Newsletter for Tuesday 11 March

TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY NEWSLETTER - 11 MARCH

Feature for Today

On 11 Mar 1811, the Luddite riots began, breaking up factory machinery. They were the response of an impoverished workforce again the threat of new inventions replacing their handworking livelihoods. It was an ugly, sometimes bloody, time. If only the idiom "Luddite" is familiar to you, it is worth knowing more about this history of the impact of new technology by reading Machinery Riots.

Book of the Day

On 11 Mar 1918, at the height of World War I, the first cases were reported of what became the modern plague, spreading death to millions worldwide. Today's Science Store pick is The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic In History, by John M. Barry. In this highly-recommended book, the author captures the sense of panic and despair that overwhelmed stricken communities and hits hard at those who failed to use their power to protect the public good. He also describes the work of the dedicated researchers who rushed to find the cause of the disease and create vaccines. You can't read this book without changing your perspective on why scientists worry at the emergence of a possibly deadly strain of flu in our present times.  New: $17.00. Save 33% Price $11.44. Available Used from $0.66 (as of time of writing). Yesterday's pick: Mechanism, Experiment, Disease: Marcello Malpighi and Seventeenth-Century Anatomy, by Domenico Bertoloni Meli. For picks from earlier newsletters, see the Today in Science Science Store home page.

Quotations for Today
	"If scientific reasoning were limited to the logical processes of arithmetic, we should not get very far in our understanding of the physical world. One might as well attempt to grasp the game of poker entirely by the use of the mathematics of probability." - Vannevar Bush, American electrical engineer. (born 11 Mar 1890)
	"How dare we speak of the laws of chance? Is not chance the antithesis of all law?" - Joseph Bertrand, French mathematician and educator. (born 11 Mar 1822)
	"Statistics are somewhat like old medical journals, or like revolvers in newly opened mining districts. Most men rarely use them, and find it troublesome to preserve them so as to have them easy of access; but when they do want them, they want them badly." - John Shaw Billings, American surgeon and librarian who modernized the Library of the Surgeon-General's Office of the Army. (died 11 Mar 1913)

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
	Urbain-Jean-Joseph Le Verrier, born 11 Mar 1811, was a French astronomer who predicted by mathematical means the existence of two unobserved planets. He was successful concerning one - Neptune outside the orbit of Uranus - but wrong concerning the other within the orbit of Mercury. What was the name of his incorrectly predicted planet?
Deaths
	Philo Taylor Farnsworth (1906-1971) was an American electronics pioneer in the field of television. Farnsworth's basic television patents covered scanning, focusing, synchronizing, contrast, controls, and power. He also invented the first cold cathode ray tubes and the first simple electronic microscope. In what decade did he demonstrate his first complete television system?
	Sir Alexander Fleming (1881-1955) was a Scottish bacteriologist, who was working in 1928 on influenza virus, when he observed that mould had developed accidentally on a staphylococcus culture plate and that the mould had created a bacteria-free circle around itself. He experimented further and he found that a mould culture prevented growth of staphylococci, even when diluted 800 times. What name did he give to this active substance he found in the mould?
Events
	On 11 Mar of a certain year, the Luddite riots began in Nottingham, England. There was poverty and misery, made worse by the new inventions - machinery which could do jobs better and faster than people. A group of laborers attacked a factory, breaking up 63 stocking and lace manufacturing frames, the machines which they feared would replace them. During the next three weeks gangs of upwards of fifty men, armed with pistols, guns and heavy hammers broke two hundred more frames. In what decade did the Luddite riots begin?
	In 1918, the first cases were reported of what became a deadly new influenza epidemic in the U.S. In this, the worst epidemic in American history, over 600,000 people died, and worldwide the death toll was up to 40 million people. By what name is this influenza known?

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 March 11 web page of Today in Science History. Or, try this link first for just the brief answers. Fast answers for the previous newsletter for March 10: Neptunist theory; German; sodium sulphate; the decade including the year 1948; telephone exchange selector switch.

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