Newsletter for Monday 14 June.

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TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY

NEWSLETTER • 14 JUNE

Feature for Today

On 14 Jun 1736, Charles-Augustin de Coulomb was born, whose contributions to the measurement of electrical charge were recognized by the naming of the unit of electric charge after him.

A biography of Charles-Augustin de Coulomb in Pioneers of Electricity (1890) is very informative on the diverse interests of this remarkable scientist. Among the interesting facts you probably did not know about him was that he was sent to the prison of the Abbaye over a report on a canal!

Of course, as you would expect, his introduction of measurement to the study of electrical charge is a large part of this biography of this remarkable person - another scientist about whom you can learn some background you perhaps would never have otherwise known he studied (for example, about the sap of poplar trees!).

Book of the Day

On 14 Jun 1946, the Scottish engineer John Logie Baird. He was the first man to televise outline pictures of objects, in 1924. The following year he screened recognizable human faces. Today's book pick is: Television And Me: The Memoirs of John Logie Baird, by John L Baird, an autobiography by this pioneering TV engineer. He writes with blunt candour and caustic wit about the wild escapades of his early business career and later troubled relationship with Lord Reith and the fledgling television broadcasts. With much new material, including a recently discovered final chapter by his wife, this heavily illustrated edition of his autobiography gives us a very human portrait of one of the creators of the modern world.

It is available from Amazon, typically about New from $15.53. Used from $3.50. (As of earlier time of writing - subject to change.)

Quotations for Today

	The sciences are monuments devoted to the public good; each citizen owes to them a tribute proportional to his talents. While the great men, carried to the summit of the edifice, draw and put up the higher floors, the ordinary artists scattered in the lower floors, or hidden in the obscurity of the foundations, must only seek to improve what cleverer hands have created. — Charles-Augustin Coulomb, French physicist (born 14 Jun 1736).
	The reactions follow a pattern, which is valid for the blood of all humans... Basically, in fact, there are four different types of human blood, the so-called blood groups. The number of the groups follows from the fact that the erythrocytes evidently contain substances (iso-agglutinogens) with two different structures, of which both may be absent, or one or both present, in the erythrocytes of a person. This alone would still not explain the reactions; the active substances of the sera, the iso-agglutinins, must also be present in a specific distribution. This is actually the case, since every serum contains those agglutinins which react with the agglutinogens not present in the cells—a remarkable phenomenon, the cause of which is not yet known for certain. — Karl Landsteiner, Austrian-American physician, immunologist and pathologist (born 14 Jun 1868).
	Our brains seem to be organised to make random comparisons of the contents of our memories. Daydreaming allows the process to go into free fall. Suddenly, there is a new idea, born with intense excitement. We cannot organise this process but we can distort or even defeat it. [Commenting that creativity is not a method that can be learnt and taught.] — Sir James Black, Scottish pharmacologist (born 14 Jun 1924).

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
	On 14 Jun 1864, the German psychiatrist was born. The disease named after him is very well-known. In Nov 1901, a 51-year old female patient with signs of dementia had been admitted to the Frankfurt hospital where this doctor was working. At a meeting of German psychiatrists on 3 Nov 1906, he reported on this patient. The title of his lecture was Über eine eigenartige Erkrankung der Hirnrinde (On a peculiar disorder of the cerebral cortex). He described presenile dementia—a progressive, degenerative disorder that affects the brain. The first symptoms are loss of memory, inability to think and understand and gradual behaviour changes. Death follows in from 8 to 20 years. Can you name this psychiatrist?
	Charles-Augustin de Coulomb was born 14 Jun 1736, the French physicist who is best known for the formulation of Coulomb’s law. In 1777, he invented a torsion balance which he subsequently modified for electrical measurements. He also did research on friction of machinery, on windmills, and on the elasticity of metal and silk fibres. What is Coulomb's law? Deaths
Deaths
	John Logie Baird, a Scottish engineer (1888-1946), was the first man to televise outline pictures of objects (1924) and recognizable human faces (1925). In 1926, he demonstrated TV for moving objects at the Royal Institution, London. By 1928, he showed his attempt at colour television. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) formed a committee in 1936 to compare his system with a competing system of Marconi Electric and Musical Industries. It was the Marconi-EMI all electronic system that the BBC adopted in Feb 1937. Baird also worked on stereoscopic television. He even recorded experimental silent moving 30-line images, which have been played back with modern technology, and posted on YouTube! What medium did Baird use to record his 30-line moving images?
Events
	On 14 Jun 1972, a well-known insecticide was banned from use in the U.S. after 31 Dec 1972, by executive order of the Environmental Protection Agency. What insecticide was banned in 1972?
	On 14 Jun of a certain year, the first U.S. patent for a practical underwater diving suit was issued to Leonard Norcross of Dixfield, Me. Calling it a “water-dress,” he designed an airtight rubber outfit with a brass helmet connected via a rubber hose to an air pump on a boat. To reduce buoyancy, the feet were weighted with lead shot. In what decade was this patent issued?
	In 1892, a number of patents were issued to the same man for a variety of inventions: U.S. Nos. 476,983 to 476,993. They were for, respectively, a “Pyromagnetic Generator,” an “Expansible Pulley,” a “Trolley for Electric Railways,” a “Means for "Propelling Electric Cars,” an “Electric Locomotive,” a “Lightning-Arrester'', a “Conductor for Electric Railways,” an “Electric Meter'', a “Method of and Apparatus for Separating Ores'', an “Incandescent Electric Lamp” and an “Electric-Arc Lamp.” Can you name the inventor?

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 June 14 web page of Today in Science History. Or, try this link first for just the brief answers.

Fast answers for the previous newsletter for June 13: Maxwell’s measurement of the speed of propagation of an electromagnetic field is approximately the same as the speed of light. • Thomas Young helped decipher the Rosetta Stone • sulphuric acid • radon • anthrax • Neptune, to became the first man-made object to leave our Solar System.

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