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| NEWSLETTER - DECEMBER 29 | |
| 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. | |
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| Quotations for Today | |
| "A man has cause for regret only when he sows and no one reaps." - Charles Goodyear (born 29 Dec 1800) Referring to the locomotive engine: "For the first time there was constructed with this machine a self-acting mechanism in which the interplay of forces took shape transparently enough to discern the connection between the heat generated and the motion produced. The great puzzle of the vital force was also immediately solved for the physiologist in that it became evident that itis more than a mere poetic comparison when one conceives of the coal as the fuel of the locomotive and the cobustion as its basis for life." - Carl F. W. Ludwig, German physiologist (born 29 Dec 1816) "This is all very fine, but it won't do - Anatomy - botany - Nonsense! Sir, I know an old woman in Covent Garden, who understands botany better, and as for anatomy, my butcher can dissect a joint full as well; no, young man, all that is stuff, you must go to the bedside, it is there alone you can learn disease!" (Comment to Hans Sloane on Robert Boyle's letter of introduction describing Solane as a "ripe scholar, a good botanist and a skillful anatomist.") - Thomas Sydenham, English physician who was a founder of clinical medicine (died 29 Dec 1689) | |
| QUIZ | |
| Births | |
| A German-born physicist turned spy was born 29 Dec 1911. He worked with the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos, U.S., on the atom bomb, and in 1946 became head of the theoretical physics division at Harwell, UK. He was arrested and convicted (1950) for giving vital American and British atomic-research secrets to the Soviet Union. Can you name this spy? | |
| Charles Goodyear, an American inventor, born 29 Dec 1800, discovered the vulcanization process that made possible the commercial use of rubber. Originally the use of rubber was limited since it would freeze hard in winter and become gummy in summer. After years of persistent experimentation, he mixed and baked a certain substance and rubber together, creating a tough, cured compound that could withstand the heat and stress. Goodyear discovered which substance to add to rubber in the vulcanizing process? | |
| The name of Charles Macintosh, a Scottish inventor, born 29 Dec 1766, remains associated with the raincoat made with cloth waterproofed by the process he invented. What was Macintosh's waterproofing method? | |
| Deaths | |
| William Merriam Burton (1865-1954) was an American chemist who developed a thermal cracking process for the refining of crude petroleum. What is the benefit of his process? | |
| Events | |
| On 29 Dec 1987, cosmonaut Yuri Romanenko ended his record stay in space. What was the duration of his time in space, to the nearest hundred days? | |
| 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 29 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 28: stretches of DNA; bending of starlight by gravity; Eiffel Tower; the Tay Bridge at the Firth of Tay at Dundee. | |
| Feedback | |
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