TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY
NEWSLETTER • 20 SEPTEMBER
On 20 Sep 1842, Sir James Dewar was born, a Scottish chemist and physicist whose research with materials at low-temperature led him to devise the Dewar vacuum-insulated double-walled flask. He also was a co-inventor of cordite smokeless explosive powder. In a 1910 issue of Scientific American, P.F. Mottelay wrote a biography of Sir James Dewar which summarizes Dewar's character, accomplishments and interests.
If you tend more toward the biological or medical field, you can also choose from an article on Goitre Prevention from Minnesota Medicine from 1922, which extols the virtue of iodine as a dietary supplement. It was written within just five years of the work done then as recently as 1917 by David Marine an O.P. Kimball studying Akron, Ohio school children. They quickly and strikingly showed effective results for goitre treatment with sodium iodide. A century later, your food intake is supplemented with iodine, and whether or not you've noticed, this article tells you why it has been such an simple but important way to maintain public health.
On 20 Sep 1965, Arthur Holmes died, the geologist who contributed greatly to dating the age of the Earth by measuring radioactive decay of elements in igneous rocks. Today's book pick is: The Dating Game: One Man's Search for the Age of the Earth, by Cherry Lewis who presents how Holmes developed to his great vision for a geological timescale for fifty years despite scientific opposition, financial hardship and personal tragedy. Yet his work helped provide an answer, a geological clock, being sought by scientists since the end of the nineteenth century: How old is the Earth? Radiocarbon dating, which can be used to date archaeological materials up to 50,000 years old, is unable to provide information on geological time-scales. The author sets forth with commendable lucidity the evolving scientific concepts by which the Earth's dating was achieved.
It is available from Amazon, typically about Used from $2.67. (As of earlier time of writing - subject to change.)
 | Some people say there is a God out there. ... but in my travels around the earth all day long, I looked around and didn't see Him ... I saw no God or angels. The rocket was made by our own people. I don't believe in God. I believe in man, in his strength, his possibilities, and his reason.[After his return from a space flight orbitting the earth.] — Gherman Stepanovich Titov, Russian cosmonaut (died 20 Sep 2000).  |
 | Another roof, another proof. [His motto, as an itinerant between mathematical friends’ houses at which he collaborated.] — Paul Erdös, Hungarian mathematician (died 20 Sep 1996). |
 | Simple goitre is so simple to prevent that it can disappear as soon as society makes the choice. — David Marine, American pathologist (born 20 Sep 1888). |
| 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 | |
| | David Marine, born 20 Sep 1888, was an American pathologist whose substantial research on the treatment of goiter with iodine very successfully reduced its incidence in the population. What common food product was as a result fortified with iodine to prevent goitre? |
| | On 20 Sep 1842, was born, a Scottish chemist and physicist who gave dazzling lectures. Sometimes he needed liquids at low temperatures, and used an insulating double-walled container made to his own design. It was a double-walled flask he invented with a vacuum between two layers of steel or silvered glass. He didn't profit from his invention. By what manufacturer's name is this better known? |
| Deaths | |
 | Ernest Goodpasture (1886-1960) was a research scientist, the founder of a particular vaccine. For what vaccine is he remembered? |
 | Arthur Holmes (1890-1965) was an English geologist who developed the first quantitative time scale for geology based on measuring the relative content of radioactive elements in rocks. His method determined the age of the earth reached beyond a billion years. What radioactive element did Holmes first utilize in determining the age of igneous rocks? |
| Events | |
 | On 20 Sep of a certain year, at IBM, the first development compile and execute test was run of what was being developed as a new computer programming language. When released later in the decade as the commercial product FORTRAN, it quickly became the dominating language for technical and scientific applications. In what decade did this program first run? |
 | In 1853, Elisha Graves Otis made the first sale of his equipment, with the safety feature he had invented. What equipment, and with what safety feature, did Otis pioneer? |
Fast answers for the previous newsletter for September 19: soap and detergent • Uranus • the decade containing the years 1934-38 • Howe truss bridges • the Iceman • Jacques Etienne Montgolfier.
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