TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY
NEWSLETTER • 10 APRIL
On 10 Apr 1863, Paul-Louis-Toussaint Héroult was born, the French chemist who invented the electric-arc furnace.
In this early Scientific American article from 1891, you can read of the status at that time of a familiar element, for which Héroult devised a non-smelting process to separate it from its ore.
In 1633, an unripe bunch of bananas was given to apothcary Thomas Johnson by John Argent, President of the College of Physicians (who received it from a merchant just returned with it from the Bahamas). Johnson hung it at his shop in Snow Hill, London, where it ripened about the beginning of May, and lasted until June. Being the first bananas seen in Britian, the display caused a sensation.
Beginning in the nineteenth century, the banana was cultivated in plantations, created by a ruthless and increasingly powerful company. The history of the big business of banana production and distribution includes controversy, deceit, violence, exploitation, and involvement in a bloody coup.
Today's book pick is: Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World, by Dan Koeppel, who also describes what is known of the beginnings of the banana itself, and its place in modern agriculture and world markets. It is a seedless fruit with a unique reproductive system, by which every banana is a genetic duplicate of the next, and therefore susceptible to the same blights. Today’s yellow banana, the Cavendish, is increasingly threatened by such a blight—and there’s no cure in sight.
It is available from Amazon, typically about New from $16.80. Used from $1.93. (As of earlier time of writing - subject to change.)
 | In chemistry, our theories are crutches; to show that they are valid, they must be used to walk... A theory established with the help of twenty facts must explain thirty, and lead to the discovery of ten more. — Jean-Baptiste-André Dumas, French chemist (died 10 Apr 1884).  |
 | I do not know if I am mistaken, but it seems that one can obtain more truths, important to Humanity, from Chemistry than from any other Science. — Samuel Hahnemann, German chemist and physician (born 10 Apr 1755). |
 | The structure known, but not yet accessible by synthesis, is to the chemist what the unclimbed mountain, the uncharted sea, the untilled field, the unreached planet, are to other men … The unique challenge which chemical synthesis provides for the creative imagination and the skilled hand ensures that it will endure as long as men write books, paint pictures, and fashion things which are beautiful, or practical, or both. — Robert Burns Woodward, American chemist (born 10 Apr 1917). |
| Before you look at today's web page, see if you can answer some of these questions about the events that happened on this day. Some of the names are very familiar. Others will likely stump you. Tickle your curiosity with these questions, then check your answers on today's web page. | |
| Births | |
| | Robert Burns Woodward, born 10 Apr 1917, was a Nobel Prize-winning American chemist who synthesized various complex organic substances, including quinine (which he synthesized 10 Apr 1944, his birthday); the steroids cholesterol and cortisone (1951); vitamin B12 (1971); and established the structure of many compounds. What is the best-known medical use of quinine? |
| | Paul-Louis-Toussaint Héroult, born 10 Apr 1863, invented the electric-arc furnace, widely used in making steel; and, independently of the simultaneous work of Charles M. Hall of the United States, devised the electrolytic process for preparing a certain metal from its ore. Which metal is extracted by the electrolytic processes devised separately by Héroult and Hall |
| Deaths | |
 | Sam Loyd (1841-1911) was an American puzzle-maker who studied engineering and intended to become a steam and mechanical engineer but he soon made his living from his puzzles, chess problems and mathematically based games. His most famous puzzle was the 15 Puzzle which he produced in 1878. The craze swept America where employers put up notices prohibiting playing the puzzle during office hours. It remains popular to the present. What is the famous 15 Puzzle? |
| Events | |
 | On 10 Apr of a certain year, the United States and the Soviet Union joined some 70 nations in signing an agreement banning biological warfare. In which decade was this ban signed? |
 | In 1815, the massive eruption of Mount Tambora was its most powerful in 1,600 years. It formed a crater 5-miles across its island, lowered the island by 4,000 feet, and killed 10,000 people. The series of eruptions between 5 Apr and 15 Apr had worldwide effects more far-reaching than the famous 1883 eruption of Krakatoa. The record amounts of ash Tambora spewed into the atmosphere encircled the globe, screened the sun’s light and caused a global drop in temperature. In which country is Mount Tambora? |
Fast answers for the previous newsletter for April 9: ENIAC • Is there a moment in a horse’s gait when all four hooves are off the ground at once? (Yes.) • Great Eastern • mosquito • Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Gus Grissom, Wally Schirra, Alan Shepard and Donald Slayton.
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