This Week in Physics History: Nov. 10 - 16
Monday November 10, 2008
- Nov. 15, 1630 - German astronomer and mathematician Johannes Kepler dies. Kepler's laws defined the motion of planetary orbits about the sun, which were confirmed by the more detailed theoretical framework provided by Newton's law of gravity nearly a century later.
- Nov. 12, 1842 - British physicist John Strutt, 3rd Baron Rayleigh, is born. His discovery of the element argon won him the 1904 Nobel Prize in Physics. His later work included the analysis of Rayleigh scattering, which explains why the sky is blue, and the discovery of surface waves known as Rayleigh waves, which is a rolling wave such as those in earthquakes, oceans, or other phenomena.
- Nov. 16, 1904 - The vacuum tube is invented by John Ambrose Fleming.
- Nov. 11, 1930 - American physicist Hugh Everett III is born. Everett is known for developing the many-worlds interpretation of quantum physics. After earning his Ph.D., he left the field of research physics to become a defense analyst and consultant. He became a multi-millionaire before dying of a heart attack at age 51. Everett's work was the subject of the the documentary Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives.
- Nov. 15, 1959 - Scottish physicist Charles Thomson Rees Wilson dies. Wilson invented the cloud chamber, for which he was awarded the 1927 Nobel Prize in Physics (which he shared with Arthur Compton, who was awarded it for discovery of the Compton effect).
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