science newsletter: Newsletter for Wednesday 10 October

Newsletter - 10 October - Today in Science History

TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY
NEWSLETTER - 10 OCTOBER

Feature for Today

On 10 Oct 1797, Thomas Drummond was born, the Scottish civil engineer who invented the Drummond light (similar to limelight illumination in theatres). Curiously, he developed it to meet his need for a light marking a station when surveying at night.

The Drummond light produced a bright light, using an oxygenated alcohol flame, he heated a small ball of lime to incandescent in front of a reflector. He attempted to adapt it for use in lighthouses.

Another of innovations for surveying was his improved design of the Heliostat.

An account of his Heliostat and Drummond Light can be read in Drummond's Inventions from Memoir of Thomas Drummond (1867).

Book of the Day

On 10 Oct 1913, Atlantic and Pacific oceans waters met through the Panama Canal as a construction blast made the first connection. President Woodrow Wilson pressed a button in Washington that carried a signal by telegraph to Panama. A dynamite charge was ignited that blew a hole in the Gamboa Dike allowing the waters to mingle in the final cut between the oceans. Today's Science Store pick is the national best-seller Path Between The Seas : The Creation of the Panama Canal, by David McCullough, a Pulitzer Prize-winning master of historical narrative telling the epic chronicle of the creation of the Panama Canal. New $~~20.00~~, Price $13.60. Many available used from $1.17 (as of time of writing).
Yesterday's pick: Devil's Rope: A Cultural History of Barbed Wire. For picks from earlier newsletters, see the Today in Science Science Store home page.

Quotations for Today
	"The geologist, in those tables of stone which form his records, finds no example of dynasties once passed away returning. - Hugh Miller, Scottish geologist (born 10 Oct 1802)
	"A small bubble of air remained unabsorbed ... if there is any part of the phlogisticated air of our atmosphere which differs from the rest ... we may conclude that it is not more than 1/120 part of the whole. " (1785) - Henry Cavendish, remarking on what is much later found to be the noble gases (born 10 Oct 1731)
	"Attainment is a poor measure of capacity, and ignorance no proof of defect." - Cyril Burt, British psychologist (died 10 Oct 1971)
	"My impression about the Panama Canal is that the great revolution it is going to introduce in the trade of the world is in the trade between the east and the west coast of the United States." - President William Howard Taft, at a banquet in San Francisco on 5 Oct 1909. The way through was opened on 10 Oct 1913, when Atlantic and Pacific oceans waters met through the Panama Canal as a construction blast made the first connection.

QUIZ
Before you look at today's web page, see if you can answer some of these questions about the events that happened on this day. Some of the names are very familiar. Others will likely stump you. Tickle your curiosity with these questions, then check your answers on today's web page.
Births
	Lester Germer, born 10 Oct 1896, was an American physicist who, with his colleague Clinton Joseph Davisson, conducted an experiment (1927) that first demonstrated the wave properties of the electron. This experiment confirmed the hypothesis of Louis-Victor de Broglie, a founder of wave mechanics, that the electron should show the properties of an electromagnetic wave as well as a particle. *What wave property of electrons did they demonstrate in their experiment?*
	Henry Cavendish, born 10 Oct 1731, was an English physicist and chemist, born in Nice, who conducted experiments in diverse fields, discovering such phenomena as the composition of air, the specific heat of certain substances, the composition of water, and various properties of electricity. He is known for investigating the properties of which particular gas?
Events
	On 10 Oct of a certain year, a U.S. patent was issued to Waldo L. Semon for a method of making plasticized PVC, now known simply as vinyl. As originally known, PVC - polyvinyl chloride - was a polymer that was hard and difficult to form into useful articles. Semon had invented a way to make it in a rubber-like form. *In what decade was this patent issued?*
	On 10 Oct 1865, the first U.S. patent for a billiard ball of a composition material resembling ivory was patented by John Wesley Hyatt. He was the winner of a $10,000 prize offered by Phelan and Collender of New York City for the best substitute for an ivory ball. *While still searching for substitute materials for making billiard balls, what plastic did he invent?*

Answers

When you have your answers ready to all the questions above, you'll find all the information to check them, and more, on the October 10 web page of Today in Science History. Or, try this link first for just the brief answers.

Fast answers for the previous newsletter for October 9: Max Von Laue; the decade containing the year 1957; Hoover Dam; the British officer permitted the expedition to land and observe the eclipse of 27 Oct 1780.

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