TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY
NEWSLETTER • 14 OCTOBER
On 14 Oct 1788, Sir Edward Sabine was born, an Irish geophysicist, astronomer, and explorer, who made extensive pendulum measurements to determine the shape of the earth, and established magnetic observatories to relate sunspot activity with disturbances in terrestrial magnetism.
On 6 April 1852, Sabine announced that the 11 year sunspot cycle was “absolutely identical” with the geomagnetic cycle.
For a short biography, read this article on Sir Edward Sabine.
On 14 Oct 1946, Craig Venter was born, the American molecular geneticist who pioneered the automatation of gene sequencing and was first to sequence the human genome. Of all the scientific achievements of the past century, perhaps none can match the deciphering of the human genetic code, both for its technical brilliance and for its implications for our future. Today's book pick is: A Life Decoded: My Genome: My Life, by J. Craig Venter. In this autobiography, he reveals his experience of the contentious politics of big science. Venter traces his rise from an uninspired student to one of the most fascinating and controversial figures in science today. Herein, Venter relates the unparalleled drama of the quest to decode the human genome—a goal he predicted he could achieve years earlier and more cheaply than the government-sponsored Human Genome Project. This he indeed fulfilled in 2001. As a thrilling story of detection, this book is also a revealing, and often troubling, look at how science is practiced today.
It is available from Amazon, typically about New from $4.22. Used from $0.25. (As of earlier time of writing - subject to change.)
 | Er riecht die Wahrheit, He [Faraday] smells the truth. — Friedrich Wilhelm Georg Kohlrausch, German chemist and physicist (born 14 Oct 1840).  |
 | I think that the event which, more than anything else, led me to the search for ways of making more powerful radio telescopes, was the recognition, in 1952, that the intense source in the constellation of Cygnus was a distant galaxy—1000 million light years away. This discovery showed that some galaxies were capable of producing radio emission about a million times more intense than that from our own Galaxy or the Andromeda nebula, and the mechanisms responsible were quite unknown. ... [T]he possibilities were so exciting even in 1952 that my colleagues and I set about the task of designing instruments capable of extending the observations to weaker and weaker sources, and of exploring their internal structure. — Sir Martin Ryle, English radio astronomer (died 14 Oct 1984). |
 | It is my belief that the basic knowledge that we're providing to the world will have a profound impact on the human condition and the treatments for disease and our view of our place on the biological continuum. — J. Craig Venter, American molecular geneticist (born 14 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 | |
 | W. Edwards Deming, born 14 Oct 1900 was an American statistician, educator, and consultant who advocated quality-control methods in industrial production. What country's economic recovery was aided by his quality control methods? |
| | Sir Edward Sabine, born 14 Oct 1788, was an Irish-English physicist, astronomer and explorer who studied the Earth's magnetic field. Using pendulum experiments (1821-23) in different global locations, he determined another feature of the earth. What description of the Earth was Sabine able to make from his pendulum measurements? |
| Deaths | |
 | Heinrich Kayser (1853-1940) was a German physicist who discovered the presence of an element in the Earth's atmosphere. Prior to that scientists had detected this element only in the sun and in some minerals. What was this element? |
| | Sir Martin Ryle (1918-1984) was an English radio astronomer who was a leader in the development of radio astronomy. His 1C - 5C Cambridge catalogues of radio sources led to the discovery of numerous radio galaxies and quasars. Quasar is a shortened name for what type of object? |
| Events | |
 | On 14 Oct 1960, the 4th legal definition of the metre was made to be 1,650,763.73 wavelengths in vacuum of the orange-red light radiation of a certain isotope's atom (transition between levels 2p10 and 5d5). This was now 100 times more accurate than the previous 3rd legal definition adopted in 1889. The isotope specified in the definition of the metre was of which element? |
 | On 14 Oct 1947, a WW II fighter pilot, became the first human to fly faster than the speed of sound, breaking through the sound barrier in a rocket powered Bell XS-1 airplane over Murac Dry Lake, California. Can you name this pilot? |
Fast answers for the previous newsletter for October 13: German • non-colour-distorting • transistor • caramels • the decade containing the year 1953 • through the principal Transit Instrument.
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