## Friday, 29 June 2018

### On This Day in Math - June 29

Jeannie, Happy birthday.

The 180th day of the year; 180 can be formed with the only the first two primes... 180 = 22 x 32 x (2+3) *Prime Curios

180 is the sum of two square numbers: $12^2 + 6^2$. It can also be expressed as either the sum of six consecutive primes: 19 + 23 + 29 + 31 + 37 + 41, or the sum of eight consecutive primes: 11 + 13 + 17 + 19 + 23 + 29 + 31 + 37.

Beautiful trigonometry, arctan1 + arctan2 + arctan3 = 180o

EVENTS

In 3123 BC, a Sumerian astronomer saw a devastating asteroid, perhaps a half-mile wide, according to an interpretation of a clay tablet, made by researchers from Bristol University, reported in The Times on 31 Mar 2008. The ancient date was indicated by a computer recreation of the night sky using symbols on the tablet recording the positions of constellations The Planiform tablet found by Henry Layard at Nineveh, likely a 700 BC copy of the astronomer's notes, described in cuneiform a "white stone bowl approaching" that "vigorously swept along." The asteroid probably crashed into the Austrian Alps, leaving a swath of cataclysmic damage such as, for example, the Genesis destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.*TIS

1456 According to one story that first appeared in a 1475 posthumous biography and was subsequently embellished and popularized by Pierre-Simon Laplace, Callixtus III excommunicated the 1456 apparition of Halley's Comet, believing it to be an ill omen for the Christian defenders of Belgrade from the besieging armies of the Ottoman Empire. No known primary source supports the authenticity of this account. The 29 June 1456 papal bull of Callixtus III calling for a public prayer for the success of the crusade, makes no mention of the comet. By 6 August, when the Turkish siege was broken the comet had not been visible in either Europe or Turkey for several weeks. *Wik

 (John Francis Rigaud, 1785)*Wik
1785 Letitia Ann Sage became the first British woman to fly. From St George's Fields on the south side of the Thames, Vincenzo Lunardi and his partner Biggin, with two invitees, Mrs. Sage and a Colonel Hastings were supposed to make the flight, but the Hydrogen balloon wouldn't take off because of the weight. (Mrs Sage, a actress and model was also a somewhat large woman, rumored to weigh appx 200 pounds.)  Lunardi and Hastings stepped down, and the balloon took off with Biggin and Mrs. Sage. It landed 90 minutes later, near Harrow, where the two aeronauts had to be rescued by a group of boys from Harrow School from the angry farmer whose crops were damaged. *Wik (There were even suggestions that rather more amorous events had occurred in the flight.)

1799 The Royal Charter for the Royal Institute is promised. Ever since its founding year the Royal Institution has maintained close links with the Royal Family. On 29 June 1799, George Finch, Earl of Winchilsea (1752-1826), the President of what had until then had been called simply the “Institution” reported to a meeting of its committee of Managers ‘that he had had the Honour of mentioning this Institution to his Majesty [George III], and that his Majesty was graciously pleased to honour it with His Patronage and to allow it to be called the Royal Institution’. The actual charter was presented on January 13 in 1800. *Royal Institute web page

1803 An open letter to the public, and the Congress of the United States on the topic "Of The Construction of Iron Bridges" is posted by Thomas Paine. Paine had discussed this work with President Jefferson in a letter while he was in England. *The National Intelligencer and Washington Advertiser, (Washington, DC) Wednesday, June 29, 1803; Issue CCCCXIX;

1877 After proving that the points in a square can be put in one-to-one correspondence with the points on a line segment Cantor wrote his friend Dedekind “Je le vois, mais je ne le crois pas.” (I see it, but I don’t believe it.) [Dauben, Georg Cantor, p. 55]*VFR

1927 Gellivara 1073: Minor planet discovered September 14, 1923 by Johann Palisa at Vienna. Named for the small town  Gällivare in Swedish Lapland where in the year 1927 astronomers from several countries observed the Total Solar Eclipse of 1927 Named by the astronomer J. Rheden and endorsed by Anna Palisa.*NSEC
A Poster advertising viewing of Solar Eclipse from London, Midland, and Scotland Railway *GreatAmericanEclipse ‏@AmericanEclipse

In 1954, the Atomic Energy Commission, by a vote of 4 to1 decided against reinstating Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer's access to classified information. The Atomic Energy Act of 1946 required consideration of  "the character, associations, and loyalty" of the individuals engaged in the work of the Commission. Substantial defects of character and imprudent and dangerous associations, particularly with known subversives who place the interests of foreign powers above those of the United States, were considered reasons for disqualification. The Commission regarded his associations with persons known to him to be Communists exceeded tolerable limits of prudence and self-restraint, and lasted too long to be justified as merely the intermittent and accidental revival of earlier friendships.*TIS

1956 The interstate highway system was signed into law by President Eisenhower. Even (odd) num­bered roads run East–West (North–South) with the numbers increasing from South to North (West to East). Roads with three digit numbers are loops around cities (when the ﬁrst digit is even) or spurs (ﬁrst digit odd); In either case the last two digits are the main road number.  *VFR
Eisenhower had seen the speed and efficiency in moving troops and equipment on the four-lane autobahns in Germany during WW II. The idea of federal support of interstate limited-access routes in the U.S. had begun with a study under the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1938. Little progress was made on building these roads while federal funding was low. When the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 committed federal funds to the States for 90% of the cost, construction began in earnest for the System of Interstate and Defense Highways having at least four lanes with no at-grade railroad crossings. *TIS

2016 - My Jeannie is celebrating her birthday today, and I'm celebrating having her in my life... all the good I ever do is a reflection of a single sun.

BIRTHS

1716 Joseph Stepling, (29 June 1716 in Regensburg; 11 July 1778 in Prague) His fields included astronomy, physics and mathematics. At the age of 17 he documented with great accuracy the 1733 lunar eclipse. Later Euler was among his long list of correspondents. He transposed Aristotelian logic into formulas, thus becoming an early precursor of modern logic. already adopted the atomistic conception of matter he radically refused to accept Aristotelian metaphysics and natural philosophy. In 1748, at the request of the Berlin Academy, he carried out an exact observation of a solar and lunar eclipse in order to determine the precise location of Prague. During Stepling's long tenure at Prague, he set up a laboratory for experimental physics and in 1751 built an observatory, the instruments and fittings of which he brought up to the latest scientific standard.
Even though he passed up a professorship in philosophy in favor of a chair in mathematics, Empress Maria Theresa appointed him director of the faculty of philosophy at Prague as part of the reform of higher education. He was very interested in cultivating the exact sciences and founded a society for the study of science modeled on the Royal Society of London. In their monthly sessions. over which he presided until his death, the group carried out research work and investigations in the field of pure mathematics and its appiication to physics and astronomy. A great number of treatises of this academy were published.
Stepling corresponded with the outstanding contemporary mathematicians and astronomers: Christian Wolf. Leonhard Euler. Christopher Maire, Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille, Maximilian Heli, Joseph Franz, Rudjer Boskovic, Heinrich Hiss, and others. Also, Stepling was particularly successful in educating many outstanding scientists, including Johann Wendlingen, Jakob Heinisch, Johannes von Herberstein, Kaspar Sagner, Stephan Schmidt, Johann Korber, and Joseph Bergmann. After his death, Maria Theresia ordered a monument erected in the library of the University of Prague *Joseph MacDonnell, Fairfield Univ web page

1818 Pietro Angelo Secchi (29 June 1818 – 26 February 1878) Italian Jesuit priest and astrophysicist, who made the first survey of the spectra of over 4000 stars and suggested that stars be classified according to their spectral type. He studied the planets, especially Jupiter, which he discovered was composed of gasses. Secchi studied the dark lines which join the two hemispheres of Mars; he called them canals as if they where the works of living beings. (These studies were later continued by Schiaparelli.) Beyond astronomy, his interests ranged from archaeology to geodesy, from geophysics to meteorology. He also invented a meteorograph, an automated device for recording barometric pressure, temperature, wind direction and velocity, and rainfall. *TIS

1868 George Ellery Hale (June 29, 1868 – February 21, 1938) born. American astronomer known for his development of important astronomical instruments. To expand solar observations and promote astrophysical studies he founded Mt. Wilson Observatory (Dec 1904). He discovered that sunspots were regions of relatively low temperatures and high magnetic fields. Hale hired Harlow Shapley and Edwin Hubble as soon as they finished their doctorates, and he encouraged research in galactic and extragalactic astronomy as well as solar and stellar astrophysics. Hale planned and tirelessly raised funds for the 200" reflecting telescope at the Palomar Mountain Observatory completed in 1948, after his death, and named for him - the Hale telescope.*TIS

1893 Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis FRS[1] (29 June 1893 – 28 June 1972) was an Indian scientist and applied statistician. He is best remembered for the Mahalanobis distance, (a statistical measure of the distance between a point P and a distribution D, - a multi-dimensional generalization of the idea of measuring how many standard deviations away P is from the mean of D. ) and for being one of the members of the first Planning commission of free india. He made pioneering studies in anthropometry in India. He founded the Indian Statistical Institute, and contributed to the design of large-scale sample surveys *Wik

1893 Eduard Cech, (June 29, 1893 – March 15, 1960) Czech topologist born in Stračov, Bohemia (then Austria-Hungary, now Czech Republic). His research interests included projective differential geometry and topology. In 1921–1922 he collaborated with Guido Fubini in Turin. He died in Prague. *Wik

1904 Topologist Witold Hurewicz (June 29, 1904 - September 6, 1956) born. Hurewicz is best remembered for two remarkable contributions to mathematics, his discovery of the higher homotopy groups in 1935-36, and his discovery of exact sequences in 1941. His work led to homological algebra. It was during Hurewicz's time as Brouwer's assistant in Amsterdam that he did the work on the higher homotopy groups; "...the idea was not new, but until Hurewicz nobody had pursued it as it should have been. Investigators did not expect much new information from groups, which were obviously commutative...". *Wik He died in 1956 when he fell off a pyramid while attending a conference in Mexico.

1942 K. Jon Barwise (June 29, 1942 – March 5, 2000) an American mathematician, philosopher and logician who proposed some fundamental revisions to the way that logic is understood and used.*Wik

DEATHS

1895 T(homas) H(enry) Huxley (4 May 1825 – 29 June 1895) was an English biologist , known as "Darwin's Bulldog" for his promotion of Darwinism which led him to an advocacy of agnosticism (a word he coined). At the age of 12 he was reading advanced works on geology, and by early adolescence he recorded the results of simple self-conducted experiments. As a ship's assistant surgeon on HMS Rattlesnake he studied marine specimens by microscope. During the 1850's he published papers on animal individuality, the cephalous mollusks (ex. squids), the methods of paleontology, and the methods and principles of science and science education. *TIS

1924 Robert Simpson Woodward (July 21, 1849–June 29, 1924) was an American physicist and mathematician, born at Rochester, Michigan. He graduated C.E. at the University of Michigan in 1872 and was appointed assistant engineer on the United States Lake Survey. In 1882 he became assistant astronomer for the United States Transit of Venus Commission. In 1884 he became astronomer to the United States Geological Survey, serving until 1890, when he became assistant in the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey. In 1893 he was called to Columbia as professor of mechanics and subsequently became professor of mathematical physics as well. He was dean of the faculty of pure science at Columbia from 1895 to 1905, when he became president of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, whose reputation and usefulness as a means of furthering scientific research was widely extended under his direction. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1896. In 1898-1900 he was president of the American Mathematical Society, and in 1900 president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 1915 he was appointed to the Naval Consulting Board. He died in 1924 in Washington, D.C.*Wik

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