SciHi Blog

aviation
Charles Lindbergh’s Flight with the Spirit of St. Louis

Charles Lindbergh’s Flight with the Spirit of St. Louis

Tabea Tietz
On February 4, 1902, American aviator, author, inventor, explorer, and social activist Charles Lindbergh was born. As a 25-year-old U.S. Air Mail pilot, Lindbergh emerged suddenly from virtual obscurity to instantaneous world fame as the result of his Orteig Prize-winning solo nonstop flight from New York to Paris, France in the single-seat, single-engine purpose-built Ryan monoplane Spirit of St. Louis. “Our ideals, laws and customs should be based on the proposition that…
Read more
literature
Gertrude Stein – A Rose is a Rose is a Rose is a Rose

Gertrude Stein – A Rose is a Rose is a Rose is a Rose

Harald Sack
On February 3, 1874, American writer, publisher, and art collector Gertrude Stein was born. Gertrude Stein, like Virginia Woolf,[1] is one of the first women of classical literary modernism. She wrote experimental novels, novellas, essays, poems, literary portraits, and stage works in which she defied linguistic and literary conventions, so that many critics and readers found her work too difficult, were amused by it, or ignored it. “I am writing for myself and…
Read more
mathematics
The Marquis de L’Hôpital and the Analysis of the Infinitely Small

The Marquis de L’Hôpital and the Analysis of the Infinitely Small

Harald Sack
On February 2, 1704, French mathematician Guillaume François Antoine, Marquis de L’Hospital or L’Hôpital passed away. L’Hôpital wrote the first textbook on calculus Analyse des infiniment petits pour l’intelligence des lignes courbes (Analysis of the infinitely small for the intelligence of curved lines, 1st ed., 1696, 2nd ed. 1715), which consisted of the lectures of his teacher Johann Bernoulli.[2] Guillaume de L’Hôpital – Early Years Hôpital came from a distinguished noble family.…
Read more
cinematography
America’s First Movie Studio – the Black Maria

America’s First Movie Studio – the Black Maria

Harald Sack
On February 1, 1893, America’s First Movie Studio, Thomas Edison’s Black Maria was opened. The Black Maria movie production studio was located in West Orange, New Jersey. But, Black Maria did not produce for the big screen. It was still the times of the so-called kinetoscope, a one person viewing machine, where only one person was able to watch the movie through a peephole viewer window at the top of the device.[1] The…
Read more
physics
Rudolf Mössbauer and the Recoilless Nuclear Resonance Absorption

Rudolf Mössbauer and the Recoilless Nuclear Resonance Absorption

Harald Sack
On January 31, 1929, German physicist and Nobel Laureate Rudolf Ludwig Mössbauer was born. He is best known for his 1957 discovery of recoilless nuclear resonance fluorescence for which he was awarded the 1961 Nobel Prize in Physics. This effect, called the Mössbauer effect, is the basis for Mössbauer spectroscopy. “Explain it! The most important thing is, that you are able to explain it! You will have exams, there you have to…
Read more
explorer
Edward Bransfield and the first Sighting of Antarctica

Edward Bransfield and the first Sighting of Antarctica

Tabea Tietz
In January 1820, British Navy officer Edward Bransfield sighted Trinity Peninsula, the northernmost point of the Antarctic mainland. However, the very first confirmed sighting of mainland Antarctica cannot be accurately attributed to one single person. It can, however, be narrowed down to three individuals, who all sighted the ice shelf or the continent within days or months of each other: Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen,[1] a captain in the Russian Imperial Navy; Edward…
Read more
aviation
Australian Aviation Pioneer Lawrence Hargrave and the Box Kites

Australian Aviation Pioneer Lawrence Hargrave and the Box Kites

Harald Sack
On January 29, 1850, Australian engineer, explorer, astronomer, inventor and aeronautical pioneer Lawrence Hargrave was born. Hargrave “flew” on 12 Nov 1894, by attaching himself to a huge kite construction connected to the ground by piano wire. Due to their abilities to carry heavy payloads, steady flight, and capacity for high altitude flight, these kites have had many industrial and military uses. “I am using kites, and find perfect stability can be got by…
Read more
geology
Giovanni Alfonso Borelli and the Science of Biomechanics

Giovanni Alfonso Borelli and the Science of Biomechanics

Harald Sack
On January 28, 1608, Renaissance Italian physiologist, physicist, and mathematician Giovanni Alfonso Borelli was born. Trained in mathematics, Borelli also made extensive studies of Jupiter’s moons, the mechanics of animal locomotion and, in microscopy, of the constituents of blood. He also used microscopy to investigate the stomatal movement of plants, and undertook studies in medicine and geology. “No sensible person will deny that the works of Nature are in the highest degree…
Read more
explorer
The National Geographic Society

The National Geographic Society

Harald Sack
On January 27, 1888, the National Geographic Society, one of the largest non-profit scientific and educational institutions in the world, is founded in the Cosmos Club, a private club then located on Lafayette Square in Washington, D.C. You might not be aware of it, but several of our past articles already are related to the National Geographic Society, as the society always has supported and funded research projects as well as prominent…
Read more
mathematics
Henry Briggs and the Popularization on Logarithms

Henry Briggs and the Popularization on Logarithms

Tabea Tietz
On January 26, 1630, English mathematician and committed puritan Henry Briggs passed away. He is notable for changing the original logarithms invented by John Napier into common (base 10) logarithms, which are sometimes known as Briggsian logarithms in his honour. Henry Briggs’ Education Henry Briggs was born in Halifax, however, his exact date of birth remains unknown. His early family life is also not too well known, but it is believed that…
Read more
Relation Browser
Timeline
0 Recommended Articles:
0 Recommended Articles: