October 11, 2019
by Bill Ashworth | Oct 11, 2019 | Scientist of the Day
Heinrich Wilhelm Matthias Olbers, a German astronomer, was born Oct. 11, 1758. Olbers is known for two asteroids and a paradox. We begin with the asteroids. The first asteroid, Ceres, had been discovered by Giuseppe Piazzi on Jan. 1, 1801. Ceres was tracked for a... October 10, 2019
by Bill Ashworth | Oct 10, 2019 | Scientist of the Day
Benjamin Wright, an American civil engineer, was born Oct. 10, 1770. Wright wasn’t just a civil engineer, he was the “Father of American Civil Engineering,” or so says the American Society of Civil Engineers. He earned that title by being Chief Engineer of... October 9, 2019
by Bill Ashworth | Oct 9, 2019 | Scientist of the Day
Oct. 9 is Leif Erikson Day, if you live in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and a few other states of the upper Midwest, or Saskatchewan in Canada. We don’t know the birth or death date of Erikson – we are not even sure of the exact years of his life – but he seems to have... October 8, 2019
by Bill Ashworth | Oct 8, 2019 | Scientist of the Day
Ejnar Hertzsprung, a Danish astronomer, was born Oct. 8, 1873. Hertzsprung came of astronomical age at the very time that Antonia Maury and Annie Jump Cannon at Harvard College Observatory were publishing the results of their spectroscopic classification of the stars... October 7, 2019
by Bill Ashworth | Oct 7, 2019 | Scientist of the Day
Niels Bohr, a Danish physicist, was born Oct. 7, 1885. In 1913, Bohr launched the modern era of atomic physics when he combined the quantum theory of Max Planck with the new nuclear atom of Ernest Rutherford. Planck had proposed in 1900 that energy is not continuous,... October 4, 2019
by Bill Ashworth | Oct 4, 2019 | Scientist of the Day
Christian Sørensen Longomontanus, a Danish astronomer, was born Oct. 4, 1562. Longomontanus spent 8 years working for Tycho Brahe at his observatory on the island of Hven, where he (Longomontanus) distinguished himself as a keen observer and a talented calculator.... 
