Newsletter for Monday 24 February

TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY NEWSLETTER - 24 FEBRUARY

Feature for Today

On 24 Feb 1810, Henry Cavendish died. In a talk given in 1875, Sir Thomas Edward Thorpe said, "Earth, air, fire, and water—each and all came within the range of his observations." Thorpe described Cavendish in the context of his era - then merely 90 years before - and embroiders his life with some of the imagery of a novelist providing a setting to provide your imagination a picture of the character. Cavendish is for you perhaps only a vague name. By reading Thorpe's talk on Henry Cavendish, you may find you have a better background about one more scientist than you really knew about before."

Book of the Day

On 24 Feb 1663, Thomas Newcomen was born, the English inventor of the the world's first successful atmospheric steam engine. Newcomen's engine was relied on for the first 60 years of the new steam age it began, perhaps the single pivotal invention of the Industrial Revolution. Today's Science Store pick is Thomas Newcomen, The Prehistory of the Steam Engine, by L. T. C Rolt. The book presents the results of considerable research, made with the difficulty of writing about a man about whom so little is known. The author was a mechanical engineer before turning to writing histories of engineers and their work, so he is well qualified to present the context of Newcomen's achievement, the prior technology from which it arose, and the growth of industry which followed it. Originallly published in the tercentenary year if the birth of Newcomen, the book is not a biography, nor a technical treatise, nor a history. It is a combination drawing from all of these that results in a very readable book intended to honour the name of a man about whom little is known, and whose name has been eclipsed by those who came after him. Available Used from $15.00 (as of time of writing). Yesterday's pick: Imagining the Elephant: A Biography of Allan MacLeod Cormack, by Christopher L. Vaughan For picks from earlier newsletters, see the Today in Science Science Store home page.

Quotations for Today
	"All life is linked together in such a way that no part of the chain is unimportant. Frequently, upon the action of some of these minute beings depends the material success or failure of a great commonwealth." - John Henry Comstock, American entomologist (born 24 Feb 1849)
	"Everyone is a genius at least once a year. The real geniuses simply have their bright ideas closer together." - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, German physicist and writer (died 24 Feb 1799)
	"A small bubble of air remained unabsorbed... if there is any part of the phlogisticated air [nitrogen] of our atmosphere which differs from the rest, and cannot be reduced to nitrous acid, we may safely conclude that it is not more than 1/120 part of the whole." - Henry Cavendish, English chemist and physicist (died 24 Feb 1810). Cavendish did not realize the significance of the remaining small bubble. Not until a century later were the air’s Noble Gases appreciated.

QUIZ
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.
Births
	John Philip Holland, born 24 Feb 1840, was an Irish inventor who designed and built the first vessel of its type accepted and purchased by the U.S. Navy. What new Navy vessel did Holland invent?
	Thomas Newcomen, born 24 Feb 1663, was an English inventor of the atmospheric steam engine. It had a piston connected to one end of a large crossbeam; the other end was connected to a very heavy pump piston. On each stroke, water chilled and condensed the steam in the cylinder, dropping the piston thus moving the crossbeam and operating the pump. Which industrial sites quickly adopted this pump?
Deaths
	An English physicist and chemist (1731-1810) researching in his own private laboratory identified hydrogen as a separate gas, studied carbon dioxide, and determined their densities relative to atmospheric air. He also established that water was a compound. A Laboratory at Cambridge, England, was named after him. Can you name this scientist?
Events
	On 24 Feb of a certain year, Nature carried the announcement of the discovery of pulsars (pulsating radio sources). The first pulsar was discovered by a graduate student, Jocelyn Bell, who was working under the direction of Prof. A. Hewish. They were using a special radio telescope, a large array of 2,048 aerials covering an area of 4.4 acres. In which decade was this first discovery of a pulsar made and announced?
	On 24 Feb 1925, an ice jam was removed using a thermit for the first time in the U.S. It was a 250,000-ton ice jam that had clogged the St. Lawrence River near Waddington, NY. and was broken up a few hours after the reaction of three thermit charges of 90-lb each. Thermit is a mixture of finely divided magnesium and the oxide of another metal. When properly ignited, a vigorous reaction produces hot molten metal. The method was first applied by Howard Turner Barnes, Professor of Physics at McGill University, Montreal, Canada. What is the oxide used in the thermit mixture?

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 February 24 web page of Today in Science History. Or, try this link first for just the brief answers. Fast answers for the previous newsletter for February 23: computer axial tomography; vitamine = life amine, changed to vitamin when it was discovered that not all the vital diet factors were amines; bakelite; the decade including the year 1886; polio

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