science newsletter: Newsletter for Friday 28 December

Newsletter - December 28 - Today in Science History

TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY

NEWSLETTER - DECEMBER 28

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.

On 28 Dec 1879, during a gale, the Tay Bridge collapsed as a passenger train was crossing, taking everyone aboard to their deaths. It had been the then longest bridge in the world, in use only 19 months. The Victorian engineering profession and the public were horrified. To date, it remains the worst structural engineering failure in British history. Today's Science Store pick is Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay: Reinvestigating the Tay Bridge Disaster of 1879, by Peter R Lewis, a university engineering professor and acknowledged expert on the Tay Bridge Disaster. He gives the bridge's history, evaluates the tragedy, and details how the Tay Bridge started to suffer irreparable damage of its joints (poorly designed and built) from the day that it carried trains, and that metal fatigue, rather than the gale, played a key role in its deterioration. New: $~~39.95~~, save 24% Price $30.36.

More books on engineering failures, including the Tay Bridge, can be found on this Book List, which includes several by Henry Petroski (your webmaster's favorite author on the subject)
Yesterday's pick: The Private Science of Louis Pasteur. For picks from earlier newsletters, see the Today in Science Science Store home page.

Quotations for Today

"Where is the research that says HIV is the cause of AIDS? There are 10,000 people in the world now who specialize in HIV. None has any interest in the possibility HIV doesn't cause AIDS because if it doesn't, their expertise is useless." - Kary B. Mullis, American Nobel Prize-winning biochemist (born 28 Dec 1944)

"For the truth of the conclusions of physical science, observation is the supreme Court of Appeal. It does not follow that every item which we confidently accept as physical knowledge has actually been certified by the Court; our confidence is that it would be certified by the Court if it were submitted. But it does follow that every item of physical knowledge is of a form which might be submitted to the Court. It must be such that we can specify (although it may be impracticable to carry out) an observational procedure which would decide whether it is true or not. Clearly a statement cannot be tested by observation unless it is an assertion about the results of observation. Every item of physical knowledge must therefore be an assertion of what has been or would be the result of carrying out a specified observational procedure." - Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington (born 28 Dec 1882)

"A person in charge of an experimental station may feel ... that his reports must have something of a sensational character, or his supporters will be disappointed!" (1882) - Sir John Bennet Lawes, English agronomist who initiated the artificial fertiliser industry and founded the world's first agricultural research station (born 28 Dec 1814)

QUIZ

Births

Kary B. Mullis, born 28 Dec 1944, is an American biochemist, cowinner of the 1993 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for his invention of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), with which billions of molecular copies can be made in a few hours.
Of what does the PCR make copies?

Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington, born 28 Dec 1882, was an English astronomer, physicist, and mathematician who did his greatest work in astrophysics, investigating the motion, internal structure, and evolution of stars. However, he made an important confirmation of one of the predictions of Einstein's general theory of relativity as an outcome of the 1919 solar eclipse expeditions which he led.
What prediction did Eddington confirm?

Deaths

A French civil engineer (1832-1923) specialized in metal structures, building a number of iron bridges. He was one of the first engineers to employ compressed-air caissons in bridge building. He designed the movable dome of the observatory at Nice and the framework for the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor.
Which is his most famous metal structure that bears his name?

Events

On 28 Dec 1879, in Britain, the collapse of the central navigation spans of the Tay Railway Bridge, then longest bridge in the world, is one of the world's most famous bridge failures, and to date it is still the worst structural engineering failure in the British Isles. The collapse took place during a gale, while a train was crossing the bridge. The train, 6 carriages and 75 lives were lost
What was the location the bridge?

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 December 28 web page of Today in Science History.

Or, try this link first for just the brief answers.

Fast answers for the previous newsletter for December 27: diphtheria, cholera, yellow fever, plague, rabies, anthrax, and tuberculosis; Johannes Kepler; aluminium; H.M.S. Beagle.

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