Newsletter for Saturday 23 November

 

TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY

NEWSLETTER - NOVEMBER 23

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 23  Nov 1844, Thomas Henderson died, who was first to measure the parallax of a star. Today's Science Store pick is Parallax: The Race to Measure the Cosmos, by Alan W. Hirshfeld. Parallax refers to the apparent shift in a nearby star's position when viewed from different points on the  earth's orbit. After laying the historical foundation, the author describes the trio of astronomers in the 1830s who independently achieved the minute observations of stellar shifts that provided the stupefying truth that stars were light-years away. A delightful history of a crucial advance in knowledge. Yesterday's pick: Yellow Jack: How Yellow Fever Ravaged America and Walter Reed Discovered Its Deadly Secrets. For picks from earlier newsletters, see the Today in Science Science Store home page.

Quotations for Today

"In the last four days I have got the (results) given by Tantalum, Chromium, Managanese, Iron , Nickel, Cobalt and Copper ... The chief result is that ... the result for any metal (is) quite easy to guess from the results for the others. This shews that the insides of all the atoms are very much alike, and from these results it will be possible to find out something of what the insides are made up of." - Henry Moseley (born 23 Nov 1887) "Whereas Nature does not admit of more than three dimensions ... it may justly seem very improper to talk of a solid ... drawn into a fourth, fifth, sixth, or further dimension." - John Wallis, British mathematician (born 23 Nov 1616) "Let us hope that the advent of a successful flying machine, now only dimly foreseen and nevertheless thought to be possible, will bring nothing but good into the world; that it shall abridge distance, make all parts of the globe accessible, bring men into closer relation with each other, advance civilization, and hasten the promised era in which there shall be nothing but peace and goodwill among all men." - Octave Chanute, U.S. aeronaut (died 23 Nov 1910)

QUIZ

Births

Henry Moseley, born 23 Nov 1887, was an English physicist who experimentally demonstrated that the major properties of an element are determined by the atomic number, not by the atomic weight, and firmly established the relationship between atomic number and the charge of the atomic nucleus. By what experimental technique did he determine the atomic number (charge of the atomic nucleus)?

A Dutch physicist, born 23 Nov 1837, was the winner of the 1910 Nobel Prize for Physics for his research on the gaseous and liquid states of matter. His main work was to develop an equation that - unlike the laws of Boyle and Charles - applied to real gases. Since the molecules do have attractive forces and volume (however small), he introduced into the theory two further constants to take these properties into account. The weak electrostatic attractive forces between molecules and between atoms are named in his honour. Can you name this scientist?

Deaths

Johann Elert Bode, (1747-1826) was a German astronomer best known for his popularization of Bode's law. In 1766, his compatriot Johann Titius had discovered a curious mathematical relationship in the distances of the planets from the sun. If 4 is added to each number in the series 0, 3, 6, 12, 24,... and the answers divided by 10, the resulting sequence gives the distances of the planets in astronomical units (earth = 1). Why is Bode's law no longer considered of value?

Events

On 23 Nov of a certain year, the first U.S. jukebox was installed when an entrepreneur named Louis Glass and his business associate, William S. Arnold, placed a coin-operated phonograph in the Palais Royale Saloon in San Francisco. Known as "Nickel-in-the-Slot," the machine was an instant success. In which decade was this first jukebox installed?

On 23 Nov 1835, the first U.S. patent for a horseshoe manufacturing machine was issued to Henry Burden (1791-1871) of Troy, N.Y. He made nearly all the horseshoes used by the Union calvary during the Civil War. His machine produced a horseshoe from a rod of iron that was fed into it.  How many horseshoes was his machine capable of producing in a minute?

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 November 23 web page of Today in Science History. Or, try this link first for just the brief answers.

Fast answers for the previous newsletter for November 22: Wiley Post; schizophrenia; the pathway of the oxidation process within the cell; the decade containing the year 1927; SOS.

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