TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY
NEWSLETTER • 18 OCTOBER
On 18 Oct 1931, Thomas Edison died, whose huge numbers of inventions came from his supreme invention—the world's first industrial research laboratory. Although he did not actually invent the incandescent light bulb, his publicity machine was such that a century later vast numbers of people think he did. The truth is others were experimenting years before him, and examples had been exhibited to the public. Edison's contribution was to devise a practical version of lamp, especially by testing tirelessly until finding a filament sufficiently durable and long-lasting, and then bringing it into mass production. You can read about the First Edison Lamp Factory from Edisonia (1904).
On 18 Oct 1871, Charles Babbage died, English mathematician and pioneer of mechanical computation. Today's book pick is: Charles Babbage: Pioneer of the Computer, by Anthony Hyman, who gives a biography of this polymathic inventor in a convincing account of his tragic personal life and his important place in the history of science. You may be surprised to find Babbage was also a talented commentator on the social, economic and political changes taking place in England in his time, and that he was one of the leaders of the industrial revolution.
It is available from Amazon, typically about Used from $4.92. (As of earlier time of writing - subject to change.)
 | Whenever a man can get hold of numbers, they are invaluable: if correct, they assist in informing his own mind, but they are still more useful in deluding the minds of others. Numbers are the masters of the weak, but the slaves of the strong. — Charles Babbage, English mathematician (died 18 Oct 1871).  |
 | Remember that all models are wrong; the practical question is how wrong do they have to be to not be useful. [Co-author with Norman R. Draper] — George E.P. Box, English-American engineer and statistician (born 18 Oct 1919). |
| | Oh these mathematicians make me tired! When you ask them to work out a sum they take a piece of paper, cover it with rows of A’s, B’s, and X's and Y’s … scatter a mess of flyspecks over them, and then give you an answer that’s all wrong! — Thomas Edison, American inventor (died 18 Oct 1931). |
| 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 | |
 | Christian Friedrich Schönbein, born 18 Oct 1799, was a German-Swiss chemist who was the first to describe guncotton (nitrocellulose). He discovered a gas that appeared during thunderstorms and named the gas for its peculiar smell. What gas did he discover? |
 | Robert Livingston Stevens, born 18 Oct 1787, was a U.S. engineer who invented a number of improvements to steamboat operation and design. He also made a lasting contribution to the design of railways. What was Stevens' design that came into universal use for railways? |
| Deaths | |
 | Alfred Binet (1857-1911) was a French psychologist who was a pioneer in the field of intelligence testing of the normal mind. He took a different approach than most psychologists of his day: he was interested in the workings of the normal mind rather than the pathology of mental illness. He wanted to find a way to measure the ability to think and reason, apart from education in any particular field. He created a standard based on his data. From his work, “IQ” entered the vocabulary. What do the initials “IQ” stand for, and how did Binet define it? |
| | Thomas Edison (1847-1931) was the American inventor of the first phonograph and a practical design for manufacture of an incandescent electric light bulb. He became known internationally as “the Wizard of Menlo Park,” (after his industrial research laboratory). In which state was his Menlo Park laboratory located? |
| Events | |
 | On 18 Oct of a certain year, cyclamates were banned in the U.S. Cyclamate is a non-caloric sweetener discovered in 1937. It has been widely used as a tabletop sweetener, in sugar-free beverages, in baked goods and other low-calorie foods. In what decade were cyclamates banned? |
 | On 18 Oct 1962, James D. Watson, Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins were awarded Nobel Prizes for their determination of the double-helix structure of DNA. Which category of the Nobel Prize was awarded to each of them? |
Fast answers for the previous newsletter for October 17: the decade containing the year 1993 • Réaumur • At any junction in an electrical circuit, the sum of currents flowing in and out is zero. • Windscale • carbon.
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