This Week in Physics History: Nov. 3 - 9

Nov. 7, 1492 - A meteorite crashes to Earth around noon in a wheat field near Ensisheim, Alsace. The Ensisheim Meteorite is the oldest meteorite with a known date of impact.

Nov. 8, 1854 - Johannes Rydberg, discovery of the Rydberg State of an atom, is born.

Nov. 7, 1867 - Maria Sklodowska is born, remembered to posterity as Marie Curie, pioneer in the study of radioactivity. To date, she is the only person to have earned Nobel prizes in two different fields - physics & chemistry.

Nov. 7, 1878 - Lise Meitner is born. Meitner did ground-breaking work on the discovery of nuclear fission, but was controversially not included in the 1944 Nobel award for the discovery.

Nov. 5, 1879 - Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell dies. Maxwell is best known for unifying electricity and magnetism through Maxwell's Laws into electromagnetic theory.

Nov. 7, 1888 - Indian physicist Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman is born. Raman received the 1930 Nobel Prize in Physics for work in molecular scattering of light, specifically the discovery of the Raman effect which bears his name.

Nov. 9, 1921 - Albert Einstein is awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics, primarily for his work in explaining the photoelectric effect.

Nov. 9, 1934 - Carl Sagan, American astronomer and author, is born. Sagan became best known as a populizer of science through television specials, and both fiction and non-fiction writing. He was the author of the science fiction novel Contact, which was later made into a film starring Jodie Foster.

Nov. 6, 1944 - The Hanford Atomic Facility first produces plutonium.

Nov. 5, 1948 - American physicist William Daniel Phillips is born. Phillips won the 1997 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work in laser cooling, which uses lasers to slow the motion of gaseous molecules.

This Week in Physics History: Oct. 27 - Nov. 2

Nov. 2, 1929 - Canadian-American physicist Richard E. Taylor is born. Taylor shared the 1990 Nobel Prize in physics for work in particle scattering that helped lead to the quark model of particle physics.

Oct. 30, 1941 - German physicist Theodor Wolfgang Hansch is born. He shared half of the 2005 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on laser-based precision spectroscopy, which involves something called the "optical frequency comb technique."

Nov. 1, 1950 - American physicist Robert B. Laughlin is born. Laughlin's explanation of the fractional quantum Hall effect earned him the 1998 Nobel Prize in Physics.

Oct. 27, 1968 - Austrian-born physicist Lise Meitner dies. Meitner was involved in work that lead to the discovery of nuclear fission, but was not named when her collaborator Otto Hahn received the 1944 Nobel Prize in Physics.

Oct. 30, 1975 - German experimental physicist Gustav Ludwig Hertz dies. Hertz, along with James Franck, conducted the Franck-Hertz experiments regarding inelastic collisions in gases, which earned the pair the 1925 Nobel Prize in Physics. Gustav was the nephew of famed physicist Heinrich Rudolph Hertz, for whom the SI unit of frequency - the hertz - is named.

Oct. 27, 1980 - American physicist John Hasbrouck Van Vleck dies. Van Vleck received the 1977 Nobel Prize in physics for work understanding the behavior of electrons in magnetic materials.

Oct. 31, 1986 - American physicist & chemist Robert Mullikan dies. His work in molecular orbital theory earned him the 1966 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Oct. 27, 1992 - David Bohm, American physicist, dies at age 75. Bohm contributed to theoretical physics, introducing a controversial alternative to traditional quantum physics interpretations involving hidden variables, which has gained some measure of support in recent years, though is still considered a marginal theory. He also worked with the Manhattan Project. He left the United States in 1951, after being released from jail for refusing to answer questions to the House Un-American Activities Committee regarding previous connections with Communists.

Oct. 27, 1999 - American physicist Robert Mills dies. Mills is best known for his work Chen Ning Yang in developing the Yang-Mills field equations, crucial in quantum field theory and the principles of gauge fields.

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.

This Week in Physics History: September 1 - 7

Sept. 1, 1804 -

German astronomer Karl Ludwig Harding discovers Juno, one of largest asteroids in the asteroid belt.

Sept. 3, 1905 -

American experimental physicist Carl David Anderson is born. Anderson would receive the 1936 Nobel Prize in Physics for his discovery of the positron.

Sept. 5, 1906 -

Austrian physicist Ludwig Boltzmann dies. Part of the illustrious Boltzmann family, which permeated nineteenth century European intellectual life in mathematics & the sciences, Ludwig is best known for his work in statistical mechanics and thermodynamics. He strongly advocated atomic theory, well before it was popular to do so.

Sept. 3, 1976 -

U.S. spacecraft Viking II arrived on Mars, landing at Utopia Planitia, and took the first pictures of the planet's surface. Viking II was, of course, an unmanned spacecraft.

Sept. 2, 1992 -

The first automobile powered by natural gas is purchased. Fifty of these alternative fuel vehicles were purchased and put into service by the Southern California Gas Company

This Week in Physics History: August 18 - 24

Aug. 19, 1662 -

French mathematician, philosopher, & physicist Blaise Pascal dies. Pascal was best known for his mathematical work, especially the formation of Pascal's Triangle (although he was not the first to develop it) as well as work in probability. In physics, Pascal is known for his impassioned defense of the scientific method, studies of fluids, and early work in thermodynamics, most notably pressure and vacuum experiments.

Aug. 23, 1806 -

French physicist Charles Augustin de Coulomb dies. His best-known achievement is the discovery of Coulomb's law for electrostatic force. The SI unit of charge, the coulomb, was named after him.

Aug. 21, 1814 -

Early American physicist and inventor Sir Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford, dies. Thompson's work in questioning the orthodox physical theories of the time helped lay the foundation for revolutions in thermodynamics, especially in the realms of specific heats, heat transfers and thermal conducitivity. His views on heat as a form of motion helped lead to the kinetic theory and also the laws of conservation of energy.

Aug. 20, 1961 -

American physicist Percy Williams Bridgman dies. Bridgman won the 1946 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work in high-pressure physics. Aug. 21, 1993 - The Mars Observer spacecraft signal is lost by NASA.

Aug. 21, 1995 -

American astrophysicist (born in British India) Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar dies. Chandrasekhar's theoretical work in cosmology and stellar evolution earned him the 1983 Nobel Prize in physics. The Chandra X-Ray Observatory satellite, deployed into space by the Space Shuttle Columbia in 1999, was named in his honor after a contest with 6,000 proposed names.

Aug. 24, 2006 -

The International Astronomical Union comes to the conclusion that they will redefine the term "planet" so that Pluto is no longer a planet

This Week in Physics History: April 21 – 27

This Week in Physics History: April 21 – 27 April 27, 2008 • Apr. 23, 1858- German physicist & Nobel laureate Max Planck is born. Planck is credited as the father of quantum physics, because his solution to the ultraviolet catastrophe in blackbody radiation involved assuming that energy traveled in discrete packets, which he termed quanta. He derived a value, later called Planck's constant, which is crucial to performing quantum physics calculations. Out of this finding, Albert Einstein was able to explain the photoelectric effect and, subsequently, the field of quantum physics was born. He received the 1918 Nobel Prize in Physics for this work. • Apr. 25, 1900 - Austrian physicist Wolfgang Ernst Pauli is born. Pauli is best known for discovering the "Pauli Exclusion Principle" and extensive work in the concept of spin in particle physics and chemistry. He received the 1945 Nobel Prize in Physics for this work, having been nominated for it by Albert Einstein. • Apr. 22, 1904 - American physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer was born. Oppenheimer is sometimes called "the father of the atomic bomb" because he was the director of the Manhattan Project to develop the first nuclear bomb. • Apr. 25, 1953 - Francis Crick & James D. Watson publish their paper describing the double helix structure of DNA, which was determined largely with the use of x-ray crystallography. • Apr. 24, 1960 - German physicist & Nazi oppositionist Max von Laue died in Berlin. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1914 for his work in discovering the crystial diffraction of x-rays. • Apr. 21, 1994 - Astronomer Alexander Wolszczan announces the first discoveries of extrasolar planets (i.e. planets circling stars other than our Sun). • Apr. 26, 1994 - Physicists announce the first evidence of the top quark, a previously theoretical subatomic particle