This Week in Physics History: Dec. 15 - 21
Monday December 15, 2008
- Dec. 19, 1714 - American astronomer John Winthrop is born. Winthrop was one of the first American scientists to be taken seriously in Europe, and had close ties to the Royal Society in London. He corresponded frequently with Benjamin Franklin and helped support his early interest in scientific inquiry.
- Dec. 15, 1852 - French physicist Antoine Henri Becquerel is born. Becquerel was one of the discoverers of radioactivity and earned the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics for this work, along with the Curies.
- Dec. 18, 1856 - Sir Joseph John (J.J.) Thomson is born. This British physicist is credited with the discovery of the electron, the discovery of isotopes, and the invention of the mass spectrometer. He was awarded the 1906 Nobel Prize in Physics for his discovery of the electron.
- Dec. 15, 1916 - British physicist Maurice Hugh Frederick Wilkins is born in New Zealand. Wilkins' work in X-ray diffraction earned him a third of the Nobel Prize for Physiology & Medicine along with Francis Crick & James Watson for the discovery of the double helix structure of DNA molecules.
- Dec. 20, 1917 - American-born physicist David Bohm is born. Bohm contributed to theoretical physics, introducing a controversial alternative to traditional quantum physics interpretations involving hidden variables, which has gained some modest support in recent years. He also worked with the Manhattan Project. He left the United States in 1951, after being released from jail for refusing to answer questions to the House Un-American Activities Committee regarding previous connections with Communists.
- Dec. 15, 1923 - American physicist Freeman Dyson is born in England. He is well known for his strong social activism (in fields such as nuclear disarmament) and theorizing in futurism and science fiction concepts (such extraterrestrial life and the "Dyson sphere" which has featured in, among other things, an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation). He is also quite an accomplished physicist who has done work in quantum physics, solid state physics, and nuclear weapon design.
- Dec. 20, 1951 - The nuclear reactor EBR-1 successfully powers four light bulbs, marking the first time nuclear power was first harvested for electrical energy.
- Dec. 19, 1953 - American physicist Robert Millikan dies. Millikan performed much the experimental work supporting Einstein's theoretical explanation of the photoelectric effect, as well as measuring the charge of the electron. In 1923, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for both of these achievements.
- Dec. 18, 1966 - Richard L. Walker discovers Saturn's moon, Epimetheus.
- Dec. 19, 1972 - Apollo 17, the last manned lunar flight, returns to Earth.
- Dec. 20, 1996 - American astronomer and writer, Carl Sagan, dies.
Comments
If you’re interested in reading some of John Winthrop’s (see top of the list) original publications, our archive is currently open to the public (until the end of Jan 09): http://journals.royalsociety.org/content/?k=+au:(john+winthrop).
Royal Society Publishing