This Week in Physics History: Mar. 10 - 16
Monday March 10, 2008
- Mar. 16, 1789 - German physicist Georg Simon Ohm is born. He did extensive work in electronics, using the newly-invented electrochemical cell. Ohm defined the basic relationships of voltage, current, and resistance, thus establishing the foundation for all work and analysis with electrical circuits.
- Mar. 12, 1824 - German physicist Gustav Kirchhoff is born. Kirchhoff is best known for his work in electronics, especially the Kirchhoff's Laws for voltage and current conservation.
- Mar. 14, 1879 - Albert Einstein is born.
- Mar. 13, 1899 - American physicist John Hasbrouk van Vleck is born. Van Vleck was awarded the 1977 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on understanding electrons in non-crystalline magnetic solids.
- Mar. 16, 1918 - American physicist Frederick Reines is born. He was awarded the 1995 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work in detecting the neutrino.
- Mar. 12, 1925 - Japanese physicist Leo Esaki is born. Esaki was awarded (jointly) the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on electron tunneling. He used this curious property of quantum physics to develop the Esaki diode.
- Mar. 16, 1926 - The first liquid-fueled rocket is launched by Robert Goddard at Auburn, Massachusetts.
- Mar. 15, 1930 - Russian physicist Zhores Ivanovich Alferov is born. Alferov won the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physics "for developing semiconductor heterostructures used in high-speed- and optoelectronics." He is the Vice-President of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
- Mar. 10, 1942 - British physicist Sir William Henry Bragg dies. Bragg, along with his son William Lawrence Bragg, received the 1915 Nobel Prize in Physics for use of x-ray spectroscopy to analyze the crystalline structures.
- Mar. 15, 1962 - American physicist Arthur Holly Compton dies. Compton won the 1927 Nobel Prize in Physics for crucial insights into quantum physics, culminating in the Compton effect.
- Mar. 10, 1966 - Dutch physicist Frits Zernike dies. He received the 1953 Nobel Prize in Physics for the invention of the phase contract microscope.
- Mar. 15, 2004 - The discovery of 90377 Sedna is announced, as the farthest object ever observed within our own solar system.
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