Newsletter for Sunday 11 May

TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY NEWSLETTER - 11 MAY

Feature for Today

On 11 May 1825, the New York Gas Company began laying cast iron pipes in Broadway, New York, from Canal Street to the Battery. The city streets had been previously lit with whale-oil lamps. New York became the third U.S. city with gas street lights, after Baltimore (1817) and Boston (1822). In this extract, Gas Lighting in New York, from Cradle Days of New York (1909), compared to candles in house windows or oil lamps, the decision was stated as "the cleanliness, the beauty and the convenience of the gas over any other light is the principal cause of its being preferred, without reference to expense." [Image: street gas light in Baltimore, c.1920-30.]

Book of the Day

On 11 May 1918, Richard Feynman was born. Chances are, you have already read one or more of his books, and have one or more on your bookshelf. Whether it was his humour, or his way of making physics seem simpler to the layman, his books have been very popular. Today's Science Store pick is a favorite your Webmaster enjoyed: Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman, a very readable biography by the best-selling writer, James Glieck. Feynman was a very imaginative thinker with new, creative ideas. His work with quantum electrodynamics won him a Nobel Prize. The book presents Feynman on a very personal, human level. He had a charismatic personality, an exciting life, and made great contributions to the field of science. New $17.95, Save 32% Price $12.21. Also available Used from $1.00 (as of time of writing). You can choose from a variety of books written by Richard Feynman from this  Booklist for Richard Feynman. Yesterday's pick: Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin: An Autobiography and Other Recollections, by Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin. For picks from earlier newsletters, see the Today in Science Science Store home page.

Quotations for Today
	"But the most impressive fact is that gravity is simple. It is simple to state the principles completely and not have left any vagueness for anybody to change the ideas of the law. It is simple, and therefore it is beautiful. It is simple in its pattern. I do not mean it is simple in its action—the motions of the various planets and the perturbations of one on the other can be quite complicated to work out, and to follow how all those stars in a globular cluster move is quite beyond our ability. It is complicated in its actions, but the basic pattern or the system beneath the whole thing is simple. This is common to all our laws; they all turn out to be simple things, although complex in their actual actions." - Richard P. Feynman, (born 11 May 1900)
	"Scientists study the world as it is, engineers create the world that never has been." - Theodore von Karman, Hungarian-American physicist (born 11 May 1881)
	"Every student who enters upon a scientific pursuit, especially if at a somewhat advanced period of life, will find not only that he has much to learn, but much also to unlearn." - John Herschel, English astronomer, chemist and chemist (died 11 May 1871)

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
	Richard P. Feynman, born 11 May 1918, was an American physicist who was probably the most brilliant, influential and iconoclastic figure in his field. At age 24, during World War II, he joined the Manhattan project making the atomic bomb at Los Alamos. His lifelong interest was subatomic physics, and his simple diagrams used as a notation to describe the complex behaviour of subatomic particles are named after him. He was a devoted lecturer to his students. When the space shuttle Challenger explosion was being investigated by a Congressional committee, he made a simple demonstration in front of them to show the low temperature problem with rubber seals. What was the simple demonstration he made to the Congressional committee?
	Ottmar Mergenthaler, a German-American inventor (1954-1899), made what is regarded as the greatest advance in printing since the development of moveable type 400 years earlier. His invention was first used in 1886 by the New York Tribune. Can you name his invention?
Deaths
	Thomas Andrew Knight (1759-1838) was a British botanist who experimented with the adaptive responses of plants and the changes in the direction of stem and root growth. These studies later became the basis of work on tropisms. He invented a device, named after him, to test the behaviour of germinating seeds subjected to forces other than gravity. Can you describe his device?
	Otto von Guericke (1602-1686) was a German physicist who studied the phenomenon of vacuum and the role of air in combustion and respiration. But to so this, he had to invent something first which was the first of its kind. Can you name this invention?
Events
	On this day in 1949, the first camera of a radically new line was sold for $89.95 in New York City. (Its name might remind you of some sunglasses.) What was this new kind of camera?
	In 1811, the famous twins Chang and Eng immigrated to the U.S. where they adopted the surname Bunker. From which country did they come?

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 May 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 May 10: molecular weight; Augustin Jean Fresnel; Thomas Young; fuchsia; the decade including the year 1949; blue; Sir Edward Frankland.

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