomb during WW II. As his Nobel-winning father had done before him, Aage Bohr shared the 1975 Nobel Prize for Physics with Ben R. Mottelson and James Rainwater "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." The theory helped explain many nuclear properties by showing that nuclear particles can vibrate and rotate so as to distort the shape of the nucleus from the expected spherical symmetry into an ellipsoid. Emile Haug Born 19 June 1861; died 28 Aug 1927. Gustave-Émile Haug was a French geologist and paleontologist known for his contributions to the theory of geosynclines (trenches that accumulate thousands of metres of sediment and later become crumpled and uplifted into mountain chains). From the position of the Alp he theor <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Differential Diagnosis: "I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are." </div>

yevaud · Jun 20, 2006

June 20 People Henri-Gaston Busignies Died 20 June 1981 (born 29 Dec 1905) French-born American electronics engineer whose invention (1936) of high-frequency direction finders (HF/DF, or "Huff Duff") permitted the U.S. Navy during World War II to detect enemy transmissions and quickly pinpoint the direction from which a radio transmission was coming. Busignies invented the radiocompass (1926) while still a student at Jules Ferry College in Versailles, France. In 1934, he started developing the direction finder based on his earlier radiocompass. Busignies developed the moving target indicator for wartime radar. It scrubbed off the radar screen every echo from stationary objects and left only echoes from moving objects, such as aircraft. Georges LeMaitre Died 20 June 1966 (born 17 Jul 1894) Georges (Henri) Lemaître was a Belgian astronomer and cosmologist, born in Charleroi, Belgium. He was also a civil engineer, army officer, and ordained priest. He did research on cosmic rays and the three-body problem. Lemaître formulated (1927) the modern big-bang theory. He reasoned that if the universe was expanding now, then the further you go in the past, the universe’s contents must have been closer together. He envisioned that at some point in the distant past, all the matter in the universe was in an exceedingly dense state, crushed into a single object he called the "primeval super-atom" which exploded, with all its constituent parts rushing away. This theory was later developed by Gamow and others. Sebastian Wilhelm Valentin Bauer Died 20 June 1875 (born 23 Dec 1822) German pioneer inventor and builder of submarines. His first submarine, Le Plongeur-Marin ("The Marine Diver," 1850) sank 50-ft with water leaking inside during a test dive in Feb 1851 in Kiel Harbour. Over 7-hrs later, Bauer opened th <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Differential Diagnosis: "I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are." </div>

yevaud · Jun 20, 2006

Hi. I've been doing this on a daily basis for about 4 months now. While I suppose I can see that it's been somewhat popular by the number of hits (averaging over 60 hits per/day), it's frequently useful to ask the readers, "how is it doing?" So. Questions, comments, suggestions? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Differential Diagnosis: "I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are." </div>

rhodan · Jun 20, 2006

I don't check this thread every day, but about twice a week, usually scanning for Dutch scientists or interesting events. 8000 plus views...more people are watching. <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" />

yevaud · Jun 21, 2006

June 21 People Herbert Friedman Born 21 Jun 1916; died 9 Sep 2000. American rocket and satellite astronomer who made made seminal contributions to the study of solar radiation. He joined the Naval Research Laboratory in 1940 and developed defense-related radiation detection devices during WW II. In 1949, he obtained the first scientific proof that X rays emanate from the sun. When he directed the firing into space of a V-2 rocket carrying a detecting instrument. Through rocket astronomy, he also produced the first ultraviolet map of celestial bodies, and gathered information for the theory that stars are being continuously formed, on space radiation affecting Earth and on the nature of gases in space. He also made fundamental advances in the application of x rays to material analysis. Willem Hendrik Keesom Born 21 Jun 1876; died 24 Mar 1956. Dutch physicist who was a pioneer in cryogenics and was the first to solidify helium under pressure (1926). He was a research assistant for Kamerlingh Onnes working on the liquefaction of helium, and several years later, subsequently succeeded him (1923) as director of the Physics Laboratory at Leiden. In work done with M Wolfke, after studying discontinuities in several properties of helium at very low temperatures (1927) they suggested that it may be due to a phase change. They called the helium above the transitional helium I and the helium below the transition helium II. In 1932, he produced a temperature just two degrees above absolute zero (-272° C or -457.6° F). In 1942 he wrote the book Helium. Max Wolf Born 21 Jun 1863; died 3 Oct 1932. Maximilian Franz Joseph Cornelius Wolf was a German astronomer who founded and directed the Königstuhl Observatory. He used wide-field photography to study the Milky Way and used statistical treatment of star co <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Differential Diagnosis: "I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are." </div>

yevaud · Jun 22, 2006

June 22 People N. Howell Fruman Born 22 June 1892; died 2 Aug 1965. American analytical chemist whose analytical separation of uranium contributed to the development of the atomic bomb. He developed special techniques for preparing the bomb project materials, notably the sampling and analysis necessary for producing pure uranium metal. He also devised a new method of estimating traces of metals in various substances and assisted in developing an ether extraction process for the preparation of uranium oxide of the extreme purity required. His special methods also made possible greater utilization of tracer techniques with radioactive and stable isotopes. Hermann Minkowski Born 22 June 1864; died 12 Jan 1909. German mathematician who developed the geometrical theory of numbers and who used geometrical methods to solve difficult problems in number theory, mathematical physics, and the theory of relativity. By 1907, Minkowski realised that the work of Lorentz and Einstein could be best understood in a non-euclidean space. He considered space and time, which were formerly thought to be independent, to be coupled together in a four-dimensional "space-time continuum". Minkowski worked out a four-dimensional treatment of electrodynamics. His idea of a four-dimensional space (since known as "Minkowski space"), combining the three dimensions of physical space with that of time, laid the mathematical foundation of Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity. Thomas Gold Died 22 Jun 2004 (born 22 May 1920) Austrian-born British astronomer known for a steady-state theory of the universe, explaining pulsars, and naming the magnetosphere. In 1948, as a graduate student at Cambridge, he (together with Hermann Bondi and Fred Hoyle) proposed that, a continuous creation of matter in space is gradually formin <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Differential Diagnosis: "I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are." </div>

yevaud · Jun 23, 2006

June 23 People Nicholas Shakleton Born 23 Jun 1937; died 24 Jan 2006. English geologist and paleoclimatologist who helped identify carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas. He studied the ancient climate changes of the Quaternary period, the last 1.8 million years, during which there were periods building up massive ice sheets and mountain ice caps alternating with warm weather when the ice receded. His data showed Ice Ages occurred roughly every 100,000 years, by analysing an ice sheet in Russia and deep-sea fossil shells. He demonstrated that Ice Ages were linked to decreases in atmospheric carbon dioxide. Conversely, he warned, the present excessive emissions of that gas into the atmosphere can cause global warming. He was a distant relative of Sir Ernest Shackleton, the Arctic explorer. Alan M. Turing Born 23 Jun 1912; died 7 Jun 1954 . Alan Mathison Turing was an English mathematician and logician who pioneered in the field of computer theory and who contributed important logical analyses of computer processes. He made major contributions to mathematics, cryptanalysis, logic, philosophy, and biology and to the new areas later named computer science, cognitive science, artificial intelligence, and artificial life. Otto Heckmann Born 23 Jun 1901; died 13 May 1983. Otto (Hermann Leopold) Heckmann was a German astronomer noted for measuring stellar positions and his studies of relativity and cosmology. He also made notable contributions to statistical mechanics. In 1931, He proved that, under the assumptions that matter is homogeneously distributed throughout the universe and is isotropic (having identical properties in every direction), the theory of general relativity could result in an open, or Euclidean, universe as readily as a closed one. Heckmann organized an international program to photogr <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Differential Diagnosis: "I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are." </div>

yevaud · Jun 24, 2006

June 24 People Martin Lewis Perl Born 24 Jun 1927 American physicist who received the 1995 Nobel Prize for Physics for discovering a subatomic particle that he named the tau, a massive lepton with a negative charge. The tau, which he found in the mid-1970s, was the first evidence of a third "generation" of fundamental particles. It is a superheavy cousin of the electron, identical in all respects except that the tau is more than 3,500 times heavier than the electron and survives less than a trillionth of a second, whereas the electron is stable. Sir Fred Hoyle Born 24 Jun 1915; died 20 Aug 2001. English mathematician and astronomer, best known as the foremost proponent and defender of the steady-state theory of the universe. This theory holds both that the universe is expanding and that matter is being continuously created to keep the mean density of matter in space constant. He became Britain's best-known astronomer in 1950 with his broadcast lectures on The Nature of the Universe, and he recalled coining the term "Big Bang" in the last of those talks. Although over time, belief in a "steady state" universe as Hoyle had proposed was shared by fewer and fewer scientists because of new discoveries, Hoyle never accepted the now most popular "Big Bang" theory for the origin of the universe. William Penney Born 24 Jun 1909; died 3 Mar 1991. (Baron Penney of East Hendred) British nuclear physicist who led Britain's development of the atomic bomb. Penney was to Britain as Oppenheimer was to the U.S. He was a prominent part of the British Mission at Los Alamos during WW II, where his principal assignment was studying the damage effects from the blast wave of the atomic bomb, but he became involved in implosion studies as well. Penney's combination of expertise, analytical skill, effective communi <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Differential Diagnosis: "I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are." </div>

yevaud · Jun 25, 2006

June 25 People J. Hans D. Jensen Born 25 Jun 1907; died 11 Feb 1973 Johannes Hans Daniel Jensen was a German physicist who proposed the shell theory of nuclear structure of protons and neutrons grouped in onion-like layers of concentric shells. He suggested that the nucleons (protons and neutrons) spun on their own axis while they moved in an orbit within their shell and that certain patterns in the number of nucleons per shell made the nucleus more stable. Scientists already knew that the electrons orbiting the nucleus were arranged in different shells. Jensen's model of the nucleus won him a share of the 1963 Nobel Prize in physics (with Maria Goeppert- Mayer, who arrived at the same hypothesis independently in the U.S.; and Eugene P. Wigner for unrelated work.) Throughout the 1950s, Jensen worked on radioactivity. Rupert Wildt Born 25 Jun 1905; died 9 Jan 1976 German-American astronomer who studyied atmospheres of planets. He identified (1932) certain absorption bands (observed by Slipher) in the spectra of Jupiter and the outer planets as indicative of ammonia and methane as minor components of these planets which are primarily composed of hydrogen and helium. He speculated (1937) that droplets of formaldehyde formed the clouds of Venus, since water was not detected. (In fact, surface water is absent on Venus, but the clouds do contain water with sulphur and sulphuric acid.) In 1939, he realized the importance of the negative hydrogen ion for stellar opacity. By the 1940s, he proposed the greenhouse theory to explain how atmospheric gases produced unexpectedly high temperatures of Venus. Hermann Oberth Born 25 Jun 1894; died 29 Dec 1989. Hermann (Julius) Oberth was a German scientist who was one of three founders of space flight (with Tsiolkovsky and Goddard). After injury in WWI, he draf <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Differential Diagnosis: "I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are." </div>

yevaud · Jun 26, 2006

June 26 People Robert C. Richardson Born 26 June 1937. American physicist who (with Douglas Osheroff and David Lee) was awarded the 1996 Nobel Prize for Physics for their discovery of superfluidity in the isotope helium-3. As helium is reduced in temperature toward almost absolute zero, a strange phase transition occurs, and the helium takes on the form of a superfluid. The atoms had until that point had moved with random speeds and directions. But as a superfluid, the atoms then move in a co-ordinated manner! Lyman Spitzer, Jr. Born 26 June 1914; died 31 Mar 1997 American astrophysicist who advanced knowledge of physical processes in interstellar space and pioneered efforts to harness nuclear fusion as a clean energy source. He made major contributions in stellar dynamics and plasma physics. He founded study of the interstellar medium (gas and dust between stars from which new stars are formed). Spitzer studied in detail interstellar dust grains and magnetic fields as well as the motions of star clusters and their evolution. He studied regions of star formation and was among the first to suggest that bright stars in spiral galaxies formed recently. Spitzer was the first person to propose the idea of placing a large telescope in space and was the driving force behind the development of the Hubble Space Telescope. Willy Messerschmit Born 26 June 1898; died 15 Sep 1978 German aircraft engineer and designer, born Frankfurt-am-Main. Messerschmitt. He studied at the Munich Institute of Technology, and in 1926 joined the Bayerische Flugzeugwerke as its chief designer and engineer. In 1938 the company became the Messerschmitt-Aitken-Gesellschaft, producing military aircraft. His Me109 set a world speed record in 1939, and during World War 2 he supplied the Luftwaffe with its foremost types of comba <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Differential Diagnosis: "I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are." </div>

yevaud · Jun 27, 2006

June 27 People Merle Anthony Tuve Born 27 Jun 1901; died 20 May 1982. American research physicist and geophysicist who (with Gregory Breit) made the first use pulsed radio waves to explore the ionosphere. He devised the necessary detecting equipment to measure the time between receiving a direct radio pulse and a second pulse reflected from the ionosphere. The observations he made provided the theoretical foundation for the development of radar. Tuve, with Lawrence R. Hafstad and Norman P. Heydenburg, made the first and definitive measurements of the nuclear force between proton-proton force at nuclear distances. During WW II he developed the proximity fuse. Following the war, he made important contributions to experimental seismology, radio astronomy, and optical astronomy. Hertert Doust Curtis Born 27 Jun 1872; died 9 Jan 1942 American astronomer whose study of nebulae indicated they lay far outside our own galaxy. After his early work measuring radial velocities of the brighter stars, he turned in 1910 to study spiral nebulae which he believed were isolated independent star systems. By 1917, from study of nebula photography he concluded the nebulae lay well beyond our galaxy. He estimated the Andromeda nebula to be 500,000 light-years away. At a meeting of the National Academy of Sciences (1920) he engaged in a famous debate with Harlow Shapley who proposed that our galaxy was 300,000 light-years in diameter and included the spiral nebulae. In 1924, when Edwin Hubble confirmed that the Andromeda nebula was, in fact, far beyond our own galaxy. Alexis Bouvard Born 27 Jun 1767; died 7 June 1843 French astronomer and director of the Paris Observatory, who is noted for discovering eight comets and writing Tables astronomiques of Jupiter and Saturn (1808) and of Uranus (1821). Bouvard's tables a <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Differential Diagnosis: "I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are." </div>

alokmohan · Jun 27, 2006

Tell me anything about sept 22.

yevaud · Jun 28, 2006

June 28 People Klaus Von Klitzing Born 28 Jun 1943 German physicist who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1985 for his discovery, made in 1980, of the quantized Hall effect. Under appropriate conditions the resistance offered by an electrical conductor is quantized; that is, it varies by discrete steps rather than smoothly and continuously. His experiments enabled other scientists to study the conducting properties of electronic components with extraordinary precision. His work also aided in determining the precise value of the fine-structure constant and in establishing convenient standards for the measurement of electrical resistance. Maria Goeppert Mayer Born 28 Jun 1906; died 20 Feb 1972. German physicist who shared one-half of the 1963 Nobel Prize for Physics with J. Hans D. Jensen of West Germany for their proposal of the shell nuclear model. (The other half of the prize was awarded to Eugene P. Wigner of the United States for unrelated work.) In 1939 she worked at Columbia University on the separation of uranium isotopes for the atomic bomb project. In 1949, she devised the shell nuclear model, which explained the detailed properties of atomic nuclei in terms of a structure of shells occupied by the protons and neutrons. This explained the great stability and abundance of nuclei that have a particular number of neutrons (such as 50, 82, or 126) and the same special number of protons. Vannevar Bush Died 28 Jun 1974 (born 11 Mar 1890) American electrical engineer and administrator who and oversaw government mobilization of scientific research during World War II. At the age of 35, in 1925, he developed the differential analyzer, the world's first analog computer. It was capable of solving differential equations. He put into concrete form that which began 50 years earlier with th <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Differential Diagnosis: "I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are." </div>

yevaud · Jun 29, 2006

June 29 People George Ellery Hale Born 29 Jun 1868; died 21 Feb 1938. American astronomer known for his development of important astronomical instruments. To expand solar observations and promote astrophysical studies he founded Mt. Wilson Observatory (Dec 1904). He discovered that sunspots were regions of relatively low temperatures and high magnetic fields. Hale hired Harlow Shapley and Edwin Hubble as soon as they finished their doctorates, and he encouraged research in galactic and extragalactic astronomy as well as solar and stellar astrophysics. Hale planned and tirelessly raised funds for the 200" reflecting telescope at the Palomar Mountain Observatory completed in 1948, after his death, and named for him - the Hale telescope. Pietro Angelo Secchi Born 29 Jun 1818; died 26 Feb 1878. Italian Jesuit priest and astrophysicist, who made the first survey of the spectra of over 4000 stars and suggested that stars be classified according to their spectral type. He studied the planets, especially Jupiter, which he discovered was composed of gasses. Secchi studied the dark lines which join the two hemispheres of Mars; he called them canals as if they where the works of living beings. (These studies were later continued by Schiaparelli.) Beyond astronomy, his interests ranged from archaeology to geodesy, from geophysics to meteorology. He also invented a meteorograph, an automated device for recording barometric pressure, temperature, wind direction and velocity, and rainfall. Vladislav Nikolayevich Volkov Died 29 Jun 1971 (born 23 Nov 1935) Soviet cosmonaut who was flight engineer on the Soyuz 7 (1969) and the Soyuz 11 (1971) missions. The Soyuz 11 had accomplished the first space station flight, two years before the American Skylab, and docked with the Salyut 1 scientific station. Equipment <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Differential Diagnosis: "I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are." </div>

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