science newsletter: Newsletter for Thursday 6 December

Newsletter - December 6 - Today in Science History

TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY

NEWSLETTER - DECEMBER 6

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 6 Dec 1863, Charles Martin Hall was born, American chemist who invented the inexpensive electrolytic method to extract aluminium from its ore, which was immensely important to the commercial use of this metal. Today's Science Store pick is Made of Aluminum: A life of Charles Martin Hall, by Rosamond McPherson Young. Hall's accomplishment was made at a young age by dogged determination, and his fascinating life story is one that you should not miss. Hall's research - started in his garden woodshed as his laboratory - is a superb example of applied chemistry. Though out of print a few copies are available Used from $9.50. More copies available here Used from $10.00 (price and availability as of time of writing).

Booklist for Charles Martin Hall
Yesterday's pick: Uncertainty: The Life and Science of Werner Heisenberg and Booklist for Werner Heisenberg. For picks from earlier newsletters, see the Today in Science Science Store home page.

Quotations for Today

"I'm going after that metal." - reputed to have been said to a classmate at Oberlin College when he heard his chemistry professor say that fortune awaited the man who found a way to make aluminum cheaply by Charles Martin Hall (born 6 Dec 1863)

"I have no doubt that we will be successful in harnessing the sun's energy... If sunbeams were weapons of war, we would have had solar energy centuries ago." - Sir George Porter, English Nobel prize-winning chemist (born 6 Dec 1920)

"Upon the whole, Chymistry is as yet but an opening science, closely connected with the useful and ornamental Arts, and worthy of the attention of the liberal mind. And it must always become more and more so: for though it is only of late, that it has been looked on in that light, the great progress already made in Chymical knowledge, gives us a pleasant prospect of rich additions to it. The Science is now studied on solid and rational grounds. While our knowledge is imperfect, it is apt to run into errour: but Experiment is the thread that will lead us out of the labyrinth." - Joseph Black (died 6 Dec 1799) *Date of death given as 6 Dec 1799 in Dictionary of Scietific Biography, but 10 Nov 1799 by Encyclopedia. Britannic.

QUIZ

Births

Charles Martin Hall, born 6 Dec 1863, was a young chemist experimenting in a woodshed when he succeeded in inventing a method for extracting a certain pure metal from its ore. He had the idea that if he could find a nonaqueous solvent for the metal's oxide (from its ore), he could produce the metal by electrolysis, using carbon electrodes and home-made batteries.
Which rare mineral did his process use as the solvent of the ore, and which country was the main source of that mineral?

A French chemist, born 6 Dec 1778, is best known for his work on gases. In 1805, by exploding together given volumes of hydrogen and oxygen, Gay-Lussac discovered they combined in ratio 2:1 by volume to form water. By 1808, after researches using other gases, he formulated his famous law.
What is this law?

Deaths

Werner von Siemens (1816-1893) was a German scientist who played an important role in the development of an industry, first in Germany, then elsewhere in Europe and Asia. Siemens combined his engineering brilliance with entrepreneurial skills to develop a multinational business.
Which industry did he develop as his first major success?

Joseph Black (1728-1799) was a British chemist and physicist who experimented with "fixed air," discovered bicarbonates and identified latent heat when he also observed that ice melts without change of temperature.
What gas did he call "fixed air"?

Nicolas-Jacques Conté (1755-1805) was a French mechanical genius who developed the method on which the manufacture of a certain product continues in modern times.
What is this product, still associated with his name?

Events

On 6 Dec of a certain year the microwave oven was patented.
In which year was this patent issued?

On 6 Dec 1877, Thomas Edison demonstrated the first sound recording, reciting a nursery rhyme. Made at West Orange, New Jersey, this remains the first surviving recording of the human voice.
What was the nursery rhyme?

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 6 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 5: pion (pi-meson); spectral line fine-structure; radar; the decade containing the year 1951; Stillson.

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