ALL ABOUT TODAY

Kirk Bryan

Born 22 July 1888; died 22 Aug 1950.

American geologist and geomorphologist who pioneered in explaining the forces that molded the present landforms of arid climates. Through his studies inhydrology, Bryan became an authority on the geology of water conservation and dam sites, and on several occasions served as consultant to the Mexican government on the construction of dams and reservoirs for reclamation projects. In 1923-25, Bryan served as geologist on archaeological expeditions in the Chaco Canyon area of New Mexico where he applied geological research as an aid to archaeological and anthropological investigation. His correlations of alluviums, cave deposits bearing artifacts, moraines, and till helped establish the antiquity of man in North America.

Selman Waksman

Born 22 July 1888; died 16 Aug 1973

Selman Abraham Waksman, was a Ukrainian-born (Priluka) American biochemist who was one of the world's foremost authorities on soil microbiology. After the discovery of penicillin, he played a major role in initiating a calculated, systematic search for antibiotics among microbes. In 1939, Dubos, a previous student pointed out a bacteria-killing agent in a soil microorganism. He introduced the term antibiotic, "against life." In 1943, he isolated streptomycin from a mold he had known and studied early in his life. His consequent discovery of this antibiotic streptomycin, the first specific antibiotic effective against tuberculosis, earned him the 1952 Nobel Prize.

Gustav Hertz

Born 22 July 1887; died 30 Oct 1975.

German quantum physicist who, with James Franck, received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1925 for the Franck-Hertz experiment, which confirmed the quantum theory that energy can be absorbed by an atom only in definite amounts and provided an important confirmation of the Bohr atomic model. He was a nephew of Heinrich Hertz. Although he fought on the German side in World War I, being of Jewish descent, he was forced to resign his professorship (1934) when Hitler took power. From 1945 he worked in the Soviet Union, and then in 1955 was a professor of physics in Leipzig, East Germany.

Gregor Mendel

Born 22 July 1822; died 6 Jan 1884.

Original name (until 1843) Johann Mendel. Austrian pioneer in the study of heredity. He spent his adult life with the Augustinian monastery in Brunn, where as a geneticist, botanist and plant experimenter, he was the first to lay the mathematical foundation of the science of genetics, in what came to be called Mendelism. Over the period 1856-63, Mendel grew and analyzed over 28,000 pea plants. He carefully studied for each their plant height, pod shape, pod color, flower position, seed color, seed shape and flower color. He made two very important generalizations from his pea experiments, known today as the Laws of Heredity. Mendel coined the present day terms in genetics: recessiveness and dominance.

Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel

Born 22 July 1784; died 17 Mar 1846.

German astronomer. In 1809, at the age of 26, Bessel was appointed director of Frederick William III of Prussia's new Königsberg Observatory and professor of astronomy, where he spent the rest of his career. His monumental task was determining the positions and proper motions for about 50,000 stars, which allowed the first accurate determination of interstellar distances. Bessel's work in determining the constants of precession, nutation and aberration won him further honors. Other than the sun, he was the first to measure the distance of a star, by parallax, of 61 Cygni (1838). In mathematical analysis, he is known for his Bessel function.

James Geddes

Born 22 July 1763; died 19 Aug 1838.

Civil engineer, lawyer and politician, born in Pennsylvania but moved to New York state in 1794. The New York State Legislature introduced a bill to fund a feasibility study for a New York State canal, and retained Judge James Geddes (1808) survey routes across the state, east to Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. On 20 Jan 1809, Geddes recommended a Hudson-Erie route to the State legislature. Funding was delayed, but construction on the Erie Canal began on 4 Jul 1817. Taking eight years to complete, it is one of the first great engineering works in North America. Close to 1,000 Erie Canal workers died of malaria in the swamps. Geddes also consulted on canal routes for Ohio.

Pierre Lyonnet

Born 22 July 1708; died 10 Oct 1789

Dutch naturalist and engraver who skillfully dissected insects and made detailed illustrations of their anatomy. He also had a career as an official codebreaker. In 1738 he entered the service of the States General as an administrator of secret expenses and as a code-clerk. In his leisure he turned to natural history. He believed that nature was a cipher that could be interpreted by tracing every detail of its perfect design. He designed a simple microscope which had each lens suspended at the end of a series of ball and socket joints over a small mahogony dissecting table mounted on a post above a wooden base with small drawers containing his instruments. After preparing engravings for several books written by others, he produced his own treatises.« [Other sources list his birth year as 1706 and others as 1707.]

Gerd Binnig

Born 20 Jul 1947
German-born physicist who co-invented the scanning tunneling microscope with Heinrich Rohrer. They shared the 1986 Nobel Prize for Physics with Ernst Ruska, who designed the first electron microscope. This instrument is not a true microscope ( i.e. an instrument that gives a direct image of an object) since it is based on the principle that the structure of a surface can be studied using a stylus that scans the surface at a fixed distance from it. Vertical adjustment of the stylus is controlled by means of what is termed the tunnel effect - hence the name of the instrument.

Robert D. Maurer
Born 20 Jul 1924
American research physicist, who with his colleagues at Corning Glass Works, Dr. Donald B. Keck and Dr. Peter Schultz invented fused silica optical waveguide - optical fiber. This was a breakthrough creating a revolution in telecommunications, capable of carrying 65,000 times more information than conventional copper wire. In 1970, Maurer, Keck, and Schultz solved a problem that had previously stumped scientists around the world. They designed and produced the first optical fiber with optical losses low enough for wide use in telecommunications. The light loss was limited to 20 decibels per kilometer (at least one percent of the light entering a fiber remains after traveling one kilometer). He retired in 1989.

Tadeus Reichstein Born 20 Jul 1897; died 1 Aug 1996.
Polish-born Swiss chemist who identified the steroid hormones of the adrenal cortex and studied their structure and biological effects. For his role in this discovery, he shared the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1950 with Philip S. Hench and Edward C. Kendall.

John Reith
Born 20 Jul 1889
John Charles Walsham Reith, 1st Baron Reith, first Director-General of BBC (1927-38) died in Stonehaven, Grampian. As the BBC's founding father, he looked westwards in the 1920s to America's unregulated, commercial radio, and then east to the fledgling Soviet Union's rigidly controlled state system. Reith's vision was of an independent British broadcaster able to educate, inform and entertain. the whole nation, free from political interference and commercial pressure. In doing that he believed it would enrich the intellectual and cultural life of the nation. It is in this spirit that the BBC annually invites a leading figure to deliver a series of Reith lectures in his memory using the medium of radio to advance greater public understanding of their field.

Tadeus Reichstein
Born 20 July 1897
Swiss chemist who, with Philip S. Hench and Edward C. Kendall, received the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1950 for his discoveries concerning hormones of the adrenal cortex, their structure and biological effects. With his co-workers, Reichstein accomplished the first isolation of four active hormones from the adrenal cortex, the first synthesis of one of them, the proof of the steroid nature of said hormones, and numerous details on the structure and properties of these important bodies. This made synthesis possible, leading to the creation of new medications.

Errett Lobban Cord

Born 20 Jul 1894; died 1974.
U.S. automobile manufacturer, advocate of front-wheel-drive vehicles. Cord, still in his twenties when he arrived at the Auburn Automobile Company, had a talent for seeking and hiring young, innovative minds, full of drive and ambition. Cord was a brilliant, complex industrialist who helped personal and public transportation come of age. He is best known today for Auburn, Cord and Duesenberg automobiles, Cord's greatest talent may have been his unparalleled ability to construct an automotive empire durable enough to thrive during the darkest years of the Great Depression. Photo: 1929 Cord L-29 Sedan, America's first front-drive production car. Built by the Auburn Automobile Company, Auburn, Indiana.

Alberto Santos-Dumont
Born 20 Jul 1873; died 23 Jul 1932.
Alberto Santos-Dumont was a Brazilian aviation pioneer, deemed the Father of Aviation by his countrymen. At the age of 18, Santos-Dumont was sent by his father to Paris where he devoted his time to the study of chemistry, physics, astronomy and mechanics. His first spherical balloon made its first ascension in Paris on 4 July 1898. He developed steering capabilities, and in his sixth dirigible on 19 Oct 1901 won the "Deutsch Prize," awarded to the balloonist who circumnavigated the Eiffel Tower. He turned to heavier-than-air flight, and on 12 Nov 1906 his 14-BIS airplane flew a distance of 220 meters, height of 6 m. and speed of 37 km/h. to win the "Archdecon Prize." In 1909, he produced his famous "Demoiselle" or "Grasshopper" monoplanes, the forerunners of the modern light plane.

J. J. Sederholm
Born 20 Jul 1863; died 26 June 1934
Jakob Johannes Sederholm was a pioneering geologist who studied the Precambrian rocks of Finland. He was appointed geologist to the Geological Commission of Finland in 1888, where later he became its director (1893 to 1933). The Precambrian period ran from 3.96 billion to 570 million years ago. Precambrian rocks, called sheilds can only be found today in Africa, Europe, and North America. Not much of these rocks can be found, but the ones that are display evidence of having been altered by intense metamorphosism. The minerals that the sheilds are made of are generally granite, schist, or gneiss.

Georg Elias Müller
Born 20 Jul 1850; died Dec 1934.
Georg Elias Nathanael Müller was a German psychologist whose research work encompassed four principal areas: psychophysical method, memory, thought psychology, and color perception theory. The psychophysics anticipated the color theory, which was founded on Hering. The memory work led into the thought psychology, which was founded on Herbart and Külpe. Whereas earlier in his career his published works lacked original data, he sharpened his approach and became known as the methodologist of psychological experimentation. The experiments carried out in his lab were the gold standard of experimental results. He was directed one of the major centres of psychological research at the University of Göttingen (1881-1921).«

Julius Cohnheim
Born 20 July 1839; died 1884
Julius Friedrich Cohnheim was a pioneer of experimental pathology who helped determine the morbid changes that occur in animal tissue affected by inflammation, tuberculosis, and other disease states. He demonstrated that inflammation was an active dynamic process. He was the first to scientifically classify tumors the way we still do today (ex. carcinomas, fibroma, sarcoma). Cohnheim proposed the first great theory of cancer's origin, the theory of embryonal rests. He thought more germ cells are produced with a developing embryo than are needed to form any given part and that cancer's development involves this excess material.

Sir Thomas Clifford Allbutt

Born 20 July 1836; died 22 Feb 1925.
English physician, the inventor of the short clinical thermometer. The need for suitable equipment to measure the progress of a fever by temperature at the bedside was solved in 1866 when Allbutt invented the conveniently portable six-inch clinical thermometer, able to take a temperature in five minutes. It replaced a foot-long model that required 20 minutes to determine a patient's temperature. His investigations also led to the improved treatment of arterial diseases when he proved than angina is caused by the narrowing of the coronary artery. Image: Allbutt, detail of a portrait by Sir William Orpen (EB) Sir William

Bowman
Born 20 Jul 1816; died 1892.
(1st Baronet) was an English surgeon and histologist who obtained a European reputation for medical research long before he was thirty years of age. He described (1842) the histologic structure of the nephron, the functional unit of the kidney, where the process of of urine takes place as a by-product of blood filtration that is carried on in the kidney. The "Bowman's capsule" of the kidney carries his name. The kidney contains millions of very tiny sacs called Bowman's capsules that filter blood to produce urine. He also made important discoveries concerning the structure and function of the eye and of striated muscle. He collaborated with Todd in writing The Physiological Anatomy.

Sir Richard Owen
Born 20 Jul 1804; died 18 Dec 1892.
English anatomist and paleontologist who is remembered for his contributions to the study of fossil animals and for his strong opposition to the views of Charles Darwin. He created the word "Dinosaur" meaning "terrible reptile" (1842). Owen synthesized French anatomical work, especially from Cuvier and Geoffroy, with German transcendental anatomy. He gave us many of the terms still used today in anatomy and evolutionary biology, including "homology". In 1856, he was appointed Superintendent of the British Museum (Natural History). Image: Detail from portrait by William Holman Hunt. Sir James Kay-

Shuttleworth

Born 20 Jul 1804
(1st Baronet, original surname Kay) was a physician, public-health reformer, and chief founder of the English system of publicly financed elementary education. A medical graduate of Edinburgh University, he was also a cholera doctor in Manchester, a pioneer social scientist and town planner, an assistant Poor Law commissioner, the manager of a large landed estate (Gawthorpe Hall), a would-be politician and a novelist. His surname, Kay, changed in 1842 upon marriage to Janet Shuttleworth. His turbulent political, personal and family life is fascinating in itself and, in addition, sheds light on many aspects of nineteenth century social history.

Hartmut Michel
Born 18 Jul 1948
German biochemist who, along with Johann Deisenhofer and Robert Huber, received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1988 for their determination of the three-dimensional structure of certain proteins that are essential for photosynthesis. They are the first to succeed in unravelling the full details of how a membrane-bound protein is built up, revealing the structure of the molecule atom by atom. The protein is taken from a bacterium which, like green plants and algae, uses light energy from the sun to build organic substances. All our nourishment has its origin in this process, which is called photosynthesis and which is a condition for all life on earth.

Roald Hoffmann
Born 18 Jul 1937
Polish-born American chemist, corecipient, with Fukui Kenichi of Japan, of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1981 for their independent investigations of the mechanisms of chemical reactions. His work aims at theoretically anticipating the course of chemical reactions. It is based on quantum mechanics (the theory whose starting point is that the smallest building blocks of matter may be regarded both as particles and as waves), which attempts to explain how atoms behave. Orbital interaction and symmetry relations between molecules or parts of molecules are fundamental to this theory of conservation of orbital symmetry in chemical reactions.

Thomas S. Kuhn
Born 18 Jul 1922; died 17 June 1996.
Thomas S(amuel) Kuhn was an American historian of science, MIT professor, noted for The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), one of the most influential works of history and philosophy written in the 20th century. His thesis was that science was not a steady, cumulative acquisition of knowledge, but it is "a series of peaceful interludes punctuated by intellectually violent revolutions." Then appears a Lavoisier or an Einstein, often a young scientist not indoctrinated in the accepted theories, to sweep the old paradigm away. Such revolutions, he said, came only after long periods of tradition-bound normal science. "Frameworks must be lived with and explored before they can be broken,"

Charles Palache

Born 18 Jul 1869; died 5 Dec 1954
One of the most eminent crystallographers and mineralogists of the world, he lived in a period of revolutionary developments in mineralogical science. At the University of California (PhD 1887), he did the field work for the first geologic maps of the San Francisco Peninsula and the BerkleyHeidelberg taking courses in petrography, he was introduced to morphological crystallography by Victor Goldschmidt. Palache threw himself with enthusiasm into the study of crystals, and laid the foundation for the work he pursued vigorously for the next fifty-five years. Image: Crystal drawing of usual graphite crystal from Sterling Hill, NJ, from Palache's 1941 paper in American Mineralogist. area. In 1895, while at

Hendrik Antoon Lorentz
Born 18 Jul 1853; died 4 Feb 1928.
Dutch physicist and joint winner (with Pieter Zeeman) of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1902 for his theory of the influence of magnetism upon electromagnetic radiation phenomena. The theory was confirmed by findings of Zeeman and gave rise to Albert Einstein's special theory of relativity. From the start, Lorentz made it his task to extend James Clerk Maxwell's theory of electricity and of light. Already in his doctor's thesis, he treated the reflection and refraction phenomena of light from this new standpoint. His fundamental work in the fields of optics and electricity revolutionized conceptions of the nature of matter. In 1878, he published an essay relating the velocity of light in a medium, to its density and composition..

Jean Robert Argand

Born 18 Jul 1768; died 13 Aug 1822.
Swiss mathematician who was one of the earliest to use complex numbers, which he applied to show that all algebraic equations have roots. He invented the Argand diagram - a geometrical representation of complex numbers as a point with the real portion of the number on the x axis and the imaginary part on the y axis.«

Gilbert White

Born 18 Jul 1720; died 26 Jun 1793
English cleric and pioneering naturalist, known as the "father of English natural history." Over the course of 20 years of his observations and two colleagues' letters, he studied a wide range of flora and fauna seen around his hometown of Selborne, Hampshire. In 1789, he published this studious work. His book The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne contained observations of nature drawn from life. The book has been in print continuously since 1789, and is the fourth most published book in the English language.

Samuel Molyneux

Born 18 Jul 1689; died 13 Apr 1728.
British astronomer (Royal Observatory at Kew) and politician. Together with assistant James Bradley, he made measurements of abberation - the diversion of light from stars. They made observations of the star  Draconis with a vertical telescope. Starting in 1725 they had the proof of the movement of the earth giving support to the Copernican model of the earth revolving around the sun. The star oscillated with an excursion of 39 arcsecs between its lowest declination in May and its the highest point of its oscillation in September. He was unfortunate to fall ill in 1728 and into the care of the Anatomist to the Royal Family, Dr Nathaniel St Andre, whose qualifications were as a dancing master. Molyneux died shortly thereafter.

Robert Hooke
Born 18 Jul 1635; died 3 Mar 1703.
English physicist, born Freshwater, Isle of Wight, who discovered the law of elasticity, known as Hooke's law, and invented the balance spring for clocks. He was a virtuoso scientist whose scope of research ranged widely, including physics, astronomy, chemistry, biology, geology, architecture and naval technology. On 5 Nov 1662, Hooke was appointed the Curator of Experiments at the Royal Society, London. After the Great Fire of London (1666), he served as Chief Surveyor and helped rebuild the city. He also invented or improved meteorological instruments such as the barometer, anemometer, and hygrometer. Hooke authored the influential Micrographia (1665)

JULY 17 - BIRTHS

Gordon Gould

Born 17 Jul 1920; died 16 Sep 2005.

American physicist who coined the word "laser" from the initial letters of "Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation." Gould was inspired from his youth to be an inventor, wishing to emulate Marconi, Bell, and Edison. He contributed to the WWII Manhattan Project, working on the separation of uranium isotopes. On 9 Nov 1957, during a sleepless Saturday night, he had the inventor's inspiration and began to write down the principles of what he called a laser in his notebook Although Charles Townes and Arthur Schawlow, also successfully developed the laser, eventually Gould gained his long-denied patent rights.

Nils Bohlin

Born 17 Jul 1920; died 26 Sep 2002

Swedish engineer who invented the familiar three-point lap and shoulder seatbelt which is considered one of the most important innovations in automobile safety. Bohlin left the aircraft industry, where he worked on jet ejector seats, including restraints, and joined AB Volvo in 1958 as safety engineer, where he invented and patented this device. In Aug 1959, Volvo was the first car manufacturer to introduce the three-point seat belt in their cars. They made this design freely available to other car manufacturers to save more lives. Bohlin holds several patents related to automotive and aviation design. After retiring form Volvo in 1985, he continued to give lectures and present papers relating to automotive restraint issues

Georges Lemaître

Born 17 Jul 1894; died 20 June 1966.

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.

Alexius Meinong

Born 17 Jul 1853; died 27 Nov 1920.

Alexius Meinong was an Austrian philosopher and psychologist who worked at the University of Graz. He was a pupil of Franz Brentano and is most famous for his belief in nonexistent objects. He distinguished several levels of reality among objects and facts about them. Thus, existent objects participate in actual (true) facts about the world; subsistent (real but non-existent) objects appear in possible (but false) facts; and objects that neither exist nor subsist can only belong to impossible facts. He is remembered for his contributions to axiology, or theory of values, and for his Gegenstandstheorie, or the Theory of Abstract Objects.

Ephraim Shay

1880

Born 17 Jul 1839; died 19 Apr 1916

American logger who invented the Shay geared, small steam locomotive to haul heavy logging trains at low speeds over rough terrain with poorly-laid, uneven track, sharp curves, and grades up to 14 percent. His 1880 prototype had a steam boiler mounted amidships; fuel and water on opposite ends; and the unusual arrangement of two vertical cylinders. The wheels were driven by bevelled gears on a shaft. Power was transferred through a crankshaft and universal joints. On 14 Jun 1881, he was issued a U.S. patent for a Locomotive Engine (No. 242,992). In 1882, Ephraim assigned manufacturing rights to the company that would become Lima Locomotive Works. By the end of production in 1945, 2,771 Shays had been built.« [Image right: Shay locomotive and tender.]

Sir Frederick Abel

Born 17 Jul 1827; died 6 Sep 1902.

Sir Frederick (Augustus) Abel was an English chemist and military explosives specialist who, with the chemist Sir James Dewar, invented cordite (1889). This smokeless gunpowder was later adopted as the standard explosive of the British army, and proved vital in WWI. Battles could now be fought without the obscuring smoke clouds of gunpowder weapons. Cordite was mixed from purified ingredients of nitroglycerine, nitrocellulose and petroleum jelly then extruded as cords. When dried, this explosive could be measured more precisely and handled more safely than gunpowder. Abel also studied dust explosions in coal mines, invented a device for testing the flash point of petroleum, and found a way to prevent guncotton from exploding.

Amanz Gressly

Born 17 Jul 1814; died 1865.

Swiss geologist and paleontologist who originated the study of stratigraphic facies when he discovered lateral differences in the character and fossil content of strata in the Jura Mountains, reflecting a variation of the original environment of deposition. The "Gressly's lizard" dinosaur was named Gresslyosaurus (1857) to honour Amanz Gressly. (to replace the preoccupied Dinosaurus Ruetimeyer 1856)