This Week in Physics History: Oct. 13 - 20
Monday October 13, 2008
Oct. 15, 1878 - The Edison Electric Light Company begins operation.
Oct. 17, 1887 - German physicist Gustav Kirchhoff dies. Kirchhoff worked extensively in the fields of electricity, spectroscopy, and thermal radiation. He coined the term black body radiation. He is probably best known for the Kirchhoff's Laws in electronics. There is also a Kirchhoff's law of thermal equilibrium, which states "At thermal equilibrium, the emissitivity of a body (or surface) equals its absorptivity."
Oct. 20, 1891 - English physicist Sir James Chadwick is born. Chadwick discovered the neutron and led the way for the discovery of nuclear fission.
Oct. 19, 1910 - American astrophysicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar is born in Lahore, British India (now Pakistan). His work on stellar evolution earned him the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physics.
Oct. 14, 1914 - American chemist & physicist Raymond Davis Jr. is born. Davis received the 2002 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work in astrophysics, especially related to cosmic neutrino detection.
Oct. 17, 1933 - Fleeing Nazi Germany, Albert Einstein immigrates to the United States.
Oct. 19, 1937 - New Zealand physicist Ernest Rutherford dies. His discovery of Rutherford scattering led to the orbital theory of the atom, which helped earn him the 1908 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Oct. 20, 1984 - British theoretical physicist Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac dies. Dirac is one of the founders of quantum physics. He made many mathematical innovations that helped with analysis of physical systems ranging from electromagnetic phenomena to quantum physics. He earned the 1933 Nobel Prize in physics, along with Erwin Schroedinger, "for the discovery of new productive forms of atomic theory." The "Dirac equation" that he developed describes the behavior of fermions.
Oct. 13, 1987 - American physicist Walter Brattain dies. Brattain, along with Bell Labs coworkers John Bardeen and William Shockley, invented the transistor, for which the trio received the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics.
Oct. 13, 2003 - Canadian physicist Bertram Brockhouse dies. Brockhouse received the 1994 Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery of neutron scattering techniques to probe the structure of matter.
