Newsletter for Wednesday 18 November.

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TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY

NEWSLETTER • 18 NOVEMBER

Feature for Today

Book of the Day

On 18 Nov 1787, Louis Daguerre was born, who invented the daguerrotype, the first practical process of photography. Today's book pick is: The Daguerreotype: Nineteenth-Century Technology and Modern Science, by M. Susan Barger, William B. White, who begin with a history of the process itself. Tracing the daguerreotype's origins and development, they proceed to discuss what researchers in this century have learned about the chemistry of the daguerreotype. Over half of the book is filled with diligent photo-historical research with lots of information on individual daguerreotypists and their work. The narratives of the personalities involved in the early days are fascinating.

It is available from Amazon, typically about New from $81.76. Used from $14.02. (As of earlier time of writing - subject to change.)

Quotations for Today

	How wonderful that we have met this paradox. Now we have some hope of making progress. — Niels Bohr, Danish physicist (died 18 Nov 1962).
	Natural selection is not the wind which propels the vessel, but the rudder which, by friction, now on this side and now on that, shapes the course. — Asa Gray, American botanist (born 18 Nov 1810).
	May every young scientist remember … and not fail to keep his eyes open for the possibility that an irritating failure of his apparatus to give consistent results may once or twice in a lifetime conceal an important discovery. Commenting on the discovery of thoron gas because one of Rutherford’s students had found his measurements of the ionizing property of thorium were variable. His results even seemed to relate to whether the laboratory door was closed or open. After considering the problem, Rutherford realized a radioactive gas was emitted by thorium, which hovered close to the metal sample, adding to its radioactivity—unless it was dissipated by air drafts from an open door. (Thoron was later found to be argon.) — Patrick M.S. Blackett, English physicist (born 18 Nov 1897).

Quiz

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
	Born 18 Nov 1923, this American was his country's first man in space and one of only 12 humans who walked on the Moon. Named as one of the nation's original seven Mercury astronauts in 1959, he became the first American into space on 5 May 1961, riding a Redstone rocket on a 15-minute suborbital flight. Can you name this astronaut?
	Louis Daguerre, born 18 Nov 1787, was a French painter and physicist who invented the the first practical process of photography. Though the first permanent photograph from nature was made in 1826/27 by Joseph-Nicéphore Niepce of France, it was of poor quality and required about eight hours' exposure time. Daguerre's new process was also notable because the exposure time was shorter. What exposure time did a daguerrotype require?
Deaths
	Walther Hermann Nernst (1864-1941) was a German scientist who showed that it is possible to determine the equilibrium constant for a chemical reaction from thermal data, and in so doing he formulated what he himself called the third law of thermodynamics. What was his law of thermodynamics?
	Niels Henrik David Bohr (1885-1962) was the physicist who was the first to apply the quantum theory, which restricts the energy of a system to certain discrete values, to the problem of atomic and molecular structure. He developed the so-called Bohr theory of the atom. What was this scientist's nationality at birth?
Events
	On 18 Nov of a certain year, the first telephone in the U.S. with push buttons instead of a rotary dial was placed in commercial service in Carnegie and Greensburg, Pa. This was a Touch-Tone telephone with 10 push buttons. In what decade was this telephone installed?
	On 18 Nov 1883, standard time in the U.S. went into effect at noon for the first time. The system adopted was first proposed by Charles F. Dowd (1825-1904), a school principal in New York state. North America was divided into four time zones, fifteen degrees of longitude, and one hour of “standard time” apart. What business association implemented this standard time?

Answers

When you have your answers ready to all the questions above, you'll find all the information to check them, and more, on the November 18 web page of Today in Science History. Or, try this link first for just the brief answers.

Fast answers for the previous newsletter for November 17: increasing the proportion of gasoline obtainable from crude petroleum • it has only one side—a path traced with a pencil on the one side comes back to its starting point, with no other unmarked side. • Doppler red shifts, showing the motion of the source gases • punched-card tabulating machines • Mediteranean Sea and Red Sea • China.

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