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Monthly Archives: January 2023

computer science
Donald Knuth and the Art of Programming

Donald Knuth and the Art of Programming

Harald Sack
On January 10, 1938, computer scientist Donald Knuth, developer of the seminal computer science textbooks ‘The Art of Computer Programming‘, was born. He is also widely known for his development of the TeX typesetting framework and the METAFONT font definition language. Actually, Donald Knuth is one of my personal heroes in computer science. The very day I started to study this subject, his textbooks had already become a sort of ‘holy bible’ when…
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biology
Alec Jeffreys and the Genetic Fingerprint

Alec Jeffreys and the Genetic Fingerprint

Tabea Tietz
On January 9, 1950, British geneticist Alec Jeffreys was born. In 1984, Jeffreys developed techniques for DNA fingerprinting and DNA profiling which are now used worldwide in forensic science to assist police detective work and to resolve paternity and immigration disputes. Alec Jeffries – Youth and Education Alec John Jeffreys was born into a middle-class family in Oxford, UK, where he spent the first six years of his life until 1956, when the family moved to Luton,…
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philosophy
Baltasar Gracian and the Art of Wisdom

Baltasar Gracian and the Art of Wisdom

Harald Sack
On January 8, 1601, Spanish Jesuit and baroque prose writer and philosopher Baltasar Gracián y Morales was born. He is best known as the leading Spanish exponent of conceptism (conceptismo), a style of dealing with ideas that involves the use of terse and subtle displays of exaggerated wit. His writings were lauded by Nietzsche and Schopenhauer.[7] “If you cannot make knowledge your servant, make it your friend.” — Baltasar Gracian, The Art of…
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mathematics
Émile Borel and the Infinite Monkey Problem

Émile Borel and the Infinite Monkey Problem

Harald Sack
On January 7, 1871, French mathematician Félix Édouard Justin Émile Borel was born. Borel is known for his founding work in the areas of measure theory and probability. In one of his books on probability, he proposed the thought experiment that a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard will – with absolute certainty – eventually type every book in France’s Bibliothèque nationale de France (National Library). This is now…
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medical science
The Case of King Tut – CT Scans and DNA Forensics of Tutankhamun’s Mummy

The Case of King Tut – CT Scans and DNA Forensics of Tutankhamun’s Mummy

Tabea Tietz
On January 6, 2005, the mummy of Tutankhamun (c. 1355-1346 B.C.) was removed from its tomb in the Valley of the Kings to be subject of a state-of-the-art non invasive CT scan, which gave evidence that the young king had suffered a compound left leg fracture shortly before his death, and that the leg had become infected, and did not support the popular assumption that the king had been murdered. The Discovery…
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engineering
James Watt and the Steam Age Revolution

James Watt and the Steam Age Revolution

Tabea Tietz
On January 5, 1769,  Scottish inventor, mechanical engineer, and chemist James Watt finally received the patent for his steam engine: patent 913 A method of lessening the consumption of steam in steam engines-the separate condenser. How to Generate Power Before James Watt was able to revolutionize Europe’s industries, folks had to find different ways to generate power. While the Romans during the first century BC used undershot water wheels, the Europeans of the…
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mathematics
Standing on the Shoulders of Giants – Sir Isaac Newton

Standing on the Shoulders of Giants – Sir Isaac Newton

Harald Sack
On January 4, 1643 [N.S.] (25 December 1642 [O.S.]), Sir Isaac Newton, famous physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist and theologian, was born. With his Principia Newton laid the foundation of modern classical mechanics. Besides he constructed the very first reflecting telescope and independent of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz developed differential and integral calculus [10]. “We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to…
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engineering
Robert Whitehead – Changing the Game of Naval Warfare with the Torpedo

Robert Whitehead – Changing the Game of Naval Warfare with the Torpedo

Tabea Tietz
On January 3, 1823, English engineer Robert Whitehead was born. Whitehead is most famous for developing the first effective self-propelled naval torpedo. With this he created a weapon that decisively influenced both world wars. Robert Whitehead – Early Years Robert Whitehead was born in Bolton, England, the son of James Whitehead, a cotton-bleacher, and his wife Ellen Whitehead née Swift. He was trained as an engineer and draughtsman, and attended the Mechanics’ Institute, Manchester…
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cinematography

Dziga Vertov – The Man with the Camera

Harald Sack
On January 2, 1898, Soviet pioneer documentary film and newsreel director, as well as a cinema theorist Dziga Vertov was born. He is considered one of the most important early directors of documentary films because of both his experimental work and his theoretical texts. Vertov was a brother of the later Hollywood cinematographer and Oscar winner Boris Kaufman and the cinematographer Mikhail Kaufman, with whom he collaborated, for example in his most…
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physics
Satyendra Nath Bose and the Einstein-Bose Statistics

Satyendra Nath Bose and the Einstein-Bose Statistics

Harald Sack
On January 1, 1898, Bengali Indian physicist Satyendra Nath Bose was born. Specialising in mathematical physics, Bose is best known for his work on quantum mechanics in the early 1920s, providing the foundation for Bose–Einstein statistics and the theory of the Bose–Einstein condensate. The class of particles that obey Bose–Einstein statistics, bosons, was named after Bose by Paul Dirac. “You don’t know who he was? Half the particles in the universe obey…
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