TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY
NEWSLETTER • 1 JANUARY
On 1 Jan 1859, Michael Joseph Owens was born, an American inventor and businessman who designed and improved machinery to manufacture glass bottles. These eliminated child-labour, and revolutionized the industry with the ability to make several bottles a second. How he progressed from one of the children that tended the glass furnace to a manufacturer of machinery distributed around the world is given in a short biography on Michael Joseph Owens.
On 1 Jan 1874, Albert Hoyt Taylor was born, an American physicist known as the “father of navy radar.” Today's book pick is: The Invention That Changed the World: How a Small Group of Radar Pioneers Won the Second World War and Launched a Technical Revolution, by Robert Buderi. Taylor's contribution is only briefly mentioned in this book, but this well-written, technically accurate, and even exciting account captures the urgency of the race to win World War II, the people behind the magnetrons, screens and antennae, and the use of radar in the cold war.
It is available from Amazon, typically about New from $26.21. Used from $3.15. (As of earlier time of writing - subject to change.)
 | Man's chief enemy and danger is his own unruly nature and the dark forces pent up within him. — Ernest Jones, Welsh psychoanalyst (born 1 Jan 1879).  |
 | Disease may be defined as “A change produced in living things in consequence of which they are no longer in harmony with their environment.” — William Thomas Councilman, American pathologist (born 1 Jan 1854). |
 | It is a common rule with primitive people not to waken a sleeper, because his soul is away and might not have time to get back. — Sir James George Frazer, Scottish anthropologist (born 1 Jan 1854). |
| 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 | |
 | On 1 Jan 1894, Satyendra Nath Bose, an Indian mathematician and physicist who did important work in quantum theory, in particular on Planck’s black body radiation law. Bose also published on statistical mechanics leading to the Einstein-Bose statistics. What term was coined by Dirac for particles obeying these statistics? |
 | On 1 Jan 1942, Edward J. Hoffman was born, an American biomedical physicist who helped create (1974) the PET Scanner (Positron Emission Tomography). When a patient is prepared in a certain way, the PET scanner can be used to detect cancers. How is a patient prepared for a PET scan for cancer? |
| Deaths | |
 | Grace Murray Hopper (1906-1992) was an American mathematician who was a pioneer in developing computer technology, helping to devise the Univac I, the first commercial electronic computer. She served the U.S. Navy, first commissioned as a Lieutenant (Junior Grade) 1944, and thereupon immediately became involved in the development of the then-embryonic electronic computer. To what rank did she rise in the Navy? |
 | A German physicist (1857-1894) was the first to broadcast and receive radio waves. He generated electric waves by means of the oscillatory discharge of a condenser through a loop provided with a spark gap, and then detecting them with a similar type of circuit. Can you name this scientist? |
| Events | |
 | From 1 Jan of a certain year, all US cigarette packages were required to carry the health warning: Caution: Cigarette smoking may be hazardous to your health. In which decade did this label come into effect? |
 | On 1 Jan 1946, the first U.S. computer was finished by Mauchly and Eckert. Can you name this computer? |
Fast answers for the previous newsletter for December 31: double stars • Andreas Vesalius • John Flamsteed • Eugenics Society • Monopoly • decade including the year 1938.
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