This Week in Physics History: September 1 - 7
Monday September 1, 2008
- Sept. 1, 1804 - German astronomer Karl Ludwig Harding discovers Juno, one of largest asteroids in the asteroid belt.
- Sept. 3, 1905 - American experimental physicist Carl David Anderson is born. Anderson would receive the 1936 Nobel Prize in Physics for his discovery of the positron.
- Sept. 5, 1906 - Austrian physicist Ludwig Boltzmann dies. Part of the illustrious Boltzmann family, which permeated nineteenth century European intellectual life in mathematics & the sciences, Ludwig is best known for his work in statistical mechanics and thermodynamics. He strongly advocated atomic theory, well before it was popular to do so.
- Sept. 3, 1976 - U.S. spacecraft Viking II arrived on Mars, landing at Utopia Planitia, and took the first pictures of the planet's surface. Viking II was, of course, an unmanned spacecraft.
- Sept. 2, 1992 - The first automobile powered by natural gas is purchased. Fifty of these alternative fuel vehicles were purchased and put into service by the Southern California Gas Company.
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