Newsletter for Sunday 26 January

 

TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY

NEWSLETTER - JANUARY 26

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 26 Jan 1932, William Wrigley, Jr., died, the American salesman and manufacturer who made his Wrigley's chewing gum company the world's largest producer and distributor of this product. Today's Science Store pick is The Great American Chewing Gum Book, by Robert Hendrickson. This is fun book to read because there is so much more history of chewing gum than you previously knew...from the jungle rubber tree to your bedpost overnight! The Mayas manufactured it. Apaches, Commanches and Kennebecs chomped on it. Emily Post refused to mention it. Astronauts in outer space chewed on it. Read how it is made, about the brands that came and went, successes and failures, and of course Wrigley, "The Man Who Taught the World to Chew, and a photograph of his astonishing "Palace that Gum Built" in Chicago. The book is still available Used from $0.36 (as of time of writing). Yesterday's pick: The End of Certainty. For picks from earlier newsletters, see the Today in Science Science Store home page.

Quotations for Today

(About his advertising philosophy) "Get a good product... it's easier to row downstream than up. Then tell 'em quick, and tell 'em often ... keep everlasting coming at them. Advertising is pretty much like running a train. You've got to keep on shoving coal into the engine. Once you stop stoking, the fire goes out. The train will run on its own momentum for a while, but it will gradually slow down and come to a dead stop." - William Wrigley, Jr. (died 26 Jan 1932). "To study man and his relationship with other men and the society in which he lives is the purpose of many of you. Indeed science alone may perhaps be sterile when pursued without an understanding of the world in which scientific knowledge is created and in which the fruits of science are used." - Polykarp Kusch, German-American Nobel prize-winning physicist (born 26 Jan 1911) (source) "My chief quarrel with DDT in hindsight is that it has greatly added to the population problem." (1990) - Alexander King, Scottish chemist (born 21 Jan 1909) (source)

QUIZ

Births

Heinrich Anton de Bary, born 26 Jan 1831, was a German botanist, a founder of modern mycology and plant pathology for his research into the roles of fungi and other agents in causing plant diseases. He determined the life cycles of many fungi. He coined the term (1879) still used to mean a mutually beneficial partnership between two organisms. What is this term?

Ancel Keys, born 26 Jan 1904, was an American nutritionist and epidemiologist who was first to identify the role of saturated fats in causing heart disease. In 1935, he studied the physiological effects of altitude. At the onset of WW II, he designed the lightweight yet nutritious K ration used by American paratroops. The hard biscuits, dry sausage, hard candy and chocolate it contained were items he originally selected at a Minneapolis grocery store. Why were the K rations so-called?

Deaths

Edward Jenner was an English surgeon (1749-1823) who discovered the method of  vaccination for a dreaded disease. What was the disease he treated?

Events

On 26 Jan of a certain year, the US Patent Office received a patent application for the cyclotron by Ernest Orlando Lawrence. Within the same decade, this atom-smashing instrument won the Nobel Prize for its inventor. In which decade was this patent application made?

On 26 Jan 1697, a famous scientist received Jean Bernoulli's brachistochrone mathematics problem. The scientist solved it before going to bed that same night, thus inventing the calculus of variations. When Bernoulli saw the "anonymous" solution he recognized the brilliant originality of the work and commented, "We recognize the lion by his claw."  Who was the famous scientist with the "lion's claw"?

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 January 26 web page of Today in Science History. Or, try this link first for just the brief answers.

Fast answers for the previous newsletter for January 25: The numerical value of pi; Robert Boyle; seismology - analysis of earthquake waves; the decade including the year 1974; boring of a cannon.

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