TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY
NEWSLETTER • 14 NOVEMBER
On 14 Nov 1765, Robert Fulton was born, an American inventor and engineer, who brought steamboating from the experimental stage to commercial success. Fulton lived at the time the power of steam was being realized - meaning ideas were being turned into reality. Stop and think of the difference it made. Before the harnessing of steam, it was horses and water that were harnessed for transportation, agriculture, and water-mills. Through the decades, steam increasingly provided stationary engines for mills and factories, and engines transportation on land, waterways and oceans. The revolution started in small steps by the most determined and visionary inventors. But there was more than dealing with mechanical problems to overcome, as you can read in the chapter on The First Steamboat from Cradle Days of New York (1909) which follows the story of Robert Fulton's efforts from 1798 to build a commercial steam boat service.
On 14 Nov 1925, Zhores Medvedev was born, a dissident Soviet scientist who exposed the nuclear disaster in the Urals of the 1950's. As an ecologist, he wrote on the radiological damage to a 400-sq.-mi. area in the southern Urals to the various members of the ecosystem, including large ungulates, field rodents and fish populations. He believes that the radiological contamination he studied resulted from a non-nuclear explosion of stored leaky barrels of radioactive waste. Water leaching into the waste was heated by the radioactive isotopes, then a steam explosion spread the waste material over a very large area. Today's book pick is: Nuclear Disaster in the Urals (English and Russian Edition), by Zhores A. Medvedev, who reveals the damage from a serious nuclear incident you may not otherwise have known about.
It is available from Amazon, typically about Used from $5.52. (As of earlier time of writing - subject to change.)
 | It must have appeared almost as improbable to the earlier geologists, that the laws of earthquakes should one day throw light on the origin of mountains, as it must to the first astronomers, that the fall of an apple should assist in explaining the motions of the moon. — Sir Charles Lyell, Scottish geologist (born 14 Nov 1797).  |
| | The fear of meeting the opposition of envy, or the illiberality of ignorance is, no doubt, the frequent cause of preventing many ingenious men from ushering opinions into the world which deviate from common practice. Hence for want of energy, the young idea is shackled with timidity and a useful thought is buried in the impenetrable gloom of eternal oblivion. — Robert Fulton, American inventor, engineer and artist (born 14 Nov 1765). |
 | No one has ever had an idea in a dress suit. — Sir Frederick Grant Banting, Canadian physiologist and physician (born 14 Nov 1891). |
| 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 | |
 | Edward H. White II, born 14 Nov 1930, was the first U.S. astronaut to walk in space. With James A. McDivitt he manned the four-day orbital flight of Gemini 4. During the third orbit White emerged from the spacecraft, floated in space for about 20 minutes, and became the first person to propel himself in space with a maneuvering unit. In which decade did this first U.S. space walk happen? |
| | Sir Frederick Banting, born 14 Nov 1891, assisted Charles Best in extracting a hormone from the pancreas for which he shared the 1929 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. What hormone was extracted from the pancreas, and what disease did it treat? |
| | Sir Charles Lyell, born 14 Nov 1797, was a Scottish geologist who was largely responsible for the general acceptance of the view that all features of the Earth's surface are produced by physical, chemical, and biological processes through long periods of geological time, a concept initially set forth by James Hutton By what name is this theory known? |
| Deaths | |
 | John Aitken (1839-1919) was a Scottish physicist and meteorologist who, through a series of experiments and observations in which he used apparatus of his own design, elucidated the crucial role of what are now called Aitken nuclei. What is the function of Aiken nuclei? |
| Events | |
 | In 1985, the first discovery of a new form of carbon was published in the journal Nature. The American chemists Robert F. Curl, Jr. and Richard E. Smalley, colleagues at Rice met with Sir Harold W. Kroto of the University of Sussex, England. In 11 days of research, they discovered the first spherical cluster of carbon atoms. What name was given to this form of carbon? |
 | On 14 Nov 1832, it wasn't a street car called Desire (it was named the John Mason after a local banker), but when it made its trip in New York City with municipal officials aboard, it was the first of its kind to be used in the U.S. The carriage rode on iron wheels along iron rails in the middle of the road, and could carry up to 30 passengers. What provided the power for the carriage? |
Fast answers for the previous newsletter for November 13: vitamin K • decade containing the day 7 Apr 1927 • Mars • dry-ice (frozen carbon dioxide).
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