TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY
NEWSLETTER • 13 FEBRUARY
On 13 Feb 1742, Sir Joseph Banks was born, who during over 40 years as president of the Royal Society greatly promoted the advancement of science in his era. Despite this great legacy, he is not widely known today, because he did not himself leave a record of discoveries in science. However, he facilitated the careers of other better-known scientists who made notable discoveries.
While you might recollect that as a naturalist, he accompanied Capt. Cook on voyages, you perhaps know nothing of the great adventure or hardships, and seeing lives lost. Read this biography to learn about some of his remarkable experiences.
On 13 Feb 1910, William Shockley was born, co-developer of the transistor, for which he shared a Nobel Prize in Physics. Today's book pick is: Broken Genius: The Rise and Fall of William Shockley, Creator of the Electronic Age (Macmillan Science), by J. N. Shurkin, who lays out in this biography all the controversies, contradictions and idiosyncrasies for which William Shockley became known. Although with the transistor, he revolutionized electronics and changed the world for the better, he also pursued an incendiary campaigning about race, intelligence, and genetics. The author gives a clearly written of the history of technology, but what makes this biography gripping is the answer to the question, “Why did a man so brilliant and self-assured become a socially tone-deaf iconoclast and deliberately destroy himself?”
It is available from Amazon, typically about New from $25.43. Used from $1.99. (As of earlier time of writing - subject to change.)
 | Some physiologists will have it that the stomach is a mill; others, that it is a fermenting vat; others, again that it is a stew-pan; but in my view of the matter, it is neither a mill, a fermenting vat nor a stew-pan, but a stomach gentlemen, a stomach. — John Hunter, Scottish anatomist, surgeon and pathologist (born 13 Feb 1728).  |
| | I have from my childhood, in conformity with the precepts of a mother void of all imaginary fear, been in the constant habit of taking toads in my hand, and applying them to my nose and face as it may happen. My motive for doing this very frequently is to inculcate the opinion I have held, since I was told by my mother, that the toad is actually a harmless animal; and to whose manner of life man is certainly under some obligation as its food is chiefly those insects which devour his crops and annoy him in various ways. — Sir Joseph Banks, English botanist and explorer (born 13 Feb 1743). |
 | Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio. Subsistence increases only in an arithmetical ratio. A slight acquaintance with numbers will show the immensity of the first power in comparison of the second. — Thomas Robert Malthus, English economist and demographer (born 13 Feb 1766). |
| 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 | |
 | William B. Shockley, born 13 Feb 1910 was an English-American engineer and teacher who shared (with John Bardeen and Walter H. Brattain) the Nobel Prize for Physics for their development of the transistor, a device that largely replaced the bulkier and less-efficient vacuum tube and ushered in the age of microminiature electronics. In which decade was the Nobel Prize awarded for the invention of the transistor? |
| Deaths | |
 | Alphonse Bertillon (1853-1914) was a French police chief of criminal identification, whose Bertillon system recorded physical characteristics (eye colour, scars, deformities, etc.) and specified measurements (height, fingertip reach, head length and width, ear, foot, arm and finger length, etc) This information recorded on cards. After two decades this system was replaced by fingerprinting in the early 1900s because Bertillon measurements were difficult to take with uniform exactness, and coul The Bertillion System cards were classified according to the length of which feature? |
| Events | |
 | On 13 Feb 1960, another country detonated their first plutonium bomb. It was mounted on a 330-foot tower. The same country continued by building up its nuclear capacity with nuclear-armed aircraft, missiles and submarines, in order to assert its independence. Which country detonated their first atom bomb on this day? |
 | On 13 Feb 1946, the world's first electronic digital computer was first demonstrated at the University of Pennsylvania, the work of John W. Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert. The machine occupied a room 30 by 50 feet. It was historic because it laid the foundations for the modern electronic computing industry by demonstrating that high-speed digital computing was possible using the vacuum tube technology then available. By what name was this computer known? |
 | On 13 Feb 1912, Robert Millikan began collecting data from his famous oil drop experiment. On this day he gathered observations on the first of the 58 drops he ultimately published giving the measurement of a certain fundamental physical constant. He earned the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1923 for his work. What physical constant did Millikan measure? |
 | On 13 Feb 1633, an Italian astronomer arrived in Rome for his trial before the Inquisition for professing the belief that the earth revolves around the sun. Who was this scientist? |
Fast answers for the previous newsletter for February 12: Charles Darwin • red blood cell • Copenhagen • astronomy • 62 miles • Alexander Fleming.
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