| Issue Date |
Column Title |
Person |
Comments |
| 1958 DEC |
Catching Up With Newton |
Newton, Isaac |
(1642-1727) English physicist & mathematician; in 1687, formulated Law of Universal Gravitation, every piece of matter in the universe attracted every other piece of matter, & that the quantity of this force can be measured |
| 1958 NOV |
Dust of Ages, The |
Petterson, Hans |
his atmosphere's meteoric dust measurements, reported in Nature, 1 FEB 1958 |
| 1959 DEC |
Thin Air |
Aristotle |
(384-322 B.C.) Greek philosopher, believed the universe was made up of 4 basic substances: 'earth', 'water', 'air' & 'fire' |
| 1959 DEC |
Thin Air |
Heaviside, Oliver & Arthur Edwin Kennelly |
(1850-1925; 1861-1939) English physicist & American engineer, discovered independently the 'Kennelly-Heaviside Layer'(now called the E layer of the ionosphere), a layer of ions in the atmoshere that reflect radio waves |
| 1959 DEC |
Thin Air |
Appleton, Edward Victor |
(1892-1965) English physicist, in 1927 discovered the 'Appleton Layers' beyond the E layers, called the F layers(at about 120 & 200 miles up) |
| 1959 DEC |
Thin Air |
Gay-Lussac, Joseph Louis |
(1778-1850) French physicist & chemist, in 1804 went up in a balloon 4½ miles, bringing back some of its air |
| 1959 DEC |
Thin Air |
Jeffries, John |
American hot-air balloonist took a barometer up with him |
| 1959 DEC |
Thin Air |
Montgolfier, Joseph Michel & Jacques Etienne Montgolfier |
(1740-1810; 1745-1799) brothers whose hot-air balloon made the first human flight on 21 NOV 1783 |
| 1959 DEC |
Thin Air |
Boyle, Robert |
(1627-1691) Irish chemist & physicist, discovered that air can be compressed, formulated 'Boyle's Law' which relates air's pressure to its temperature |
| 1959 DEC |
Thin Air |
Guericke, Otto von |
(1602-1686) German physicist, mayor of Magdeburg, in 1650 invented the air pump, & created a much harder vacuum to demonstrate dramatically the existence of air pressure |
| 1959 DEC |
Thin Air |
Torricelli, Evangelista |
(1608-1647) Italian physicist, secretary for Galileo, in 1643 discovered that air has weight, invented the barometer to measure atmospheric pressure, at the same time created the first decent vacuum (the 'Torricelli vacuum') |
| 1959 DEC |
Thin Air |
de Bort, Leon P. Teisserenc |
French meteorologist, in the 1890's divided the atmosphere into 2 layers, the lower being the troposphere, or 'the sphere of change', and the upper the stratosphere, or 'sphere of layers', separated by the tropopause, or 'end of change'(10 miles up) |
| 1959 DEC |
Thin Air |
Galilei, Galileo |
could not figure out why a water pump could lift water only 33 feet and no more |
| 1959 JUL |
Battle of the Eggheads |
Gauss, Karl Friedrich |
(1777-1855) German mathematician & astronomer; considered one of the three or four greatest mathematicians of history |
| 1959 JUL |
Battle of the Eggheads |
Cicero, Marcus Tullius |
(106-43 B.C.) Roman statesman, orator & writer; considered the greatest of Roman orators & writers |
| 1959 JUN |
Planet of the Double Sun, The |
Henderson, Thomas |
British astronomer; in 1839 measured distance from Earth to Alpha Centauri (4 light years) |
| 1959 JUN |
Planet of the Double Sun, The |
Struve, Friedrich Wilhelm |
(1793-1864) German-born Russian astronomer; in 1839 measured distance from Earth to Vega (27 light years) |
| 1959 JUN |
Planet of the Double Sun, The |
Bessel, Friedrich Wilhelm |
(1784-1846) German astronomer; in 1839 measured the distance from Earth to 61 Cygni (11 light years), the first to measure the distance of a star |
| 1959 JUN |
Planet of the Double Sun, The |
Aristarchos of Samos |
(c.320-c.250 B.C.) Greek astronomer; about 280 B.C. originated the heliocentric system |
| 1959 JUN |
Planet of the Double Sun, The |
Hipparchos of Nicaea |
(c.190-c.125 B.C.) Greek astronomer; about 150 B.C. worked out the mathematics of the geocentric system |
| 1959 JUN |
Planet of the Double Sun, The |
Ptolemy, Claudius |
(127-151 A.D.) Alexandrian astronomer, mathematician & geographer; about 150 A.D., further worked out the geocentric system so that it is known today as the Ptolemaic system |
| 1959 NOV |
C for Celeritas |
Einstein, Albert |
(1879-1955) in 1905 he formulated his special theory of relativity, which has his equation, e=mc²; Asimov goes on at length discussing this equation, its uses, and especially, on the units that are involved |
| 1959 OCT |
Height of Up, The |
Maxwell, James Clerk |
(1831-1879) Scottish physicist & mathematician, in 1860 worked out equations(Maxwell's Equations) which expressed the energy distribution of gas molecules at any temp. & gave means of calculating the average kinetic energy |
| 1959 OCT |
Height of Up, The |
Réaumur, René Antoine Ferchault de |
(1683-1757) French physicist, metallurgist, & entomologist; prior to Celsius' work, came up with his own scale("º R"), on which 0 is the freezing point of water, & 80 is the boiling point of water; still in use in portions of Central Europe |
| 1959 OCT |
Height of Up, The |
Galilei, Galileo |
(1564-1642) in 1603, he was the first to try to measure the temperature, though the results were skewed by the effects of changing air pressures |
| 1959 OCT |
Height of Up, The |
Ferdinand II, Grand Duke of Tuscany |
by 1654, he had evolved a thermometer which was independent of air pressure, the first reasonably accurate thermometer |
| 1959 OCT |
Height of Up, The |
Newton, Isaac |
in 1701, he suggested marking off the thermometer tube at intervals, with 0 being the temperature of melting ice, and 12 being body temperature(a duodecimal system similar to the 12-inch foot, 12 units to a dozen, 12 shillings to the pound) |
| 1959 OCT |
Height of Up, The |
Fahrenheit, Gabriel Daniel |
(1686-1736) German physicist, in 1714 used mercury in place of water or alcohol in thermometer, & devised the temperature scale("º F") named after him(coldest temp. in his lab - ice & salt - at 0, melting ice at 32, body temp. at 96) |
| 1959 OCT |
Height of Up, The |
Celsius, Anders |
(1701-1744) Swedish astronomer, in 1742 devised the centigrade temperature scale("º C"), with 0 being the freezing point of water, & 100 being the boiling point of water |
| 1959 OCT |
Height of Up, The |
Charles, Jacques Alexandre César |
in 1787 formulated what would be called Charles's Law, that as a gas cools or is heated, its volume contracts or expands 1/273 of its volume per ºC; later to be found slightly in error |
| 1959 OCT |
Height of Up, The |
Thomson, William (aka Lord or Baron Kelvin) |
(1824-1907) in 1848 suggested that the kinetic energy of molecules be used in a absolute temp. scale(Kelvin scale, º K), with absolute zero is 0, freezing point of water is 273.12, & 372.12 is the boiling point of water |
| 1959 SEP |
Varieties of the Infinite |
Cantor, Georg |
(1845-1918) Russian-born German mathematician; about 1895, he worked out the arithmetic of infinity, & set up a whole series of different varieties of endlessness, which he called transfinite numbers |
| 1959 SEP |
Varieties of the Infinite |
Freund, John E. |
author of A Modern Introduction to Mathematics(1956) |
| 1959 SEP |
Varieties of the Infinite |
Day, Donald |
(1909-1978) editor of Index to the Science Fiction Magazines, 1926-1950(1952) |
