September 17, 2019
by Bill Ashworth | Sep 17, 2019 | Scientist of the Day
Konstantin Tsiolkovskii, a Russian rocket pioneer, was born Sep. 17, 1857. Tsiolkovskii (formerly transliterated Tsiolkovsky) spent much of his life as a schoolteacher in the provincial city of Kaluga, about 90 miles from Moscow, but he read physics and mathematics...
September 16, 2019
by Bill Ashworth | Sep 16, 2019 | Scientist of the Day
Nicolas Desmarest, a French geologist and cartographer, was born Sep. 16, 1725. When Desmarest began his career, it was thought that basalt formations, such as the Giant’s Causeway in Ireland, were sedimentary deposits. In 1763, Desmarest began mapping the Auvergne...
September 13, 2019
by Bill Ashworth | Sep 13, 2019 | Scientist of the Day
Caspar Wistar, an American physician and anatomist, was born Sep. 13, 1761. He received his medical degree at Edinburgh in 1786, and then returned to his homeland to become one of many scientific luminaries who thrived in the intellectually vibrant milieu of...
September 12, 2019
by Bill Ashworth | Sep 12, 2019 | Scientist of the Day
Richard March Hoe, an American inventor and manufacturer, was born Sep. 12, 1812. His father had established a printing press factory in New York City, which in the 1830s started producing steam-powered presses. Richard joined the firm just about the time his father...
September 11, 2019
by Bill Ashworth | Sep 11, 2019 | Scientist of the Day
James Hopwood Jeans, a British mathematician, physicist and astronomer, was born Sep. 11, 1877. In the 1910s and 1920s, Jeans played a major role in applying quantum theory to astrophysics and developing sophisticated mathematical models of the behavior of gases in...
September 10, 2019
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...
