TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY
NEWSLETTER • 23 OCTOBER
On 23 Oct 1946, Ernest Thompson Seton died, an English-American naturalist. Seton became a self-trained field researcher, with ability as a nature writer and an artistic talent put to good use illustrating books. Wild Animals I Have Known (1898) was easily his most successful literary effort, which continued to be reprinted after his death. In 1910 Seton played an important role in the formation of the Boy Scouts of America, writing the original handbook. The article on Ernest Thompson Seton in the American National Biography paints a fuller picture of his life. (Yep, that's a pun. Pun intended.)
On 23 Oct 1873, William Coolidge was born, an American engineer who developed tungsten filaments that made possible the modern X-ray tube and incandescent lamps. To this day, X-ray tubes for medical applications are patterned after the design he patented in 1916. His work also included high-quality magnetic steel, improved ventilating fans, the electric blanket, World War II radar, and 83 patents during his 101-year lifetime. Today's book pick is: William David Coolidge: A centenarian and his work, by H. A Liebhafsky, a colleague of Dr. Coolidge at General Electric. This short biography of Coolidge reveals one of the most important engineers of the 20th century.
It is available from Amazon, typically about New from $22.50. Used from $1.49. (As of earlier time of writing - subject to change.)
 | Scientific truth, like puristic truth, must come about by controversy. Personally this view is abhorrent to me. It seems to mean that scientific truth must transcend the individual, that the best hope of science lies in its greatest minds being often brilliantly and determinedly wrong, but in opposition, with some third, eclectically minded, middle-of-the-road nonentity seizing the prize while the great fight for it, running off with it, and sticking it into a textbook for sophomores written from no point of view and in defense of nothing whatsoever. I hate this view, for it is not dramatic and it is not fair; and yet I believe that it is the verdict of the history of science. — Edwin G. Boring, American psychologist (born 23 Oct 1886).  |
 | It was not easy for a person brought up in the ways of classical thermodynamics to come around to the idea that gain of entropy eventually is nothing more nor less than loss of information. — Gilbert Newton Lewis, American chemist (born 23 Oct 1875). |
| | The life of a wild animal always has a tragic end. — Ernest Thompson Seton, English-American naturalist, author and illustrator (died 23 Oct 1946). |
| 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 | |
| | G.N. Lewis, born 23 Oct, was an American chemist whose theory of the electron pair fostered understanding of the covalent bond and extended the concept of acids and bases. He first introduced the notion of a covalent bond in which the chemical combination between two atoms derives from the sharing of a pair of electrons, with one electron contributed by each atom. In what decade did he first introduce the idea of a covalent bond? |
 | On 23 Oct 1920, Ted Fujita was born, the Japanese-American meteorologist who established the Fujita- or F-scale (Feb 1971). What does the F-scale measure? |
| Deaths | |
 | A Scottish inventor (1840-1921) was a pioneer of the pneumatic tyre. In 1887, when his 9-yr-old son complained of the rough ride he experienced on his tricycle over cobbled streets, he devised and fitted rubber air tubes held on to a wooden ring by tacking a linen covering fixed around the wheels. Due to the major improvement in riding comfort, he continued development, until he patented the idea. Can you name this inventor? |
| Events | |
 | On 23 Oct 1803, a very famous English scientist read his Essay on the absorption of gases by water, at the conclusion of which he gave a series of atomic weights for 21 simple and compound elements. Can you name this scientist? |
 | On 23 Oct 1977, American paleontologist Elso S. Barghoorn of Harvard announced the discovery of Pre-Cambian spherical one-celled algae microfossils (named Eobacterium), believed to be the earth's earliest known life forms. How old are these fossils (to the nearest half-billion years)? |
Fast answers for the previous newsletter for October 22: vitamin C • transit of Venus across the sun • NutraSweet • a hole in the top of the parachute.
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