This Week in Physics History: Dec. 22 - 28
Wednesday December 24, 2008
- Dec. 27, 1571 - Johannes Kepler, German mathematician and astronomer, is born. Kepler is best known for developing Kepler's three laws of planetary motion.
- Dec. 28, 1612 - Galileo Galilei discovers a new "fixed star" in the heavens. Eventually, this would be discovered to be the planet Neptune.
- Dec. 24, 1818 - James Prescott Joule is born. The British physicist studied the relationship between heat and energy, which provided major foundations for the development of the laws of thermodynamics. The SI unit of work is called the "joule" in honor of him.
- Dec. 28, 1882 - Arthur Eddington, prominent British astronomer and physicist, is born. Eddington accomplished many things, including providing instrumental support for Einstein's theory of relativity in its early years.
- Dec. 27, 1968 - Apollo 8, the first manned mission to the moon, returns to the Earth, splashing down in the Pacific Ocean.
- Dec. 25, 1993 - French physicist Pierre Victor Auger dies. Auger's performed groundbreaking work in atomic and nuclear physics, especially in understanding cosmic rays. The world's largest cosmic ray detector is named the Pierre Auger Observatory in honor of him.
- Dec. 25, 2003 - All signals are lost from the Beagle 2 Mars probe, as it disappears shortly before scheduled landing on Mars. (So far was we know, it was not destroyed by Decepticons, as suggested in the Transformers 2007 feature film.)
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