Yearly Archives: 2017

Louis Laurent Gabriel de Mortillet and Man’s Prehistoric Cultural Development

Louis Laurent Gabriel de Mortillet and Man’s Prehistoric Cultural Development

On August 29, 1821, French archaeologist and anthropologist Louis Laurent Gabriel de Mortillet was born. De Morillet was the first to organize man’s prehistoric cultural developments into a sequence of epochs. Based on the idea that older specimens of man were more primitive structurally and culturally, he created a ladder-like model of the evolution of man. This model was the basis for the idea of linear evolution of men. A Revolutionary Freethinker…
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André Blondel and the Oscillograph

André Blondel and the Oscillograph

On August 28, 1863, French engineer and physicist André-Eugène Blondel was born. Blondel is the inventor of the electromechanical oscillograph, a device that allowed electrical researchers to observe the intensity of alternating currents, and a system of photometric units of measurement, such as the lumen and other new photometric units for use in photometry, based on the metre and the Violle candle. André Blondel – Early Years André Blondel was the only son of…
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Norman Ramsey and the Oscillatory Field Method

Norman Ramsey and the Oscillatory Field Method

On August 27, 1915, American physicist and Nobel Laureate Norman Foster Ramsey Jr. was born. Ramsey was awarded the 1989 Nobel Prize in Physics, for the invention of the separated oscillatory field method, which had important applications in the construction of atomic clocks. “You have to get a little untrapped from too much prior knowledge.” — Norman Foster Ramsey, Jr., explaining what’s the best way of thinking, in an oral history conducted…
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Hertha Ayrton – Arc Lights and Ripples in the Sand

Hertha Ayrton – Arc Lights and Ripples in the Sand

On August 26, 1923, British engineer, mathematician, physicist and inventor Hertha Ayrton died of blood poisoning resulting from an insect bite. Known in adult life as Hertha Ayrton, born Phoebe Sarah Marks, she was awarded the Hughes Medal by the Royal Society for her work on electric arcs and ripples in sand and water. She invented a sphygmograph (a device that charts pulse beats, but was not the first to do so), and…
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Hans Adolf Krebs and the Krebs Cycle

Hans Adolf Krebs and the Krebs Cycle

On August 25, 1900, German-born British physician and biochemist Hans Adolf Krebs was born. Krebs was the pioneer scientist in study of cellular respiration, a biochemical pathway in cells for production of energy. He is best known for his discoveries of two important chemical reactions in the body, namely the urea cycle and the citric acid cycle. The latter, the key sequence of metabolic reactions that produces energy in cells, often eponymously…
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Kathleen Kenyon’s Excavations in the Fertile Crescent

Kathleen Kenyon’s Excavations in the Fertile Crescent

On August 24, 1978, British archaeologist Kathleen Mary Kenyon passed away. Specialized on Neolithic culture in the Fertile Crescent, she is best known for her excavations of Jericho and Bangalow in 1952–1958, and has been called one of the most influential archaeologists of the 20th century. Youth and Education Kathleen Kenyon was born in London, England, on January 5, 1906, the daughter of Sir Frederic Kenyon who later became director of the…
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Sir Henry Tizard – Octane Rating and Radar Technology

Sir Henry Tizard – Octane Rating and Radar Technology

On August 23, 1885, English chemist and inventor Sir Henry Thomas Tizard was born. Tizard developed the modern “octane rating” used to classify petrol, helped to develop radar in World War II, and led the first serious studies of UFOs. Education and World War I Henry Tizard was born in Gillingham, Kent, the only son of Thomas Henry Tizard (1839–1924), naval officer and hydrographer, and his wife, Mary Elizabeth Churchward. His ambition to…
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Laurence Gould’s geological Exploration of Antarctica

Laurence Gould’s geological Exploration of Antarctica

On August 22, 1896, American geologist, educator, and polar explorer Laurence McKinley Gould was born. Gould was the first geologist to reach the interior of the Antarctic continent. He travelled to the Queen Maud Mountains, making geological and glaciological surveys. Laurence Gould – Background of an Explorer Laurence Gould was born in Lacota, Michigan. After completing high school in South Haven, Michigan in 1914 he began teaching while saving money for college. He managed to…
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Denis Pétau and the Science of Chronology

Denis Pétau and the Science of Chronology

On August 21, 1583, French Jesuit scholar Denis Pétau was born. Pétau, also known as Dionysius Petavius, was one of the most brilliant scholars in a learned age. Carrying on and improving the chronological labors of Joseph Justus Scaliger,[2] he published in 1627 an Opus de doctrina temporum. Denis Pétau – Early Years Denis Pétau was born at Orléans, where he had his initial education. He attended the University of Paris, where…
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Eduard Suess and the Study of Tectonics

Eduard Suess and the Study of Tectonics

On August 20, 1831, Austrian geologist Eduard Suess was born. Suess was an expert on the geography of the Alps and helped lay the basis for paleogeography and tectonics, i.e. the study of the architecture and evolution of the Earth‘s outer rocky shell. He is responsible for hypothesising two major former geographical features, the supercontinent Gondwana (proposed in 1861) and the Tethys Ocean. An Early Interest in Geology Eduard Suess was born…
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