TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY
NEWSLETTER • 8 SEPTEMBER
On 8 Sep 1790, Canvass White was born, an American civil engineer, who built canals. In the course of this work, he developed the first process for making hydraulic cement in the United States, for which he obtained a patent. To research his projects, he spent several months in England to study the details of canal construction and navigation. To build locks, a suitable cement was needed, which would have been available from England only at considerable expense. After repeated experiments, White located a suitable stone and devised the process to manufacture a cement with the necessary properties.
Canvass White was also instrumental in forming a company to develop water power and create a manufacturing town in Cohoes County, New York. Being so important to its origin, his obituary appears in The History of Cohoes, N.Y. (1877). This article gives more background of one of the engineers whose mechanical ingenuity and inventive genius contributed much to the growth of important infrastructure in the United States.
On 9 Aug 1897, Viktor Meyer was born, the German organic chemist who contributed greatly to knowledge of both organic and inorganic chemistry and invented an apparatus for determining vapour densities (and hence molecular weights), now named after him.
If you took a chemistry course, chances are, you came across mention of this apparatus. To know more about the accomplishments of this interesting chemist, read this short biography of Viktor Meyer.
On 8 Sep 1965, Joshua Lionel Cowen died, the American inventor of electric model trains who founded the Lionel Corporation (1901), which became the largest U.S. toy train manufacturer. At age 18, he had invented a fuse to ignite the magnesium powder for flash photography, which the Navy Department bought from him to be a fuse to detonate submarine mines. At age 22, he created a battery-powered train engine intended only as an eye-catcher for other goods in a store window. To his surprise, many customers wanted to purchase the toy train. Thus he started a model railroad company. Today's book pick is: All Aboard!: The Story of Joshua Lionel Cowen & His Lionel Train Company, by Ron Hollander who covers everything: humble beginnings, postwar boom, near destruction at the hands of famed veteran of the "Red Scare" Roy Cohn to its present day owners. If you had Lionel trains as a child or have always loved them from afar, you'll find this an engrossing read. Cowen is honestly portrayed, who like many successful people, could at times be a bully, tyrant, and egomaniac. The book also is a testament to how this producer of toy trains dealt with the competition of electronic games at the end of the 20th century and is experiencing a surge of popularity at the beginning of the 21st Century.
It is available from Amazon, typically about New from $40.01. Used from $3.50. (As of earlier time of writing - subject to change.)
 | I do not believe that the present flowering of science is due in the least to a real appreciation of the beauty and intellectual discipline of the subject. It is due simply to the fact that power, wealth and prestige can only be obtained by the correct application of science. — Sir Derek H.R. Barton, English chemist (born 8 Sep 1918).  |
 | Isolated facts and experiments have in themselves no value, however great their number may be. They only become valuable in a theoretical or practical point of view when they make us acquainted with the law of a series of uniformly recurring phenomena, or, it may be, only give a negative result showing an incompleteness in our knowledge of such a law, till then held to be perfect. — Hermann von Helmholtz, German physiologist and physicist (died 8 Sep 1894). |
 | The most fundamental difference between compounds of low molecular weight and macromolecular compounds resides in the fact that the latter may exhibit properties that cannot be deduced from a close examination of the low molecular weight materials. Not very different structures can be obtained from a few building blocks; but if 10,000 or 100,000 blocks are at hand, the most varied structures become possible, such as houses or halls, whose special structure cannot be predicted from the constructions that are possible with only a few building blocks... Thus, a chromosome can be viewed as a material whose macromolecules possess a well defined arrangement, like a living room in which each piece of furniture has its place and not, as in a warehouse, where the pieces of furniture are placed together in a heap without design. — Hermann Staudinger, German chemist (died 8 Sep 1965). |
| 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 | |
 | Raphael W. Pumpelly, born 8 Sep 1837, was an American geologist and scientific explorer known for his studies and explorations of ore deposits for which he used microscopes and thin sections for petrographic study What metal did he advise investors to search for instead of gold? |
 | Marin Mersenne, born 8 Sep 1588, was a French mathematician, natural philosopher, and theologian whose discovery of the Mersenne numbers is considered to have been a pioneering effort to derive a formula that would represent all prime numbers. What formula is the form of Mersenne numbers? |
| Deaths | |
 | Willard Frank Libby (1908-1980) was an American chemist who developed a tool of interest to archaeologists, anthropologists, and earth scientists for which he was honoured with the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1960. What is the process he developed? |
 | Harry G. Day (1906-2007) was an American nutritional biochemist who helped co-developed the fluoride additive used in toothpaste to combat tooth decay. Proctor and Gamble funded his research at Indiana University. After FDA approval, in Jan 1956, Crest toothpaste was introduced with this ingredient, which they called fluoristan. Which chemical compound was called fluoristan? |
| Events | |
 | On 8 Sep of a certain year, an early report in the Journal of the American Medical Association held that there is statistical evidence connecting smoking and heart disease. What was the decade of this event? |
| no image | In 1854, Dr. John Snow removed the handle of the Broad Street water pump in London, which is remembered as one of the most symbolic gestures in the history of public health. The “John Snow” pub now stands beside the pink granite slab marking the site of the original pump. Why did he remove the pump handle? |
Fast answers for the previous newsletter for September 7: James Alfred Van Allen • chemistry • photosynthesis • magnetron • decade of 1888.
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