TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY
NEWSLETTER • 5 NOVEMBER
On 5 Nov 1857, Edmund Davy died, the English chemist who discovered acetylene gas. He spent some time assisting his cousin, Humphry Davy, in his chemical researches at the Royal Institution. When, in October 1807, Humphry accomplished the electrolytic preparation of potassium and sodium, Edmund described that his cousin was so delighted with this achievement that he danced about the room in ecstasy. More of Edmund's own discoveries are described in this Biography of Edmund Davy.
On 5 Nov 1930, Christiaan Eijkman died, a Dutch physician, whose discovery that beriberi is caused by poor diet led to the discovery of vitamins. Today's book pick is: Beriberi, White Rice, and Vitamin B: A Disease, a Cause, and a Cure, by Kenneth J. Carpenter, who gives a comprehensive account of the history and treatment of beriberi. He traces the decades of medical and chemical research that solved the puzzle posed by this mysterious disease, caused by the lack of a minute quantity of the chemical thiamin, or vitamin B1 in the diet. The fascinating chronicle spans the development of scientific thought, a history that encompasses public health, science, diet, trade, expanding empires, war, and technology.
It is available from Amazon, typically about New from $13.75. Used from $8.45. (As of earlier time of writing - subject to change.)
 | Man armed with science is like a baby with a box of matches. — J.B.S. Haldane, English geneticist and biometrician (born 5 Nov 1892).  |
 | Theories cannot claim to be indestructible. They are only the plough which the ploughman uses to draw his furrow and which he has every right to discard for another one, of improved design, after the harvest. To be this ploughman, to see my labours result in the furtherance of scientific progress, was the height of my ambition, and now the Swedish Academy of Sciences has come, at this harvest, to add the most brilliant of crowns. — Paul Sabatier, French organic chemist (born 5 Nov 1854). |
 | Today every city, town, or village is affected by it. We have entered the Neon Civilization and become a plastic world.. It goes deeper than its visual manifestations, it affects moral matters; we are engaged, as astrophysicists would say, on a decaying orbit. — Raymond Loewy, French-American inventor and design engineer (born 5 Nov 1893). |
| 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 | |
 | Fred Lawrence Whipple, born 5 Nov 1906, is an American astronomer who proposed a structure for comet nuclei. This model was confirmed in 1986 when spacecraft flew past comet Halley. What is the popular name for his model of comet nuclei? |
| | One 5 Nov 1893, Raymond Loewy was born, the French-American inventor and design engineer responsible for many iconic designs of industrial products, from trash containers to locomotives. He described one his lasting designs for a glass container, familiar to almost everyone over decades, as “It's shape is aggressively female—a quality that in merchandise, as in life, sometime transcends functionalism.” What product did he thus describe? |
| Deaths | |
 | Georges Urbain (1872-1938) discovered the law of optimum phosphorescence of binary systems and wrote on isomorphism. Between 1895 and 1912 he performed over 200,000 fractional distillations to separate certain substances, which was his significant accomplishment. What substances did he separate by his meticulous fractional distillations? |
 | The researches of a very famous Scottish physicist and mathematician (1831-1879) united electricity and magnetism into the concept of the electro-magnetic field. Around 1862, he calculated that the speed of propagation of an electromagnetic field is approximately that of the speed of light. He proposed that the phenomenon of light is therefore an electromagnetic phenomenon. Can you name this man? |
| Events | |
 | On 5 Nov of a certain year, George B. Selden received the first U.S. patent for a gasoline-driven automobile. Several years earlier, he filed a patent describing the concept for a complete automobile, with such features as a clutch, compressed air self-starter, and steering system. As a patent attorney, he knew to delay the issue of the patent by sending amendments, to increase its value claiming from others who meanwhile had done the hard practical work of actually developing automobiles. In what decade was this patent issued? |
 | On 5 Nov 1906, at the Sorbonne, France, the first female physics teacher in the school's history delivered her first lecture. Can you name this Polish scientist? |
Fast answers for the previous newsletter for November 4: copper • Barbie and Ken • double refraction • hydrogen maser • decade containing the year 1922 • air-conditioning.
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