Newsletter for Monday 8 March.

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TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY

NEWSLETTER • 8 MARCH

Feature for Today

On 8 Mar 1889, John Ericsson died. He was the Swedish-American inventor and naval engineer who invented the screw propeller and built the first armored turret warship, the USS Monitor. For a short biography written in the prime of his career, read this extract from the 1866 History of American Manufactures on John Ericsson.

Book of the Day

On 8 Mar 1879, Otto Hahn was born, co-discoverer of nuclear fission, for which he was awarded the 1944 Nobel Prize for Chemistry. In the 1930s and 1940s he worked in Berlin with Lise Meitner and Fritz Strassmann on the discovery that uranium nuclei bombarded by neutrons undergo spontaneous fission, releasing enormous energies. That was the seed that grew astonishingly quickly into the atomic bombs that ended World War II. Today's book pick is: Otto Hahn: Achievement and Responsibility, by Klaus Hoffmann who outlines Hahn’s contributions to science and his reflections on scientific and social responsibility.

It is available from Amazon, typically about New from $36.62. Used from $34.76. (As of earlier time of writing - subject to change.)

Quotations for Today

	To have doubted one’s own first principles is the mark of a civilized man. — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., American physician (born 8 Mar 1841).
	Dissection … teaches us that the body of man is made up of certain kinds of material, so differing from each other in optical and other physical characters and so built up together as to give the body certain structural features. Chemical examination further teaches us that these kinds of material are composed of various chemical substances, a large number of which have this characteristic that they possess a considerable amount of potential energy capable of being set free, rendered actual, by oxidation or some other chemical change. Thus the body as a whole may, from a chemical point of view, be considered as a mass of various chemical substances, representing altogether a considerable capital of potential energy. — Sir Michael Foster, English physiologist and educator (born 8 Mar 1836).
	The forces of nature cannot be eliminated but they may be balanced one against the other. — Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, German inventor, engineer and manufacturer (died 8 Mar 1917).

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
	Pyotr Nikolayevich Lebedev, born 8 Mar 1866, was a Russian physicist who is remembered for being the first to demonstrate experimentally a certain property of light in 1910. What property of light was investigated by Pyotr Lebedev?
	Tom Blake, born 8 Mar 1902, was an American inventor who made various a major design advances in surfboard construction. Solid wooden boards had been used for surfing, dating back to the ancient Hawaiians. Blake began innovating in 1926. His new-concept boards became an immediate success. Then in the 1930s he added fins which simplified making the board turn. What was Tom Blake’s first major change in surfboard construction in the 1920s?
Deaths
	Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin (1838-1917) was the German engineer who became the first notable builder of rigid dirigible airships. After years devoted to the designing and building, his first successful light-than-air craft was the LZ-1. In which decade did the LZ-1 make its initial flight?
Events
	On 8 Mar 1979, Voyager 1 took a photo of Io, a moon of Jupiter, looking back three days after its closest encounter. The data was stored onboard the space probe for later transmission. This was the image in which Linda A. Morabito, a JPL engineer, identified certain features that were the first extraterrestrial examples. What were the unusual features found on Io?
	On 8 Mar of a certain year, the first U.S. commercial helicopter license was issued to a New York newspaper, which used its Bell 47B helicopter for news gathering and photo delivery. Was this license issued before, during, or after World War II?

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 March 8 web page of Today in Science History. Or, try this link first for just the brief answers.

Fast answers for the previous newsletter for March 7: Fritz Wolfgang London • glycine and alanine, the simplest amino acids • neutron • the Hubble Space Telescope • Royal Institution.

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