TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY
NEWSLETTER • 4 OCTOBER
On 4 Oct 1821, John Rennie died, the Scottish engineer and architect whose major contributions to the design of canals, bridges, harbours, docks and lighthouses throughout Britain was recognized by his burial in St. Paul's Cathedral.
One of his finest works, the Waterloo Bridge across the Thames River in London was under construction at the time of his death, and completed by his son, Sir John Rennie.
A chapter on John Rennie in Biographical Illustrations of St. Paul’s Cathedral (1843) provides more information on his life work.
Also, on 4 Oct 1906, Alice Stewart was born, an English epidemiologist who is well-deserving of your attention. Today's book pick is: The Woman Who Knew Too Much: Alice Stewart and the Secrets of Radiation, by Gayle Greene who presents a significant biography. Stewart researched and doggedly insisted there was greater danger from X-rays and nuclear radiation than was at the time accepted by nuclear and health physics establishments. She revolutionized the concept of radiation risk in the 1950s with her discovery that fetal X rays double a child's risk of developing cancer. Two decades later, when she was in her seventies, she again astounded the scientific world with a study showing that the U.S. nuclear weapons industry was about twenty times more dangerous than safety regulations permit. She had the courage and integrity to do battle with the slings and arrows of the federal scientific pygmies who attacked her work. All seven Amazon customer reviews are for 5 stars (as of Oct 2013).
It is available from Amazon, typically about New from $24.88. Used from $1.55. (As of earlier time of writing - subject to change.)
On 4 Oct 1957, the Soviet launch of Sputnik set off the Space Race which changed the course of American history, with related impact on the U.S. educational system. Today's book pick is: Sputnik: The Shock of the Century (Science Matters), by Paul Dickson, who pieces together the complex series of events leading up to the launch of Sputnik and the changes it caused in scientific and social history.
It is available from Amazon, typically about New from $14.95. Used from $3.49. (As of earlier time of writing - subject to change.)
 | In the old days, they killed the messenger who brought the bad news... a Cassandra is never popular in her time. — Alice Stewart, English epidemiologist (born 4 Oct 1906).  |
 | Experimenters are the shock troops of science. — Max Planck, German theoretical physicist (died 4 Oct 1947). |
 | We would never get away from it. ... It’s bad enough as it is, but with the wireless telephone one could be called up at the opera, in church, in our beds. Where could one be free from interruption? [Prediction about the cell phone made over a century ago.] — Michael Idvorsky Pupin, Yugoslavian-American physicist (born 4 Oct 1858). |
| 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 | |
| | Michael Idvorsky Pupin, born 4 Oct 1858, was a Serbian-American physicist who devised an improvement for telephone communication. Pupin also won a Pulitzer Prize (1924) for his autobiographical work, From Immigrant to Inventor (1923). What was his contribution to telephone communication? |
 | On 4 Oct 1716, James Lind was born, a Scottish physician remembered as the “founder of naval hygiene in England,” for his investigations on the sickness of sailors. What significant change to the diet of sailors did he implement, and why? |
| Deaths | |
 | Edward H. Lowe (1920-1995) was an American inventor. After his WW II Navy duty, Lowe joined his father's company in Cassopolis, Mich., selling industrial absorbents, including sawdust and an absorbent clay called Fuller's Earth. What household invention did he produce, and under what name? |
| Events | |
 | On 4 Oct 1957, the Space Age began as the Soviet Union, to the dismay of the United States, launched Sputnik, the first manmade satellite, into orbit around the earth. The craft circled the earth every 95 minutes at almost 2,000 miles per hour 500 miles above the Earth For how long did Sputnik continue to transmit its beep-beep radio signal? |
 | On 4 Oct 1971, a new unit for chemical measurement of the amount of substance (matter) was added to the six base quantities of the SI (International System of scientific units.) The decision was made by the Conférence Général des Poids et Mesures (CGPM), the principal executive organization under the Treaty of the Meter. This new unit has what name and symbol? |
 | On 4 Oct of a certain year, the first trans-Atlantic passenger jetliner service was begun by British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) with flights between London and New York. In which decade did BOAC jetliner service begin? |
Fast answers for the previous newsletter for October 3: to treat malaria patients with fever, for, he reasoned, people living in cold climates never got malaria • Nature • sewing machine • Morris Mini-Minor (“Mini”) • Mount Palomar Observatory • insecticide.
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