History and Philosophy (often of Science)
jlynch | June 2, 2007Events
1966 - Surveyor 1 lands in Oceanus Procellarum on the Moon, becoming the first US spacecraft to soft land on another world.
2003 - Europe launches its first voyage to another planet, Mars. The European Space Agency's Mars Express probe launches from the Baikonur space centre in Kazakhstan.
Births
1949 - Heather Couper, British astronomer
Deaths
1785 - Jean Paul de Gua de Malves, French mathematician
2000 - Gerald Whitrow, British mathematician
jlynch | June 1, 2007Events
1831 - James Clark Ross discovers the North Magnetic Pole.
Births
1633 - Geminiano Montanari, Italian astronomer
1796 - Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot, French mathematician
1899 - Edward Charles Titchmarsh, English mathematician
1907 - Frank Whittle, English inventor of the jet engine.
1940 - Kip Thorne, American physicist
Deaths
1795 - Pierre-Joseph Desault, French anatomist
1941 - Hans Berger, German neuroscientist
1979 - Werner Forssmann, German physician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
1999 - Christopher Sydney Cockerell, British engineer and inventor
jlynch | May 31, 2007Births
1931 - John Robert Schrieffer, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
1941 - Louis J. Ignarro, American pharmacologist, Nobel Prize laureate
Deaths
1799 - Pierre Lemonnier, French astronomer
1832 - Ãvariste Galois, French mathematician
1910 - Elizabeth Blackwell, American physician
1976 - Jacques Monod, French biologist, Nobel laureate
1986 - James Rainwater, American physicist, Nobel laureate
2006 - Raymond Davis Jr., American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
jlynch | May 29, 2007Births
1423 - Georg Purbach, German mathematician and astronomer
1814 - Eugène Charles Catalan, Belgian mathematician
1908 - Hannes Alfvén, Swedish physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
1912 - Julius Axelrod, American biochemist and Nobel Prize laureate
Deaths
1901 - Victor D'Hondt, Belgian mathematician
1926 - Vladimir Steklov, Russian physicist
jlynch | May 29, 2007Events
1919 - Einstein's theory of general relativity is tested (later confirmed) by Arthur Eddington's observation of a total solar eclipse in Principe and by Andrew Crommelin in Sobral, Ceará, Brazil.
Births
1675 - Humphry Ditton, English mathematician
1716 - Louis-Jean-Marie Daubenton, French naturalist
Deaths
1660 - Frans van Schooten, Dutch mathematician
1829 - Humphry Davy, English chemist
1896 - Gabriel Auguste Daubrée, French geologist
jlynch | May 28, 2007Events
1936 - Alan Turing submits On Computable Numbers for publication.
Births
1676 - Jacopo Riccati, Italian mathematician
1738 - Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, French physician
1807 - Louis Agassiz, Swiss-born zoologist and geologist
1836 - Alexander Mitscherlich, German chemist
1872 - Marian Smoluchowski, Polish physicist
1942 - Stanley B. Prusiner, American scientist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
Deaths
1937 - Alfred Adler, Austrian psychologist
1980 - Rolf Nevanlinna, Finnish mathematician
2001 - Francisco Varela, Chilean biologist and philosopher
2003 - Ilya…
jlynch | May 27, 2007
Births
1623 - William Petty, English scientist and philosopher
1907 - Rachel Carson, American marine biologist and science writer
Deaths
1781 - Giovanni Battista Beccaria, Italian physicist
1896 - Aleksandr Grigorievich Stoletov, Russian physicist
1987 - John Howard Northrop, American chemist, Nobel laureate
jlynch | May 26, 2007Births
1667 - Abraham de Moivre, French mathematician
1669 - Sébastien Vaillant, French botanist
Deaths
1883 - Edward Sabine, Irish astronomer
1904 - Georges Gilles de la Tourette, French neurologist
2004 - Nikolai Stepanovich Chernykh, Russian astronomer
jlynch | May 25, 2007
Events
1925 - John T. Scopes is indicted for teaching human evolution.
1961 - Apollo program: U.S. president John F. Kennedy announces before a special joint session of Congress his goal to initiate a project to put a "man on the moon" before the end of the decade.
Births
1860 - James McKeen Cattell, American psychologist
1865 - Pieter Zeeman, Dutch physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
1880 - Jean Alexandre Barré, French neurologist
1921 - Jack Steinberger, German-born physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
Deaths
1555 - Gemma Frisius, Dutch mathematician and cartographer
1632 - Adam Tanner, Austrian…
jlynch | May 24, 2007Births
1544 - William Gilbert, English natural philosopher
1794 - William Whewell, English scientist, philosopher, and historian of science
1803 - Alexander von Nordmann, Finnish zoologist
Deaths
1543 - Nicolaus Copernicus, Polish astronomer
1734 - Georg Ernst Stahl, German physician and chemist
1843 - Sylvestre François Lacroix, French mathematician
jlynch | May 23, 2007From 1788:
"I demand of you, and of the whole world, that you show me a generic character, by which to distinguish between Man and Ape. I myself most assuredly know of none. I wish somebody would indicate one to me. But if I had called man an ape, or vice versa, I should have fallen under the ban of all the ecclesiastics. It may be that as a naturalist I ought to have done so."
And still the Institute for Creation Research sees Linnaeus as a fellow traveller.
(And as an aside, Edmund Hovey's The Bicentenary of the Birth of Carolous Linnaeus [1908] is freely available online in multiple…
jlynch | May 22, 2007
As, no doubt, many will be posting today, Linnaeus (the "father of modern taxonomy") was born 300 years ago. It's a pity a tiny minority of taxonomists still dont get the genius of what he achieved under the guise of "complet[ing] the Darwinian revolution".
jlynch | May 22, 2007
Births
1707 - Carolus Linnaeus, Swedish botanist
1718 - William Hunter, Scottish anatomist
1734 - Franz Anton Mesmer, Austrian physician/hypnotist
1887 - Thoralf Skolem, Norwegian mathematician
1893 - Ulysses S. Grant IV, American geologist and paleontologist
1908 - John Bardeen, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
1917 - Edward Norton Lorenz, American mathematician and meteorologist
1925 - Joshua Lederberg, American molecular biologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
Deaths
1691 - Adrien Auzout, French astronomer
1857 - Augustin Louis Cauchy, French…
jlynch | May 22, 2007
Today is the International Day for World Biodiversity, a favorite holiday of the Bush White House.
Events
1906 - Wright brothers are granted patent number 821,393 for their "Flying-Machine".
1969 - Apollo 10's lunar module flies within 8.4 nautical miles (16 km) of the moon's surface.
Births
1911 - Anatol Rapoport, Russian-born mathematical psychologist, and pianist
1912 - Herbert C. Brown, English-born chemist, Nobel Prize laureate
1920 - Thomas Gold, Austrian astrophysicist
1927 - George Andrew Olah, Hungarian-born chemist, Nobel Prize laureate
Deaths
1666 - Gaspar Schott, German scientist…
jlynch | May 8, 2007Births
1927 - Manfred Eigen, German biophysicist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry
Deaths
1931 - Albert Abraham Michelson, German-born physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
1950 - Esteban Terradas i Illa, Catalan mathematician, scientist, and engineer
jlynch | May 7, 2007Events
1794 - Branded a traitor during the Reign of Terror by revolutionists, French chemist Antoine Lavoisier, who was also a tax collector with the Ferme Générale, was tried, convicted, and guillotined all on one day in Paris.
Births
1842 - Emil Christian Hansen, Danish physiologist
1859 - Johan Jensen, Danish mathematician
1902 - Andre Michael Lwoff, Nobel laureate
1947 - H. Robert Horvitz, Nobel laureate
Deaths
1788 - Giovanni Antonio Scopoli, Italian-born physician and naturalist
1794 - Antoine Lavoisier, French chemist
1960 - J. H. C. Whitehead, British mathematician
jlynch | May 6, 2007Events
1895 - Alexander Stepanovich Popov demonstrates the first radio receiver.
1952 - The concept for the integrated circuit, the basis for all modern computers, is first published by Geoffrey W.A. Dummer.
Births
1896 - Pavel Sergeevich Alexandrov, Russian mathematician
1939 - Sidney Altman, Canadian molecular biologist, Nobel laureate
Deaths
1617 - David Fabricius, German astronomer
1941 - Sir James George Frazer, Scottish anthropologist
jlynch | May 5, 2007Births
1769 - Jean Nicolas Pierre Hachette, French mathematician
1856 - Sigmund Freud, Austrian psychiatrist
1871 - Victor Grignard, Chemist and Nobel Prize laureate
1872 - Willem de Sitter, Dutch scientist
1916 - Robert H. Dicke, American physicist
1929 - Paul Lauterbur, Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine.
Deaths
1859 - Alexander von Humboldt, German naturalist and explorer
1951 - Ãlie Cartan, French mathematician
1963 - Theodore von Kármán, Hungarian-born physicist
jlynch | May 4, 2007
Events
1925 - John T. Scopes (above) is served an arrest warrant in violation of the Butler Act.
1961 - Mercury program: Mercury-Redstone 3 - Alan Shepard becomes the first American to travel into space, making a sub-orbital flight of 15 minutes.
Births
1921 - Arthur Leonard Schawlow, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
Deaths
1808 - Pierre Jean George Cabanis, French physiologist
1859 - Peter Gustav Dirichlet, German mathematician
1892 - August Wilhelm von Hofmann, German chemist
jlynch | May 3, 2007
Events
1675 - King Charles II of England orders the construction of the Royal Greenwich Observatory.
Births
1733 - Jean-Charles de Borda, French mathematician, physicist, political scientist, and sailor
1825 - Thomas Henry Huxley, English scientist (above)
Deaths
1566 - Luca Ghini, Italian physician and botanist
1615 - Adriaan van Roomen, Flemish mathematician
1677 - Isaac Barrow, English mathematician
1859 - Joseph Diaz Gergonne, French mathematician
1972 - Edward Calvin Kendall, American chemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine