A Brief History On November 8, 1895, German physicist Wilhelm Roentgen (or Röntgen) discovered what has become known as X-Rays. In an experiment with electromagnetic radiation for which he won the 1901 Nobel Prize for Physics (the first ever awarded), Roentgen both produced and detected the electromagnetic rays that were originally named Roentgen Rays in his honor. Digging Deeper Only 2 weeks after discovering X-rays, Roentgen devised a method of taking a picture of the skeleton of his wife’s hand on a coated plate, the first “X-ray” picture in history. The implications for medical use were apparent and almost immediate. …
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A Brief History On November 3, 1957, before any chimpanzee, any man, any woman, any Russian, any American went into space, the Soviet dog Laika became the first astronaut (cosmonaut in Soviet terms) in history, an indication of just how important dogs are to people. Digging Deeper Unfortunately, poor Laika was on a one way mission, as the fledgling space programs of the day did not include the technology for a safe return to Earth. A stray found roaming the streets of Moscow, Laika was an 5 to 6 kilogram mixed breed dog. (Note: We say mixed breed instead of…
A Brief History On November 1, 1911, the first known dropping of a bomb from an airplane in combat took place, ushering in one more way for human beings to kill each other. This first incident was merely an Italian pilot dropping 2 hand grenades from his rudimentary airplane on a Turkish position in Libya, but soon airplanes made specifically for bombing and dropping bombs specifically made for use by airplanes would darken the skies above battlefields and cities alike. Digging Deeper The first bomber airplane was adapted for bombing not by one of the world’s great powers, but by…
A Brief History On October 28, 1948, Swiss chemist Paul Muller was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine or Physiology for his work in 1939 demonstrating the effectiveness of DDT as an insecticide. Digging Deeper As you can tell by the date of the research, World War II interfered with normal international scientific intercourse, resulting in the delay in recognition for Muller. The DDT itself did not wait for the end of the war to make itself useful, and was put to widespread use, mainly by the United States, to greatly reduce the incidence of insect borne diseases in war…
A Brief History On October 18, 1945, the Soviet nuclear program received American atomic bomb (plutonium implosion type) plans from scientist, Klaus Fuchs, a German refugee from the Third Reich. Fuchs had been passing nuclear secrets to the USSR in Britain prior to his involvement in the US-British-Canadian Manhattan Project. Digging Deeper Born in Germany the son of a Lutheran minister, the Fuchs family had communist leanings and opposed the rise of the Nazi state. Fuchs went to Britain in 1933 to study physics, and was awarded a PhD and a DSc (doctor of science) degree. In 1939 at the…