This Week in Physics History: Apr. 23 - 29
Monday April 23, 2007
- Apr. 23, 1858 - German physicist & Nobel laureate Max Planck is born. Planck is credited as the father of quantum physics, because his solution to the ultraviolet catastrophe in blackbody radiation involved assuming that energy traveled in discrete packets, which he termed quanta. He derived a value, later called Planck's constant, which is crucial to performing quantum physics calculations. Out of this finding, Albert Einstein was able to explainthe photoelectric effect and, subsequently, the field of quantum physics was born. He received the 1918 Nobel Prize in Physics for this work.
- Apr. 25, 1900 - Austrian physicist Wolfgang Ernst Pauli is born. Pauli is best known for discovering the "Pauli Exclusion Principle" and extensive work in the concept of spin in particle physics and chemistry. He received the 1945 Nobel Prize in Physics for this work, having been nominated for it by Albert Einstein.
- Apr. 25, 1953 - Francis Crick & James D. Watson publish their paper describing the double helix structure of DNA, which was determined largely with the use of x-ray crystallography.
- Apr. 24, 1960 - German physicist & Nazi oppositionist Max von Laue died in Berlin. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1914 for his work in discovering the crystial diffraction of x-rays.
- Apr. 26, 1994 - Physicists announce the first evidence of the top quark, a previously theoretical subatomic particle.
- Apr. 28, 2001 - Space becomes a tourist trap as millionaire Dennis Tito becomes the first "space tourist" by buying passage on a Russian space launch, though he did perform several experiments and prefers the term "independent researcher."
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