TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY
NEWSLETTER • 12 FEBRUARY
On 12 Feb 1791, Peter Cooper was born, the American inventor who built the Tom Thumb locomotive (1830), the first American-built steam locomotive to operate on a common-carrier railroad.
He also was issued the first U.S. patent for the manufacture of gelatin (1845), which he sold in 1895 to Pearl B. Wait, a cough-syrup maker. Wait produced the packaged gelatin dessert, Jell-O, which was so-named by his wife.
Back to the railway story. Shortly before he died, Cooper's recollections of how he built the Tom Thumb were printed in the Boston Sunday Herald (9 Jul 1882). In his own words, you can read how a demonstration ride had to be postponed because the night before, all the copper steam pipes had been stripped from the engine, “doubtless to sell to some junk dealer.” (Sound familiar? And that was 180 years ago!)
See if you can guess the result of a race between the Tom Thumb locomotive and a stagecoach horse, and check by reading the article on Peter Cooper's Locomotive.
Yet this accomplishment was a minor sidelight in Peter Cooper's career, whose life work included being a manufacturer and businessman whose philanthropy established the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in New York city. It provided free technical education to the working class. He was involved with the laying of the first transatlantic cable, and was so prominent as a civic leader that when he died at age 92, his body lay in state for the general public to pay their respects as the city of New York mourned his passing. His estate was valued at two million dollars. A truly remarkable man, who deserves your attention.
On 12 Feb 1873, Barnum Brown was born, the American paleontologist who discovered the first Tyrannosaurus rex fossil. Today's book pick is: Bones for Barnum Brown: Adventures of a Dinosaur Hunter, by Roland T. Bird. With vivid writing, this book reads like an adventure story. Bird writes of his experiences as right-hand man to Barnum Brown of the American Museum of Natural History during the 1930s. Bird mapped the mass of dinosaur bones at the Howe Quarry site for the Barnum Brown, and continued that association while searching for foot prints of dinosaurs. The book begins with a concise introduction to vertebrate paleontology, and includes many photographs and drawings.
It is available from Amazon, typically about New from $34.73. Used from $6.28. (As of earlier time of writing - subject to change.)
 | A map of the moon... should be in every geological lecture room; for no where can we have a more complete or more magnificent illustration of volcanic operations. Our sublimest volcanoes would rank among the smaller lunar eminences; and our Etnas are but spitting furnaces. — James Dwight Dana, American geologist, mineralogist and zoologist (born 12 Feb 1813).  |
 | ...I believe there exists, & I feel within me, an instinct for the truth, or knowledge or discovery, of something of the same nature as the instinct of virtue, & that our having such an instinct is reason enough for scientific researches without any practical results ever ensuing from them. — Charles Darwin, English naturalist (born 12 Feb 1809). |
 | As to giving credit to whom credit is due, rest assured the best way to do good to one’s-self is to do justice to others. There is plenty for everybody in science, and more than can be consumed in our time. One may get a fair name by suppressing references, but the Jewish maxim is true, “He who seeks a name loses fame.” — Edward Forbes, English naturalist (born 12 Feb 1815). |
| 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 | |
| | An English naturalist, born 12 Feb 1809, propounded evolutionary theories, in such works as The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex. Can you name this scientist? |
 | Jan Swammerdam, born 12 Feb 1637, was a Dutch naturalist, considered the most accurate of classical microscopists. He studies ranged from insects to human anatomy. His ingenious experiments showed that muscles alter in shape but not in size during contraction. Swammerdam was the first to observe and describe a certain of cell in 1658. For which type of cell did Swammerdam give the first description? |
| Deaths | |
 | Dirk Coster (1889-1950) was a Dutch physicist who co-discovered the element hafnium. He named it from Hafnia, the old Roman name for the well-known city in the Netherlands where he had worked in Niels Bohr's laboratory. What is the modern name of Hafnia? |
 | Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) was a German philosopher, who also trained as a scientist. In 1755, he published a book which had a title beginning: “General History of Nature and ...” which had several insights for a certain field of science. Which science was implied in the rest of the title? |
| Events | |
 | On 12 Feb 1973, four metric distance road signs, the first in the U.S., were erected along Interstate 71 in Ohio. They showed the distance in both miles and kilometers between Columbus and Cincinnati, and Columbus and Cleveland. What is a 100 kilometer distance in miles? |
 | On 12 Feb 1941, the first injection of penicillin into a human test subject was conducted by Ernst Chain and Howard Walter Florey. Who coined the name penicillin? |
Fast answers for the previous newsletter for February 11: Hungarian • Thomas Alva Edison • that the Earth rotates on its axis • mathematics (ex. Cartesian coordinates) • fission.
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