by Bill Ashworth | Apr 3, 2020 | Scientist of the Day
George Douglas, the 16th Earl of Morton and a Scottish gentleman scientist, was born Apr. 3, 1761. No doubt because he was wealthy and upper class, Douglas was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London when he was just 24 years old, and he was subsequently...
by Bill Ashworth | Apr 1, 2020 | Scientist of the Day
Eleazar Root, a British civil engineer, was born Apr. 1, 1805. Root grew up in West Riding, in Yorkshire. In the 1830s, he set up a company specializing in applying waterproof linings to canal beds, which at the time meant mastering the whimsies of puddling clay. ...
by Bill Ashworth | Mar 19, 2020 | Scientist of the Day
Margaret Harwood, born on Mar. 19, 1885 in Littleton, Massachusetts, became the first woman – and for a long time the only woman – to serve as director of an independent astronomical observatory. She took charge of the Maria Mitchell Observatory on Nantucket Island in...
by Bill Ashworth | Mar 18, 2020 | Scientist of the Day
Joseph René Bellot, a French naval officer, was born Mar. 18, 1826. Bellot was an up-and-coming young lieutenant when he was asked in 1851 by Lady Jane Franklin to join a privately-funded search for her husband, Sir John Franklin, his two ships, and his crew of 130...
by Bill Ashworth | Mar 17, 2020 | Scientist of the Day
George Parker, the 2nd Earl of Macclesfield and an English astronomer, died Mar. 17, 1764; his date of birth, surprisingly, was unrecorded. Parker was a member of Parliament for some years, but he was more interested in practicing astronomy in an observatory that he...
