When Wien asked him basic experimental physics questions — for instance, about the workings of a simple lens or how a storage battery functions — Heisenberg failed to answer properly.
Heisenberg, brilliant at abstract theory but inexperienced in practical lab work, didn’t know basic lab instruments! Reportedly, Wien was so shocked that he wanted to fail Heisenberg outright.
Despite his shaky defense, Heisenberg went on to revolutionize physics: In 1925, only two years later, he published his groundbreaking paper laying the foundations of quantum mechanics.
In 1932, he received the Nobel Prize in Physics for the creation of quantum mechanics. *PBnotes
1927 The English term Eigenvalue first appears in a letter to Nature from A. S. Eddington beginning “Among those ... trying to acquire a general acquaintance with Schrödinger's wave mechanics there must be many who find their mathematical equipment insufficient to follow his first great problem—to determine the eigenvalues and eigenfunctions for the hydrogen atom" *Jeff Miller, Earliest Known Uses of Some of the Words of Mathematics
The term was derived from Hilbert’s use of “Eigenwert” in 1904, although Helmholtz had earlier used “Eigentöne” for what he called proper tones in acoustics. proper was also used by many English and American scientists throughout the 1920-1950 period. Even J. Von Neumann’s translations into English used the term “proper“.
Paul Halmos followed von Neumann’s English writings and used “proper value” in his widely-used Finite Dimensional Vector Spaces (1958). However Halmos admitted defeat in his A Hilbert Space Problem Book (1967, p. x):
“For many years I have battled for proper values, and against the one and a half times translated German-English hybrid that is often used to refer to them. I have now become convinced that the war is over, and eigenvalues have won it; in this book I use them.”
1962 Tens of millions of people watched a historic broadcast as Telstar beamed live transatlantic video into viewers’ living rooms for the first time. The age of satellite television had dawned.
In homes across Rome, people barely touched their dinners. London’s pubs were packed, but bartenders served nary a drink. Throughout Europe, more than 100 million people huddled around television sets on the evening of July 23, 1962, to tune in to history. With Europeans watching eagerly, a black-and-white image of the Statue of Liberty flickered onto their screens. The picture itself was not particularly noteworthy except for one thing: it was live, via satellite. *History.Com
The first broadcast was to have been remarks by President John F. Kennedy, but the signal was acquired before the president was ready, so the lead-in time was filled with a short segment of a televised game between the Philadelphia Phillies and the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field before the President's address. A routine fly ball hit by Phillies second baseman Tony Taylor made telecommunications history.I have a different date and perspective from a BBC History page. "On 11 July 1962 British television viewers saw pictures beamed live from the US via the Telstar satellite. Raymond Baxter and Richard Dimbleby were on hand to provide commentary, although the precise time of the broadcast was not known in advance. The first pictures, received in Britain just after 1am, were of the chairman of AT&T, Frederick Kappel, and of poor quality, while in France they were picked up clearly. However this landmark transmission marked the beginning of satellite broadcasting, and changed the face of telecommunications."
Telstar 1 was the first satellite capable of relaying television signals from Europe to North America. The 171-pound, 34.5-inch sphere loaded with transistors and covered with solar panels was placed in orbit by a Delta rocket launched from Cape Canaveral on July 10, 1962.
The maiden program included more images from around America, such as the Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing at Mount Rushmore and President John F. Kennedy conducting a press conference.
1985 the legendary Commodore Amiga was released In 1985 Commodore revolutionized the home computer market by introducing the high end Commodore Amiga with a graphic power that was unheard of by that time in this market segment. Based on the Motorola 68000 microprocessor series the Amiga was most successful as a home computer, with a wide range of games and creative software, although early Commodore advertisements attempted to cast the computer as an all-purpose business machine. In addition, it was also a less expensive alternative to the Apple Macintosh and IBM-PC as a general-purpose business or home computer. The platform became particularly popular as a gaming platform. *blog.yovisto.com
1995 The comet Hale–Bopp was discovered on July 23, 1995, independently by two observers, Alan Hale and Thomas Bopp, both in the United States. Hale–Bopp's orbital position was calculated as 7.2 astronomical units (AU) from the Sun, placing it between Jupiter and Saturn and by far the greatest distance from Earth at which a comet had been discovered by amateurs. It was discovered at such a great distance from the Sun that it raised expectations that the comet would brighten considerably by the time it passed close to Earth. Although predicting the brightness of comets with any degree of accuracy is very difficult, Hale–Bopp met or exceeded most predictions when it passed perihelion on April 1, 1997. The comet was dubbed the Great Comet of 1997.
The image is by my former student Dan Durda, of Sterling, Michigan; who may have acquired some math knowledge from me, but not his artistic sense.
2026 If the leaks are right, the Field's Medal will have it's third female winner.
The list of 2026 Fields Medal winners has been inadvertently leaked, revealing that Peking University alumni Hong Wang and Yu Deng are among the recipients. This marks a historic moment as it is the first time two Chinese mathematicians will receive the prestigious award in the same edition. The leak occurred when four Fields Medal laureate lecture fields, marked "HIDDEN," were discovered in the front-end code of the ICM 2026 official schedule. A curl command generated by Codex revealed the names Yu Deng, John Pardon, Jacob Tsimerman, and Hong Wang. If confirmed on July 23, this will be a significant milestone for Chinese mathematics. Notably, Hong Wang will become the third female mathematician in history to receive the Fields Medal, further highlighting the groundbreaking nature of this achievement.
And it was so!!!
Hong Wang (Chinese: 王虹; pinyin: Wáng Hóng; born 1991) is a Chinese mathematician known for her research in Fourier analysis and geometric measure theory. She was awarded the Maryam Mirzakhani New Frontiers Prize in 2022, the Salem Prize in 2025, and the Fields Medal in 2026. *Wik
Jacob Tsimerman (born April 26, 1988) is a Canadian mathematician at the University of Toronto specialising in number theory and related areas. He was awarded the SASTRA Ramanujan Prize in the year 2015 in recognition for his work on the André–Oort conjecture and for his work in both analytic number theory and algebraic geometry. In 2026, he received the Fields Medal for his work on O-minimality, Griffiths' conjecture, and the Andre-Oort conjecture *Wik
Yu Deng (Chinese: 邓煜; pinyin: Dèng Yù, born June 1989) is a Chinese mathematician and a professor of mathematics at the University of Chicago. He is known for his contributions to partial differential equations, fluid dynamics, and probabilistic analysis. He was awarded the Fields Medal in 2026.*Wik
John Vincent Pardon (born June 1, 1989) is an American mathematician who works on geometry and topology. He is primarily known for having solved Gromov's problem on distortion of knots, for which he received the 2012 Morgan Prize. He is a permanent member of the Simons Center for Geometry and Physics in Stony Brook, New York. He was awarded the Fields Medal in 2026.*Wik
2026 Congratulations to Team USA! (And to all the competitors from every nation)
At the 67th International Mathematical Olympiad, held in Shanghai from July 10 to July 20, the six-student team organized by the MAA placed 2nd overall among 117 participating teams, the largest field in IMO history.
Team USA qualifies through the MAA American Mathematics Competitions, in which roughly 300,000 students from over 6,000 schools and learning centers participate each year. Top performers are invited to the MAA Mathematical Olympiad Summer Program for intensive training. *MAA
And congratulations to the winning Chinese team. China topped the team standings at the 67th International Mathematical Olympiad in Shanghai, with all six contestants winning gold medals and three achieving perfect scores, *PB notes
BIRTHS
1773 Sir Thomas Makdougall Brisbane, (23 July 1773 – 27 January 1860) Baronet British soldier and astronomical observer for whom the city of Brisbane, Australia, is named. He was Governor of NSW (1821-25). Mainly remembered as a patron of science, he built an astronomical observatory at Parramatta, Australia, made the first extensive observations of the southern stars since Lacaille in (1751-52) and built a combined observatory and magnetic station at Makerstoun, Roxburghshire, Scotland. He also conducted (largely unsuccessful) experiments in growing Virginian tobacco, Georgian cotton, Brazilian coffee and New Zealand flax.*TIS
1775 Etienne Louis Malus (23 July 1775 – 24 February 1812) born in Paris. He was the son on the Treasurer of France. His primary interest was mathematical optics. [Ivor Grattan-Guiness, Convolutions in French Mathematics, 1800–1840, p. 473] *VFR He studied geometric systems called ray systems, closely connected to Julius Plücker's line geometry. He conducted experiments to verify Christiaan Huygens' theories of light and rewrote the theory in analytical form. His discovery of the polarization of light by reflection was published in 1809 and his theory of double refraction of light in crystals, in 1810.
Malus attempted to identify the relationship between the polarising angle of reflection that he had discovered, and the refractive index of the reflecting material. While he deduced the correct relation for water, he was unable to do so for glasses due to the low quality of materials available to him (most glasses at that time showing a variation in refractive index between the surface and the interior of the glass). It was not until 1815 that Sir David Brewster was able to experiment with higher quality glasses and correctly formulate what is known as Brewster's law.
Malus is probably best remembered for Malus' law, giving the resultant intensity, when a polariser is placed in the path of an incident beam. His name is one of the 72 names inscribed on the Eiffel tower.*Wik
1854 Ivan Vladislavovich Sleszynski (23 July 1854 in Lysianka, Cherkasy, Kiev gubernia, Ukraine - 9 March 1931 in Kraków, Poland)Sleszynski's main work was on continued fractions, least squares and axiomatic proof theory based on mathematical logic. In a paper of 1892, based on his doctoral dissertation, he examined Cauchy's version of the Central Limit Theorem using characteristic function methods, and made several significant improvements and corrections. Because of the work, he is recognised as giving the first rigorous proof of a restricted form of the Central Limit Theorem. *SAU
1856 Bal Gangadhar Tilak (23 July 1856 – 1 August 1920, age 64) Scholar, mathematician, philosopher, and militant nationalist who helped lay the foundation for India's independence. Tilak was a great Sanskrit scholar and astronomer. He fixed the origin and date of Rigvedic Aryans, which was highly acclaimed and universally accepted by orientalists of his time. He founded (1914) and served as president of the Indian Home Rule League and, in 1916, concluded the Lucknow Pact with Mohammed Ali Jinnah, which provided for Hindu-Muslim unity in the struggle for independence.*TIS
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1886 Walter Schottky (23 July 1886, Zürich, Switzerland – 4 March 1976, Pretzfeld, West Germany) Swiss-born German physicist whose research in solid-state physics led to development of a number of electronic devices. He discovered the Schottky effect, an irregularity in the emission of thermions in a vacuum tube and invented the screen-grid tetrode tube (1915). The Schottky diode is a high speed diode with very little junction capacitance (also known as a "hot-carrier diode" or a "surface-barrier diode.") It uses a metal-semiconductor junction as a Schottky barrier, rather than the semiconductor-semiconductor junction of a conventional diode. *TIS
1906 Vladimir Prelog (23 July 1906 – 7 January 1998) Yugoslavian-born Swiss chemist who shared the 1975 Nobel Prize for Chemistry with John W. Cornforth for his work on the stereochemistry of organic molecules and reactions. Stereochemistry is the study of the three-dimensional arrangements of atoms within molecules. He authored systematic naming rules for molecules and their mirror-image version, that is, which configuration will be referred to as "dextra" and which will be the "levo" (right or left). Also, by X-ray diffraction, he elucidated the structure of several antibiotics.*TIS
1914 William Wager Cooper (July 23, 1914 – June 20, 2012) was an American operations researcher, known as a father of management science and as "Mr. Linear Programming". He was the founding president of The Institute of Management Sciences, founding editor-in-chief of Auditing: A Journal of Practice and Theory, a founding faculty member of the Graduate School of Industrial Administration at the Carnegie Institute of Technology (now the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University), founding dean of the School of Urban and Public Affairs (now the Heinz College) at CMU, the former Arthur Lowes Dickinson Professor of Accounting at Harvard University, and the Foster Parker Professor Emeritus of Management, Finance and Accounting at the University of Texas at Austin.
Cooper was born in Birmingham, Alabama and grew up in Chicago, where his father (a former bookkeeper) owned several gasoline stations that closed in the Great Depression. Cooper, in his second year of high school, dropped out to help support his family. He worked in a bowling alley, on a golf course, and as a professional boxer. As a boxer, he won 58 bouts, lost three, and drew two. While commuting to the golf course, he met Eric Kohler, a professor at Northwestern University, who pushed him to go back to school and bankrolled his entry to the University of Chicago. At Chicago, he began studying physical chemistry but was inspired by his work for Kohler on a legal case to switch to economics, graduating with a B.A. and Phi Beta Kappa honors in 1938.
After graduation, from 1938 to 1940, he worked as an accountant for the Tennessee Valley Authority, where Kohler had become Controller. There, he worked on performance auditing and the mathematical allocation of resources, and helped Kohler testify to a congressional investigative committee. In 1940, Cooper started doing graduate studies at Columbia University; however, in 1942, with his coursework completed but his thesis unwritten, he left Columbia to serve his country during World War II. He worked in the Division of Statistical Standards of the U.S. Bureau of the Budget coordinating the government programs that collected accounting statistics; his 1945 paper describing his wartime activities was the first recipient of an award from the American Institute of Accountants for the best paper of the year.
Cooper began his academic career with a brief teaching stint, from 1944 to 1946, back at the University of Chicago. In 1945, Cooper married his wife Ruth, a lawyer and human activist, and in 1946 he joined the newly formed Graduate School of Industrial Administration at the Carnegie Institute of Technology (now the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University). There, he formed important research collaborations with Abraham Charnes, George Leland Bach, and Herbert A. Simon, and eventually became University Professor. While at CMU, from 1949 to 1950, he also worked again as an assistant to Eric Kohler, who had by this time become Comptroller of the Marshall Plan.In 1969 he left GSIA but stayed at CMU, becoming dean of the new School of Urban and Public Affairs (now the Heinz College) there. As dean, he realized that there would soon be a much greater role in American business management for African-Americans, and worked to increase African-American representation within the school.
In 1975, Harvard University hired Cooper away from CMU to become the Dickinson Professor of Accounting, and in 1980 he moved again, to the University of Texas at Austin, where he became the Foster Parker Professor of Management, Finance and Accounting. He retired in 1993, but continued to be active in research until his death on June 20, 2012.
1920 Herbert Federer (July 23, 1920 – April 21, 2010) was an American mathematician. He is one of the creators of geometric measure theory, at the meeting point of differential geometry and mathematical analysis.
Federer was born July 23, 1920, in Vienna, Austria. After emigrating to the US in 1938, he studied mathematics and physics at the University of California, Berkeley, earning the Ph.D. as a student of Anthony Morse in 1944. He then spent virtually his entire career as a member of the Brown University Mathematics Department, where he eventually retired with the title of Professor Emeritus.
Federer wrote more than thirty research papers in addition to his book Geometric measure theory. The Mathematics Genealogy Project assigns him nine Ph.D. students and well over a hundred subsequent descendants. His most productive students include the late Frederick J. Almgren, Jr. (1933–1997), a professor at Princeton for 35 years, and his last student, Robert Hardt, now at Rice University.
Federer was a member of the National Academy of Sciences. In 1987, he and his Brown colleague Wendell Fleming won the American Mathematical Society's Steele Prize "for their pioneering work in Normal and Integral currents."
In the 1940s and 1950s, Federer made many contributions at the technical interface of geometry and measure theory. Particular themes included surface area, rectifiability of sets, and the extent to which one could substitute rectifiability for smoothness in the classical analysis of surfaces. A particularly noteworthy early accomplishment (improving earlier work of Abram Besicovitch) was the characterization of purely unrectifiable sets as those which "vanish" under almost all projections. Federer also made noteworthy contributions to the study of Green's theorem in low regularity. The theory of capacity with modified exponents was developed by Federer and William Ziemer.[FZ73] In his first published paper, written with his Ph.D. advisor Anthony Morse, Federer proved the Federer–Morse theorem which states that any continuous surjection between compact metric spaces can be restricted to a Borel subset so as to become an injection, without changing the image.*Wik
1920 Chushiro Hayashi (July 23, 1920 – February 28, 2010) Japanese astrophysicist who with his coworkers created evolutionary models for stars of mass between 0.01 to 100 times that of the Sun. In 1950, he contributed to the abg (Alpher, Bethe, Gamow) (also see April 1, Events) model of nucleosynthesis in the hot big bang. Hayashi pioneered in modeling stellar formation and pre-main sequence evolution along “Hayashi tracks” (1961) downward on the Hertzprung-Russell diagram until stars reach the main sequence. He and Takenori Nakano studied the formation of low-mass, brown dwarf stars. Hayashi also investigated the formation of the solar system and of the earth and its atmosphere. He retired in 1984. He was presented the Bruce Medal in 2004 for lifetime contributions to astronomy.*TIS
1928 Vera Rubin (July 23, 1928 – December 25, 2016) was an American astronomer who pioneered work on galaxy rotation rates. She uncovered the discrepancy between the predicted and observed angular motion of galaxies by studying galactic rotation curves. By identifying the galaxy rotation problem, her work provided evidence for the existence of dark matter. These results were later confirmed over subsequent decades. *Wik
Throughout her schooling, Rubin faced the banal sexism all too common at the time for women interested in science. Her high school physics teacher ignored the few girls in class; a college admissions interviewer encouraged her to consider painting astronomical objects rather than studying them. Rubin was not deterred. “She took it all with courage, and with persistence,” says Bahcall, who was a longtime friend and colleague of Rubin.
Rubin studied astronomy at Vassar College, married mathematical physicist Bob Rubin, and began graduate school at Cornell in 1948. She completed her master’s thesis on the rotation of the universe, kicking off a long career investigating hidden galactic behavior, and a professor suggested Rubin present this research at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) in 1950. There, she encountered a chilly reception. “I gave my memorized 10-minute talk, acceptably I thought. Then one by one many angry sounding men got up to tell me why I could not do ‘that,’” she wrote.
In 2019, almost 70 years after Rubin faced that hostile crowd at the 1950 AAS meeting, (and almost three years after her Death) the Society convened in Honolulu to agree on renaming the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope as the Vera C. Rubin Observatory. After its construction is complete, the Rubin Observatory will be the site of a 10-year survey of a mammoth swath of night sky. Bahcall sees this honor as the perfect tribute to Rubin, who cherished the many long nights she spent in observatories, peering through telescopes. “She loved being in the dome.” *APS Org
1930 Daniel McCracken, (July 23, 1930 – July 30, 2011) who wrote the first textbook on FORTRAN, was born. A student of mathematics and chemistry, McCracken started working in computers at General Electric in 1951, training workers in using the new technology. Based on this teaching experience, McCracken wrote several important computer programming textbooks, most notably ""A Guide to FORTRAN Programming"" in 1961.*CHM
1932 Derek Thomas "Tom" Whiteside FBA (July 23, 1932–April 22, 2008) was a British historian of mathematics. He was the foremost authority on the work of Isaac Newton and editor of The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton. From 1987 to his retirement in 1999, he was the Professor of the History of Mathematics and Exact Sciences at Cambridge University. *Wik
1941 Pierre Agostini (born 23 July 1941, ) is a French experimental physicist and Emeritus professor at the Ohio State University in the United States, known for his pioneering work in strong-field laser physics and attosecond science.He is especially known for the observation of above-threshold ionization and the invention of the reconstruction of attosecond beating by interference of two-photon transitions (RABBITT) technique for characterization of attosecond light pulses. He was jointly awarded the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physics with Ferenc Krausz and Anne L’Huillier.
1952 Mark David Weiser (July 23, 1952 – April 27, 1999) American computer scientist and visionary who developed the pioneering idea for what he referred to as "ubiquitous computing," He coined that term in 1988 to describe a future in which PC's will be replaced with tiny computers embedded in everyday "smart" devices (everyday items such as coffeepots and copy machines) and their connection via a network. He said, "First were mainframes, each shared by lots of people. Now we are in the personal computing era, person and machine staring uneasily at each other across the desktop. Next comes ubiquitous computing, or the age of calm technology, when technology recedes into the background of our lives." *TIS
DEATHS1876 Joseph Rogers Brown (born Jan. 26, 1810, Warren, R.I., U.S.—died July 23, 1876, Isles of Shoals, N.H.) was an American inventor and manufacturer who made numerous advances in the field of fine measurement and machine-tool production. He perfected and produced a highly accurate linear dividing engine in 1850, and in the succeeding two years he developed a vernier caliper reading to thousandths of an inch and also applied vernier methods to the protractor. Brown's micrometer caliper, widely used in industry, appeared in 1867. He also invented a precision gear cutter in 1855 to produce clock gears, a universal milling machine in 1862, and, perhaps his finest innovation, a universal grinding machine (patented in 1877), in which articles were hardened first and then ground, thereby increasing accuracy and eliminating waste. Cofounded J.R. Brown & Sharpe in 1853. *TiS
During the 19th and 20th centuries, Brown & Sharpe was one of the best-known and most influential machine tool builders and was a leading manufacturer of instruments for machinists (such as micrometers and indicators). Its reputation and influence were such that its name is often considered to be inseparably paired with certain industrial standards that it helped establish, including:
The American wire gauge (AWG) standards for wire;
The Brown & Sharpe taper in machine tool spindle tapers; and
The Brown & Sharpe worm threadform for worm gears.
Many years ago as a young Gauge Lab Tech I had a drawer full of these beauties in various sizes.
1903 Eduard Weyr (22 June 1852 Praha – 23 July 1903 Záboří) wrote geometrical papers and books mainly in projective geometry and differential geometry. He also worked on algebra, in particular studying linear algebra, matrices and hypercomplex systems.
Weyr published Differential calculus in 1902. This led to controversy with a young mathematician J V Pexider who sharply criticised Weyr's textbook. Jindrich Beèváo and Ludek Zajièek give an interesting account of this episode in a paper in the book .*Math.info website
1916 William Ramsay (2 October 1852, Glasgow, Scotland - 23 July 1916 (aged 63)
High Wycombe, Bucks., England) died. Ramsay was a British chemist who discovered the four gases neon, argon, krypton and xenon. He also determined they belonged with helium and radon to form a family of gases called the noble gases. This discovery would earn him the 1904 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.*Science History
1932 Alberto Santos-Dumont (July 20, 1873 – July 23, 1932) was a Brazilian aviation pioneer, deemed the Father of Aviation by his countrymen. At the age of 18, Santos-Dumont was sent by his father to Paris where he devoted his time to the study of chemistry, physics, astronomy and mechanics. His first spherical balloon made its first ascension in Paris on 4 July 1898. He developed steering capabilities, and in his sixth dirigible on 19 Oct 1901 won the "Deutsch Prize," awarded to the balloonist who circumnavigated the Eiffel Tower. He turned to heavier-than-air flight, and on 12 Nov 1906 his 14-BIS airplane flew a distance of 220 meters, height of 6 m. and speed of 37 km/h. to win the "Archdecon Prize." In 1909, he produced his famous "Demoiselle" or "Grasshopper" monoplanes, the forerunners of the modern light plane. *TIS
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| Santos-Dumont circling the Eiffel Tower with the airship No. 5, 13 July 1901 |
1964 Samarendra Nath Roy or S. N. Roy (11 December 1906 – 23 July 1964). He was well known for his pioneering contribution to multivariate statistical analysis, mainly that of the Jacobians of complicated transformations for various exact distributions, rectangular coordinates and the Bartlett decomposition. His dissertation included the Post master's work at the Indian Statistical Institute where he worked under Mahalanobis. To commemorate his Birth Centenary an International Conference on "Multivariate Statistical Methods in the 21st Century: The Legacy of Prof. S.N. Roy" was held at Kolkata, India during December 28–29, 2006. The Journal of Statistical Planning and Inference published a special Issue for celebrating of the Centennial of Birth of S. N. Roy*Wik
1964 W. W. Rogosinski (24 September 1894 – 23 July 1964) died. *VFR He wrote on Fourier Series with G.H. Hardy. Rogosinski focused his studies on pure mathematics, physics and philosophy. His interest was analytical problems, especially in series. His dissertation, "New Application of Pfeiffer's method for Dirichlet's divisor problem", caused a stir in 1922.
He published five papers with Hardy from 1943 to 1949, under the title Notes on Fourier series. In 1944 Rogisinski and Hardy published their book Fourier Series, which might be said to be a rewrite, using Lebesgue integral methods, of Rogosinski's 1930 book. He was a teacher in Aberdeen in 1941. In 1945, he became a lecturer at Newcastle University (prior to 1963, King's College, University of Durham). In 1947 he was appointed professor and in 1948 Head of Department.*Wik
1981 Harvey Fletcher (11 Sep 1884; 23 Jul 1981) American acoustical engineer who was the first to demonstrate stereophonic sound (1934). He was a trail blazing investigator of the nature of speech and hearing, noted for his contributions in acoustics, electrical engineering, speech, medicine, music, atomic physics, sound pictures, and education. He guided the development of the Western Electric Hearing Aid, the first such device to use vacuum tubes. He developed a group survey method using recorded sound of decreasing volume which has wide acceptance in schools throughout the nation.*TIS
1993 Florence Nightingale David, (August 23, 1909 – July 23, 1993) also known as F. N. David was an English statistician, born in Ivington, Herefordshire, England. She was named after Florence Nightingale, who was a friend of her parents.
David read mathematics at Bedford College for Women in London. After graduation, she worked for the eminent statistician Karl Pearson at University College, London as his research student. She calculated the distribution of correlation coefficients, producing in 1938 her first book, Tables of the correlation coefficient.
After Karl Pearson died in 1934, she returned to the Biometrics laboratory to work with Jerzy Neyman where she submitted her last four published papers as her PhD thesis. During World War II, David worked for the Ministry of Home Security. In late 1939 when war had started but England had not yet been attacked, she created statistical models to predict the possible consequences of bombs exploding in high density populations such as the big cities of England and especially London. From these models, she determined estimates of harm to humans and damage to non-humans This included the possible numbers living and dead, the reactions to fires and damaged buildings as well as damages to communications,utilities such as phones, water, gas, electricity and sewers. As a result when the Germans bombed London in 1940 and 1941, vital services were kept going and her models were updated and modified with the evidence from the real harms and real damage.
David became head of the Statistics Department at the University of California at Riverside in 1970.*Wik
2006 Charles Frederick Mosteller (December 24, 1916 – July 23, 2006) was an American mathematician, considered one of the most eminent statisticians of the 20th century. He was the founding chairman of Harvard's statistics department from 1957 to 1971, and served as the president of several professional bodies including the Psychometric Society, the American Statistical Association, the Institute of Mathematical Statistics, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the International Statistical Institute.
Mosteller worked in Samuel Wilks's Statistical Research Group in New York city during World War II on statistical questions about airborne bombing. He received his PhD in mathematics from Princeton University in 1946.
He was hired by Harvard University's Department of Social Relations in 1946, where he received tenure in 1951 and served as acting chair from 1953 to 1954. He founded the Department of Statistics and served as its first chairman from 1957 to 1969, 1973, 1975 to 1977. He chaired the Department of Biostatistics at the Harvard School of Public Health from 1977 to 1981 and later the Department of Health Policy and Management in the 1980s. His four chairmanships have not been matched. He also taught courses at Harvard Law School and Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.
He worked with his mathematical assistant Cleo Youtz from the 1950s until his departure from Harvard in 2003, and had an administrative assistant. He was well known for being a good writer, insisting on doing up to fifteen drafts of a paper or book chapter before showing it to his colleagues and several additional drafts before submitting the paper to a journal.
Mosteller was an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1954), the American Philosophical Society (1961), and the United States National Academy of Sciences (1974)] He retired from classroom teaching in 1987, but continued working and publishing at Harvard through 2003. On January 3, 2004, he moved to Arlington, Virginia, to be closer to his children. *Wik
2012 Sally Kristen Ride (May 26, 1951 – July 23, 2012) was an American physicist and a former NASA astronaut. Ride joined NASA in 1978, and in 1983 became the first American woman—and then-youngest American, at 32—to enter space. In addition to being interested in science, she was a nationally ranked tennis player. Ride attended Swarthmore College and then transferred to Stanford University, graduating with a bachelor's degree in English and physics. Also at Stanford, she earned a master's degree and a Ph.D. in physics, while doing research in astrophysics and free electron laser physics.In 1987 she left NASA to work at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Arms Control.
Sally Ride died on July 23, 2012 after a 17-month battle with pancreatic cancer. US President Barack Obama called her a "national hero and a powerful role model" who "inspired generations of young girls to reach for the stars."*Wik
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2021 Steven Weinberg (May 3, 1933 – July 23, 2021) American nuclear physicist who shared the 1979 Nobel Prize for Physics (with Sheldon Lee Glashow and Abdus Salam) for work in formulating the electroweak theory, which explains the unity of electromagnetism with the weak nuclear force. *TIS
Credits :
*CHM=Computer History Museum
*FFF=Kane, Famous First Facts
*NSEC= NASA Solar Eclipse Calendar
*RMAT= The Renaissance Mathematicus, Thony Christie
*SAU=St Andrews Univ. Math History
*TIA = Today in Astronomy
*TIS= Today in Science History
*VFR = V Frederick Rickey, USMA
*Wik = Wikipedia
*WM = Women of Mathematics, Grinstein & Campbell
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