TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY
NEWSLETTER • 4 JANUARY
On 4 Jan 1882, John William Draper died, an English-American chemist who pioneered in photochemistry. His accomplishment include making the earlier photograph of the moon that survives today. Read an overview of his other achievments in the Preface he wrote to his Scientific Memoirs. Again, this is a chance to learn about the interesting work of a scientist described in his own words.
Also on 4 Jan 1917, Edward H. Johnson died. As you may have read when his first display of electric Christmas lights was featured here earlier in December, he was an American electrical engineer and inventor who spent many years in various business projects with Thomas Edison, including being the vice-president of the Edison Electric Light Company. If the season still lingers in your house, here is another chance to read a Denver Post and Tribune newspaper report of the First Electric Christmas Tree Lights that he put in the window of his home on 22 Dec 1882.
On 4 Jan 1990, Harold Edgerton died, the American electrical engineer famous for his ultra-high-speed photography. Today's book pick is: Exploring the Art and Science of Stopping Time: A CD-ROM Based on the Life and Work of Harold E. Edgerton (Windows & Mac), by Harold E. Edgerton, which chronicles his life and showcases his innovative work. His world-famous photographs and films, include Edgerton demonstrating his technique and explaining it in his own words. In the virtual “Strobe Alley,” Edgerton's laboratory at MIT, users can replicate some of his experiments with streaming water, spinning fans, and bouncing balls.
It is available from Amazon, typically about Used from $19.51. (As of earlier time of writing - subject to change.)
 | Each volcano is an independent machine—nay, each vent and monticule is for the time being engaged in its own peculiar business, cooking as it were its special dish, which in due time is to be separately served. We have instances of vents within hailing distance of each other pouring out totally different kinds of lava, neither sympathizing with the other in any discernible manner nor influencing other in any appreciable degree. — Clarence Edward Dutton, American geologist (died 4 Jan 1912).  |
 | Dissections daily convince us of our ignorance of disease, and cause us to blush at our prescriptions. What mischief have we done under the belief of false facts and false theories! We have assisted in multiplying diseases; we have done more; we have increased their mortality. ... I am pursuing Truth, and am indifferent whither I am led, if she is my only leader. — Benjamin Rush, American physician (born 4 Jan 1746). |
 | If you cannot—in the long run—tell everyone what you have been doing, your doing has been worthless. — Erwin Schrödinger, Austrian theoretical physicist (died 4 Jan 1961). |
 | Number is therefore the most primitive instrument of bringing an unconscious awareness of order into consciousness. — Marie-Louise von Franz, German-Swiss psychologist (born 4 Jan 1915). |
 | If you don’t wake up at three in the morning and want to do something, you’re wasting your time. — Harold E. Edgerton, American engineer and ultra-high-speed photographer (died 4 Jan 1990). |
| 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 | |
 | Louis Braille, born 4 Jan 1809, was a French educator who developed a system of printing and writing widely used by the blind and known by his name. He became blind at the age four, from an accident playing with an awl. He developed a writing scheme using combinations of six raised dots for each letter. In 1827 the first book in braille was published. His invention was based on an code system shown to him by a soldier that used combinations of 12 dots. For what was the soldier's code originally invented? |
| | On 4 Jan 1746, Benjamin Rush was born, an American physician and political leader. His encouragement of clinical research and instruction was frequently offset by his insistence upon bloodletting, purging, and other debilitating therapeutic measures. What famous document did he sign? |
| Deaths | |
| | Clarence Edward Dutton (1841-1912) was the American geologist who coined the term isostasy. In 1887, he became the first head of the USGS division of volcanic geology. What does the term “isotasy” refer to? |
| | Erwin Schrödinger (1887-1961) was a theoretical physicist who contributed to the wave theory of matter and to other fundamentals of quantum mechanics. He shared the 1933 Nobel Prize for Physics with the British physicist P.A.M. Dirac. What was his nationality? |
| Events | |
 | On 4 Jan 1958, a Russian satellite, the first man-made object to orbit the earth, fell back into the atmosphere and disintegrated, after 92 days in space. The meaning of the Russian name of the satellite is “companion” or “fellow traveller.” What is the name of this satellite? |
 | On 4 Jan 2013, a bat with a deadly disease was found in an undeveloped cave within Mammoth Cave National Park, Kentucky, that is the park's largest bat hibernaculum for two endangered species, Indiana bats and gray bats. The disease is spread by a fungus and causes whole colony deaths. The affected area of the U.S. has expanded rapidly from the first case found in Schoharie County, New York state (2006). No obvious treatment or means of preventing transmission is yet known. What is the name of this disease? |
Fast answers for the previous newsletter for January 3: that the Milky Way Galaxy has spiral arms • torpedo • to depict the number and variety of genetic combinations • Josiah Wedgwood • decade including the year 1957 • nitrogen to oxygen.
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