by Bill Ashworth | Sep 10, 2019 | Scientist of the Day
Richard Spruce, an English botanist and explorer, was born Sep 10, 1817. From an early age in Yorkshire, Spruce taught himself botany, acquiring a particular fascination for mosses and liverworts – studying what a modern botanist would call bryophytes. He impressed...
by Bill Ashworth | Sep 9, 2019 | Scientist of the Day
William Lonsdale, an English geologist and paleontologist, was born Sep. 9, 1794. Lonsdale is often considered the father of the Devonian system of rocks, even though he did not name it. In 1839, Roderick Murchison and Adam Sedgwick published a paper in the...
by Bill Ashworth | Sep 6, 2019 | Scientist of the Day
Charles Konig, a German mineralogist who emigrated to England, died Sep. 6, 1851, at age 77; his date of birth is unknown. Konig did well in English natural history circles and rose to become Keeper of the Natural History section of the British Museum in 1813 (this...
by Bill Ashworth | Sep 5, 2019 | Scientist of the Day
Ignace-Gaston Pardies, a French Jesuit physical scientist, was born Sep. 5, 1636. Pardies appears most often in historical narratives as an insightful critic of Newton’s early experiments on light, and as one of the earliest proponents of a wave theory of light. He...
by Bill Ashworth | Sep 4, 2019 | Scientist of the Day
Barton Stone Alexander, an American engineer, was born Sep. 4, 1819. In 1853, Alexander took over construction of the Smithsonian Institution building,, after some dissatisfaction arose with the original architect, and saw it through to completion in 1855. But today...
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