science newsletter: Newsletter for Saturday 15 December

Newsletter - December 15 - Today in Science History

TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY

NEWSLETTER - DECEMBER 15

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 15 Dec 1832, Gustave Eiffel was born, the famous French civil engineer. Today's Science Store pick is Eiffel: The Genius Who Reinvented Himself, by David I. Harvie. The Eiffel tower is his well-known achievement, but Eiffel also helped with the design of the Statue of Liberty and with construction of locks for the ill-fated Panama Canal. Harvie reveals a dramatic story of Eiffel's life, which includes controversy and scandal. But also, do you know of his stupendous viaduct at Garabit? Or his rotatable dome for Nice Observatory? New: $16.95, save 22%: Price $13.22. Also available Used from $5.20 (as of time of writing).
Yesterday's pick: Tycho & Kepler. For picks from earlier newsletters, see the Today in Science Science Store home page.

Quotations for Today

"Ah, bien je preténds que les courbes des quatre areêtes du monument, telles que le calcul les a fournies, donneront une grand impression de force et de beauté." (Well, I think the curves of the four pillars of the monument, as the calculations have provided them, give it a great sense of force and beauty.) - Gustave Eiffel (born 15 Dec 1832)

"The bottom line for mathematicians is that the architecture has to be right. In all the mathematics that I did, the essential point was to find the right architecture. It's like building a bridge. Once the main lines of the structure are right, then the details miraculously fit. The problem is the overall design." - Freeman Dyson, English-American physicist (born 15 Dec 1923)

"...the crying need today is not speed but better construction and better operation, and possibly tp suit the desires of the masses, less cost ... We require in the horseless carriage a mechanism so simple as not to get out of order easily or give trouble to the unskilled operator, and a carriage so arranged as to be comfortable in use, viz. it should be clean, free from objectionable odor, vibration or possibel danger. If it is simple in construction it will, in all probability, become cheap in cost, when the supply approximates demand, so the item of cost is not a large one and if the construction is given proper prominence." (letter to the editor of Horseless Age in 1896 - seven years before the organization of the Ford Company) - Charles E. Duryea, American automobile inventor (born 15 Dec 1861) (source)

QUIZ

Births

Dr. Lazarus Ludwig Zamenhof, born 15 Dec 1859, was a Polish physician and oculist who created an international artificial language. It was introduced in a pamphlet he published in 1887.
Can you name this language?

Henri Becquerel, born 15 Dec 1852, was a French physicist who discovered radioactivity through his investigations of uranium and other substances. In 1903 he shared the Nobel Prize for Physics with Pierre and Marie Curie.
How did he first discover the effect of radioactivity?

Gustave Eiffel, born 15 Dec 1832, was a French civil engineer renowned for building (1887-9) the tower in Paris that bears his name. He built a number of iron bridges and was one of the first engineers to employ compressed-air caissons in bridge building. He also designed the movable dome of the observatory at Nice.
How was his work related to the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor?

Deaths

An Austrian-born American (1900-1958) won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1945 for his discovery (1925) that in an atom no two electrons can occupy the same quantum state simultaneously. This principle clearly relates the quantum theory to the observed properties of atoms.
Can you name this physicist?

Events

On 15 Dec of a certain year, nylon yarn was sold to hosiery mills to make women's stockings; marking the first use of commercial yarn for apparel. The product of DuPont, Wilmington, Del., enabled a record number of ladies' hose to go on sale for the first time in May the following year
In which decade was this nylon yarn sold to the hosiery mills?

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 15 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 14: Danish; glacier activity; the decade containing the year 1967; Voyager.

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