History and Philosophy (often of Science)
jlynch | August 14, 2007Births
1892 - Louis, 7th duc de Broglie, French physicist, Nobel Prize Laureate
1893 - Leslie Comrie, New Zealand astronomer and computing pioneer
1896 - Gerty Cori, Austrian-born biochemist, Nobel Prize Laureate
Deaths
1953 - Ludwig Prandtl, German physicist
1982 - Hugo Theorell, Swedish scientist, Nobel Prize Laureate
2004 - Sune Bergström, Swedish biochemist, Nobel Prize Laureate
jlynch | August 13, 2007Births
1777 - Hans Christian Ãrsted, Danish physicist
1840 - Richard von Krafft-Ebing, German psychologist
1933 - Richard R. Ernst, Nobel Prize Laureate
Deaths
1774 - Johann Jakob Reiske, German physician
1856 - Constant Prévost, French geologist
1860 - André Marie Constant Duméril, French zoologist
1941 - Paul Sabatier, French chemist, Nobel Prize Laureate
1958 - Frédéric Joliot, French physicist, Nobel Prize Laureate
jlynch | August 12, 2007Births
1625 - Rasmus Bartholin, Danish physician, mathematician, and physicist
1814 - Anders Jonas Ãngström, Swedish physicist
1819 - George Gabriel Stokes, French physicist
1872 - Richard Willstätter, German chemist, Nobel Prize Laureate
1912 - Salvador Luria, Italian-born biologist, Nobel Prize Laureate
1918 - Frederick Sanger, English chemist, Nobel Prize Laureate
Deaths
1826 - René Laënnec, French physician
1865 - Ignaz Semmelweis, Austro-Hungarian physician
1910 - Florence Nightingale, English nurse
1917 - Eduard Buchner, German chemist, Nobel Prize Laureate
jlynch | August 12, 2007Jim Lippard has highlighted an article in the latest Skeptic which provides a taxonomy (below) of answers to why this universe is the way it is. Jim neglected to mention that the article is freely available online as a PDF.
1. One Universe Models1.1 Meaningless Question1.2 Brute Fact1.3 Necessary/Only Way1.4 Almost Necessary/Limited Ways1.5 Temporal Selection1.6 Self Explaining
2. Multiple Universes2.1 Multiverse by Disconnected Regions (Spatial)2.2 Multiverse by Cycles (Temporal)2.3 Multiverse by Sequential Selection (Temporal)2.4 Multiverse by String Theory (with Minuscule Extra Dimensions…
jlynch | August 11, 2007
Events
1877 - Asaph Hall discovers Deimos.
1883 - The last quagga (above) dies at the Artis Magistra zoo
1960 - Echo I, the first communications satellite, launched
1977 - The first free flight of the Space Shuttle Enterprise.
1981 - Release of the IBM PC
1990 - Sue, the most complete skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus rex, is discovered near Faith, South Dakota.
Births
1885 - Jean Cabannes, French physicist
1887 - Erwin Schrödinger, Austrian physicist, Nobel Prize Laureate
1919 - Vikram Sarabhai, Indian physicist
Deaths
1810 - Etienne Louis Geoffroy, French pharmacist and entomologist
1865 -…
jlynch | August 11, 2007Births
1673 - Richard Mead, English physician
1722 - Richard Brocklesby, English physician
1858 - Christiaan Eijkman, Dutch physician, Nobel Prize Laureate
1905 - Erwin Chargaff, Austrian biochemist
1912 - Eva Ahnert-Rohlfs, German astronomer
1926 - Aaron Klug, Lithuanian-born chemist, Nobel Prize Laureate
1938 - Branko Stanovnik, Slovenian chemist
Deaths
1851 - Lorenz Oken, German naturalist
1854 - Macedonio Melloni, Italian physicist
1972 - Max Theiler, South African virologist, Nobel Prize Laureate
jlynch | August 9, 2007
To invent an airplane is nothing. To build one is something. But to fly is everything.
Events
1846 - The Smithsonian Institution is chartered by the U.S. Congress after $500,000 was given for such a purpose by scientist James Smithson.
1990 - The Magellan space probe reaches Venus.
Births
1839 - Aleksandr Grigorievich Stoletov, Russian physicist
1902 - Arne Tiselius, Swedish chemist, Nobel laureate
1913 - Wolfgang Paul, German physicist, Nobel laureate
Deaths
1802 - Franz Aepinus, German scientist
1839 - John St Aubyn, British fossil collector
1896 - Otto Lilienthal, German aviation…
jlynch | August 9, 2007Events
2001 - George W. Bush announces federal funding for limited research on embryonic stem cells.
Births
1726 - Francesco Cetti, Italian scientist
1776 - Amedeo Avogadro, Italian chemist
1896 - Jean Piaget, Swiss psychologist
1896 - Lev Vygotsky, Russian psychologist
1896 - Erich Hückel, German physicist
1911 - William Alfred Fowler, American physicist, Nobel Prize Laureate
Deaths
1969 - Cecil Frank Powell, British physicist, Nobel Prize Laureate
1996 - Sir Frank Whittle, invented the jet engine
2006 - James van Allen, American physicist
jlynch | August 8, 2007Events
1576 - The cornerstone for Tycho Brahe’s Uraniborg observatory is laid on Hven.
1908 - Wilbur Wright makes his first public flight at a racecourse at Le Mans, France.
Births
1901 - Ernest O. Lawrence, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
1902 - Paul Dirac, English physicist Nobel Prize laureate
1921 - John Herbert Chapman, British physicist
1931 - Roger Penrose, British physicist
Deaths
1553 - Girolamo Fracastoro, Italian physician
1828 - Carl Peter Thunberg, Swedish naturalist
1977 - Edgar Douglas Adrian, 1st Baron Adrian, Nobel Prize Laureate
1996 - Nevill Mott, Nobel Prize…
jlynch | August 6, 2007Events
1991 - World Wide Web debuts as a publicly available service on the Internet.
Births
1844 - Auguste Michel-Lévy, French geologist
1932 - Dr. Maurice Rabb, Jr., African American ophthalmologist
Deaths
1639 - Martin van den Hove, Dutch scientist
1848 - Jöns Jakob Berzelius, Swedish chemist
1912 - François-Alphonse Forel, Swiss hydrologist
2004 - Colin Bibby, English ornithologist
jlynch | August 5, 2007Two weeks to go before the semester begins here at ASU and I still have syllabi to put together for my two classes (more on them closer to the start) along with three book reviews to finish. It has been a lazy Summer for a change, but that means there is much to do during the last few weeks before classes start.
Below the fold is your Today in Science
Events
1961 - Second successful manned orbital flight (USSR, Gherman Titov)
1964 - Prometheus, the world’s oldest tree, is cut down.
1991 - Tim Berners-Lee releases files describing his idea for the World Wide Web.
1996 - NASA announces that the…
jlynch | August 4, 2007Events
1858 - Cyrus West Field and others complete the first transatlantic telegraph cable after several unsuccessful attempts.
1969 - Mariner program: Mariner 7 makes its closest fly-by of Mars (3,524 kilometers).
Births
1930 - Neil Armstrong, astronaut and first human to stand on the Moon.
Deaths
1880 - Ferdinand Ritter von Hebra, Austrian physician
1957 - Heinrich Otto Wieland, German chemist, Nobel Prize Laureate
jlynch | August 4, 2007After nearly two weeks away from regular Intertube access, I’m back. Below the fold is your day in science:
Births
1719 - Johann Gottlob Lehmann, German minerologist and geologist
1805 - William Rowan Hamilton, Irish mathematician
1906 - Eugen Schuhmacher, German zoologist
1912 - Aleksandr Danilovich Aleksandrov, Russian mathematician, physicist, philosopher, and mountaineer
Deaths
2003 - Frederick Chapman Robbins, American Nobel Prize Laureate
2005 - Anatoly Larkin, Russian-American physicist
jlynch | July 31, 2007Sahotra Sarkar (Philosophy of Biology, University of Texas) has revived his blog in response to the creationist takeover of the Texas Board of Education.
Sarkar is the author of Doubting Darwin? Creationist Designs on Evolution and thus will no doubt have good things to say about the situation in Texas.
jlynch | July 30, 2007Events
1964 - Ranger program: Ranger 7 sends back the first close-up photographs of the moon, with images 1,000 times clearer than anything ever seen from earth-bound telescopes.
1999 - Discovery Program: Lunar Prospector - NASA intentionally crashes the spacecraft into the Moon, thus ending its mission to detect frozen water on the moon’s surface.
Births
1718 - John Canton, English physicist
1858 - Richard Dixon Oldham, British geologist
1860 - Mary Vaux Walcott, American artist and naturalist
1918 - Paul D. Boyer, American chemist, Nobel Prize Laureate
Deaths
1980 - Pascual Jordan, German…
jlynch | July 29, 2007Births
1641 - Regnier de Graaf, Dutch physician and anatomist
1889 - Vladimir Zworykin, Russian physicist
jlynch | July 28, 2007I get back from Exeter later on today, but as it turns out will be departing up north for a short break from the heat of Phoenix. Blogging will recommence later this week.
Below is your Today in Science.
Events
2005 -Astronomers announce their discovery of Eris, a possible tenth planet.
Births
1898 - Isidor Isaac Rabi, American physicist, Nobel Prize Laureate
Deaths
1781 - Johann Kies, German astronomer and mathematician
1994 - Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin, British chemist, Nobel Prize Laureate
jlynch | July 27, 2007Births
1867 - Charles Dillon Perrine, American-born astronomer
1902 - Karl Popper, Austrian-born philosopher
1904 - Pavel Alekseyevich Cherenkov, Russian physicist, Nobel laureate
1915 - Charles Townes, American physicist, Nobel laureate
1925 - Baruch S. Blumberg, American scientist, Nobel laureate
Deaths
1869 - Jan Evangelista PurkynÄ, Czech anatomist
1930 - Allvar Gullstrand, Swedish ophthalmologist, Nobel laureate
1968 - Otto Hahn, German chemist, Nobel laureate
2000 - Abraham Pais, Dutch-born American physicist, science historian, and biographer of Albert Einstein.
2002 - Archer John…
jlynch | July 26, 2007Events
1921 - Researchers at the University of Toronto led by biochemist Frederick Banting announce the discovery of the hormone insulin.
Births
1733 - Jeremiah Dixon, English surveyor and astronomer
1833 - Thomas George Bonney, English geologist
1848 - Loránd Eötvös, Hungarian physicist
1881 - Hans Fischer, German chemist, Nobel laureate
Deaths
1844 - John Dalton, English physicist and chemist
1917 - Emil Theodor Kocher, Swiss surgeon, Nobel laureate
1931 - Auguste-Henri Forel, Swiss entomologist
jlynch | July 25, 2007Events
1963 - Syncom 2, the world’s first geosynchronous satellite, is launched from Cape Canaveral on a Delta B booster.
Deaths
1960 - Maud Menten, Canadian biochemist and co-discoverer of the Michaelis-Menten equations