Today in Science

Events

1970 - Explorer 1 re-enters the Earth's atmosphere (after 12 years in orbit).

1994 - Bill Kimbel, Don Johanson and Yoel Rak report the finding in Ethiopia of the first fairly complete Australopithecus afarensis skull (AL 444-2, see above)

Births

1596 - René Descartes, French mathematician

1730 - Ãtienne Bézout, French mathematician

1777 - Charles Cagniard de la Tour, French physicist

1778 - Coenraad Jacob Temminck, Dutch zoologist

1847 - Yegor Ivanovich Zolotarev, Russian mathematician

1890 - William Lawrence Bragg, English physicist, Nobel laureate

1906 - Sin-Itiro Tomonaga, Japanese physicist, Nobel laureate

1934 - Carlo Rubbia, Italian physicist, Nobel laureate

Deaths

1727 - Sir Isaac Newton, English mathematician and physicist

1877 - Antoine Augustin Cournot, French mathematician

1917 - Emil Adolf von Behring, German physician, Nobel laureate

1945 - Hans Fischer, German chemist, Nobel laureate

2001 - Clifford Shull, American physicist, Nobel laureate

2005 - Stanley J. Korsmeyer, American oncologist