| NOVEMBER 8 - BIRTHS | |
| Jack Kilby | |
(source) |
 Born 8
Nov 1923; died 20 Jun 2005.
Jack St Clair Kilby was an American electrical engineer who invented the first integrated ciruit (IC), for which he shared the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physics. His interest in electronics grew out of his in school-age hobby of amateur radio. Year later, working at Texas Instruments, he devised a way to miniaturize a complicated transistor circuit by building its components on a block of silicon with internal connections that eliminated external wiring. On 12 Sep 1958, he demonstrated his first integrated circuit to his supervisor. A few months later, an IC device in an improved form was independently invented elsewhere by Robert Noyce. Geoffrey W.A. Dummer also had the concept years earlier, but not a working device. In Sep 1965, Kilby's team developed the first shirt-pocket electronic calculator using IC's.« |
| Christiaan Barnard | |
(source) |
Born 8
Nov 1922; died 2 Sep 2001.
Christiaan (Neethling) Barnard was the South African surgeon who performed the world's first human heart transplant operation. In a five-hour operation on 3 Dec 1967, Barnard successfully replaced the diseased heart of Louis Washkansky (55) with a healthy heart from Denise Darvall, a woman in her mid-20s with the same blood type, who died in hospital after an automobile accident. Barnard knew it was a surgical success when he first applied electrodes and the heart resumed beating. Washkansky died 18 days later of double pneumonia as a result of his suppressed immune system. It was a milestone, however, in a new field of life-extending surgery. Rheumatoid arthritis and advancing stiffness in his hands forced his retirement from surgery in 1983. |
| Norman de Bruyne | |
(source) |
Born 8
Nov 1904; died 7 Mar 1997.
Norman de Bruyne helped to transform aircraft construction by developing strong new lightweight materials and synthetic glues. In 1928, he joined Lord Rutherford at his Cavendish Laboratory in atomic research. Subsequently developing an interest in flying, by 1934 he started his own company, Aero Research to research his invention of a new form of synthetic glue. The long-established casein glues used until then in the building of wooden aircraft were seriously affected in hot and humid conditions. His own revolutionary cantilever-wing "Snark" monoplane utilized his new bonding methods. Later, his metal-to-metal bonding of lightweight and very strong aluminium honeycomb aircraft structures were extensively used during WW II |
| Albert F. Frey-Wyssling | |
(source) |
Born 8 Nov 1900; died 30 Aug 1988.
Albert F(riedrich) Frey-Wyssling was a Swiss botanist and pioneer of submicroscopic morphology who helped to initiate the study later known as molecular biology. This scientific discipline deals with the molecular basis of living processes. Molecular biology now involves both biochemistry and biophysics. Its growth since the 1930s has been made possible by the development of such techniques as chromatography, electron microscopy, and X-ray diffraction, which have revealed the structures of biologically important molecules, such as DNA, RNA, and enzymes. Heredity, and the development, organization, and function of living cells, all depend on the physical and chemical properties of the molecules involved. |
| Hans Cloos | |
(source) |
Born 8 Nov 1885; died 26 Sep 1951.
German geologist who was a pioneer in the study of granite tectonics (the deformation of crystalline rocks) and in model studies of rock deformation. He studied the structure and development of the continents and was one of the first investigators to make use of true scale models to investigate the mechanics of faulting. His publications include Der Mechanismus tiefvulkanischer Vorgänge (1921; "The Mechanism of Deep Volcanic Events"). In his autobiography, Conversation with the Earth, (1953) he wrote "geology is the music of the earth." [Image right: granite desert mountains]  Conversation
with The Earth, by Hans Cloos. |
| Hermann Rorschach | |
(source) |
Born 8 Nov 1884; died 2 Apr 1922.
Swiss psychiatrist who devised the inkblot test that bears his name and that is widely used clinically for diagnosing psychopathology. His secondary-school nickname was Kleck, meaning "inkblot," because of his interest in sketching. In 1917, he learned of Szyman Hens, who had studied the fantasies of his subjects using inkblot cards. Rorschach began in 1918 using 15 accidental inkblots, asking patients, "What might this be?" He knew the human tendency to project interpretations and feelings onto ambiguous stimuli. The subjective responses of his subjects enabled him to distinguish among them on the basis of their perceptive abilities, intelligence, and emotional characteristics. His published results (1921) drew little interest until after his death. Psychodiagnostics,
by Hermann Rorschach. |
| Frank Gouldsmith Speck | |
(source) |
Born 8
Nov 1881; died 6 Feb 1950.
American cultural anthropologist and ethnographer of the Eastern Woodland Indians, who chose to study and preserve knowledge of their culture. As a boy, he lived with Fidelia Fielding, a Native American, and the last speaker of her tribal language, from whom he learned the Mohegan language and literature. With this rich background, at university he began study of anthropological linguistics, encouraged by anthropologist Franz Boas. Speck spent his career in extensive fieldwork. By staying with the Indian comunities he earned the trust of the tribes. He reconstructed scattered remnants of ritual and lore into an extensive record. He collected arts and crafts as artifacts of the material culture, and was a pioneer in ethnoscience and ethnomusicology.« Naskapi:
The Savage Hunters of the Labrador Peninsula, by Frank
G. Speck. |
| Robert Esnault-Pelterie | |
(source) |
Born 8
Nov 1881; died 6 Dec 1957.
French engineer and aviation pioneer who made important contributions to the beginnings of heavier-than-air flight in Europe. He built a copy of the Wright brothers' glider of 1902, though he distrusted their steering technique. Consequently, he made an innovation by inventing the aileron (a movable airfoil at the edge of the wing). He used a hand operated wheel to control them. Used symmetrically, they provided longitudinal stability. Used differentially, they controlled lateral stability. In 1907, he built one of the first monoplanes, REP-1,more noteworthy for its innovative 7-cylinder radial engine. It was the first plane with a completely enclosed fuselage. His longest flight in this aircraft was only 600 m (2,600 feet). He also invented a new type of fuel pump |
| Baron Herbert Austin | |
(source) |
Born 8
Nov 1866; died 23 May 1941.
English engineer, who founded the Austin Motor Company (1905), whose Austin Seven model greatly influenced British and European light-car design. In 1884, after completing his early education Herbert moved to Melbourne, Australia, and apprenticed in engineering at Langlands Foundry. He later became the manager of Wolseley Sheep Shearing Company. In 1893, he returned to the UK with this company in 1893 and soon became the production manager. From long journeys in the Australian outback he had insight into the need for petrol driven vehicles. In 1895, he produced the first Wolseley car (a three wheeler) and in 1900, his first Wolseley four wheel design. By 1914, the company was producing more then 1000 cars with 2000 employees. |
| Johannes Robert Rydberg | |
(source) |
Born 8
Nov 1854; died 28 Dec 1919.
Swedish physicist, known for the Rydberg constant in his empirical formula that related the wave numbers of the spectral lines of an element (1890). This formula expressed fundamental relationships in those lines, which he presumed were the result of the inner nature and structure of an element's atoms. In 1897, he suggested that an atomic number for each of the elements, rather than atomic weights, would be a better means for organizing the elements and their periodicity of their characteristics. His work did provided the basis for discovering the electron shell structure of the atom. It was later established that the integer number of positive charges on an element's nucleus (its number of protons) corresponded to his idea of atomic number.« |
| Gottlob Frege | |
(source) |
Born 8
Nov 1848; died 26 July 1925.
(Friedrich Ludwig) Gottlob Frege was a German mathematician and logician, founder of modern symbolic logic and first to put forward the view that mathematics is reducible to logic. He extended Boole's work by inventing logical symbols (symbols for "or"," if-then", etc.) that improvedon the syllogistic logic it replaced. He also worked on general questions of philosophical logic and semantics. His theory of meaning, based on makig a distinction between what a linguistic term refers to and what it expresses, is still influential. Frege tried to provide a rigorous foundation for mathematics on the basis of purely logical principles, but abandoned the attempt when Bertrand Russell, on whose work he had a profound influence, pointed out a paradox that made the system inconsistent. |
| Edmond Halley | |
 |
Born 8 Nov 1656; died 14 Jan 1742.
He became professor of geometry at Oxford and was later appointed the second Astronomer Royal. After originating the question that prodded Newton to write the Principia, Halley edited and arranged the publication of this seminal work. Halley identified the proper motion of stars, studied the moon's motion and tides, realized that nebulae were clouds of luminous gas among the stars, and that the aurora was associated with the earth's magnetism. His prediction of the transit of Venus led to Cook's voyage to Tahiti. Edmond
Halley: Charting the Heavens and the Seas, by Alan Cook. |
| NOVEMBER 8 - DEATHS | |
| Georg Wüst | |
 Died
8 Nov 1977 (born 15 Jun 1890)
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 and deep circulation of the Atlantic Ocean. Died in Erlangen, W.Ger. |
|
| Vesto Melvin Slipher | |
| Died
8 Nov 1969 (born 11 Nov 1875)
American astronomer whose systematic observations (1912-25) of the extraordinary radial velocities of spiral galaxies provided the first evidence supporting the expanding-universe theory. Died at Flagstaff, Ariz. |
|
| James Mark Baldwin | |
| Died
8 Nov 1934 (born 12 Jan 1861)
Philosopher and theoretical psychologist who exerted influence on American psychology during its formative period in the 1890s. Concerned with the relation of Darwinian evolution to psychology, he favoured the study of individual differences, stressed the importance of theory for psychology, and was critical of narrow experimentalism. |
|
| William Edward Ayrton | |
(source) |
Died
8 Nov 1908; (born 14 Sep 1847)
English physicist, inventor and pioneer in technical education. He collaborated with John Perry, and their numerous inventions include an electric tricycle (1882), the first practical portable ammeter, voltmeter and other instruments for electrical measurement. Earlier in his career, he had spent five years with the Indian Telegraph Service during which time he developed techniques for fault detection in order to maintain the telegraph system.« |
| Edwin Laurentine Drake | |
(source) |
Died
8 Nov 1880 (born 29 Mar 1819)
American driller of the first productive oil well near Titusville, Pennsylvania, that launched the modern U.S. petroleum industry. A former railroad conductor, his success in hitting oil was based on his belief that drilling would be the best way to obtain petroleum from the earth. He organized Seneca Oil Co., leased land, and on August 27, 1859, struck oil at a depth of 69 feet. Drake used an old steam engine to power the drill. After his well began to produce oil, other prospectors drilled wells nearby. Other men, with better business sense, grew rich from the oil boom, yet Drake died in poverty, after years of crippling illnesses. |
| Sir Charles Fellows | |
(source) |
Died
8 Nov 1860 (born Aug 1799)
English archaeologist who was the first to make a thorough investigation of the ruins of ancient Lycia in Asia Minor, including Xanthus, the capital of Lycia. The Lycian marbles he shipped to the British Museum formed a large part of the collection of Greek sculpture in London. He wrote about his first exploration in 1838 in A Journal Written During an Excursion in Asia Minor. After his second exploration of a further thirteen ancient cities in 1840 he published An Account of Discoveries in Lycia. He continued his work in there in 1842 and again in 1844. He also wrote on the coins of ancient Lycia.« Travels
and Researches in Asia Minor, by Charles Fellows. |
| George Peacock | |
(source) |
Died
8 Nov 1858 (born 9 Apr 1791)
English mathematician who, with fellow Cambridge undergraduates Charles Babbage and John Herschel brought reform to nomenclature in English mathematics. They formed the Analytical Society (1815) whose aims were to bring the advanced methods of calculus from Europe to Cambridge to replace the increasingly stagnant notation of Isaac Newton from the previous century. The Society produced a translation of a book of Lacroix in the differential and integral calculus. In 1830, he published Treatise on Algebra which attempted to give algebra a logical treatment, and which went at least partway toward the establishment of symbolic algebra. Instead of using only numbers he used objects, and showed the associativity and commutativity of these objects. |
| John Wallis | |
(source) |
Died
8 Nov 1703 (born 3 Dec 1616)
English mathematician. Wallis was skilled in cryptography and decoded Royalist messages for the Parliamentarians during the Civil War. Wallis was part of a group interested in natural and experimental science who started to meet in London. This group became the Royal Society (1663), with Wallis as a founder member and one of its first Fellows. He contributed substantially to the origins of calculus and was the most influential English mathematician before Newton. Wallis introduced our the symbol 
for infinity (1656), and exponents using negative or fractional numbers
(such as 1/x2 = x-2 or square root of
x = x-1/2). In 1668, he was the first to suggest the law of
conservation of momentum for colliding bodies, the first of all-important
conservation laws. |
| NOVEMBER 8 - EVENTS | |
| Yangtze River Dam | |
In 1997, the main channel of the Yangtze River in China began to be blocked
in preparation for the world’s largest hydroelectric power project*. |
|
| Saturn's 15th moon | |
|
In 1980, scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California announced
the discovery of a 15th moon orbiting the planet Saturn, courtesy of Voyager
I. |
|
| Astatine | |
|
In 1931, Fredrick Allison, working in Alabama, reported (erroneously) the
discovery of "alabamine", element 85, now known as astatine, the
heaviest halogen. Astatine was first synthesized and correctly identified
in 1940 by bombarding bismuth with alpha particles (Corson, MacKenzie,
and Segré). All astatine isotopes are highly radioactive and very
short lived. Thus the amount of astatine in nature is too small for Allison
to have detected, using his own "Magneto-Optic Method of Chemical Analysis,"
(also debunked.) In the 1920's and 30's, scientists were eager to find
the elements 85 and 87, as predicted by Mendeleev. Allison's reported discovery
was premature because of poor experimental design and experimenter
bias. |
|
| Insect electrocutor | |
(source) |
In 1910, the first U.S. patent for an "electric insect destroyer" was issued
to William H. Frost of Spokane, Washington (No. 974,785).
The invention used a number of electrically energized parallel wires such
that a flying insect passing between them would complete the circuit by
bridging the wires with its body and electrocute the insect. The patent
describes using fine wire and tensioners to keep the parallel segments
taut. The charge on the wires could be supplied using an induction coil
and a battery. The form of the device could be as a flat frame, or as a
cylindrical arrangement surrounding a light to attract the insects into
the charged cage. |
| X-rays | |
|
In 1895, Wilhelm Röntgen discovered X-rays during an experiment at
Würzburg University*. |
|
| Electric plug | |
|
In 1804, the first U.S. patent for a separable electric attachment plug
was issued to Harvey Hubbell of Bridgeport, Connecticut (No. 774,250).
The plugs were first manufactured by Harvey Hubbell, Inc. |
|
| Bodleian Library | |
|
In 1602, the Bodleian Library was established in Oxford, England.* |
|
