On January 3, 1851, French physicist Leon Foucault started to experiment with his eponymous pendulum, by which he was able to proof the earth's rotation. Actually, how can you prove that the earth is a rotating orb in an easy-to-see experiment and - of course - without space flight? By today, Foucault's simple device is part of numerous natural science museums around the world.
On December 22, 1947 John Bardeen, Walter Brattain and William Shockley at ATT's Bell Labs developed the first transistor, the key active component in practically all modern electronics.
On December 20, 1910, New Zealand born physicist Ernest Rutherford made his seminal gold foil experiment which led to first insight about the nature of the inner structure of the atom and to the postulation of Rutherford's concept of the "nucleus", his greatest contribution to physics. Most interestingly, Rutherford made his greatest discovery after receiving the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1908.
On December 5, 1901, German theoretical physicist and Nobel Prize laureate Werner Heisenberg was born, who along with Max Born and Pascual Jordan laid the foundations of quantum mechanics. He is probably best known for his Uncertainty Principle, asserting a fundamental limit to the precision with which certain physical properties can be known.
On December 2, 1942, during the Manhatten Project, a team led by Italian born physicist Enrico Fermi initiated the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction in the Chicago Pile-1 (CP-1), the world's first human-made nuclear reactor, and initiated the so-called atomic age. CP-1 was built on a rackets court, under the abandoned west stands of the original Alonzo Stagg Field stadium, at the University of Chicago.
On November 28, 1967, Jocelyn Bell Burnell and Anthony Hewish discovered the first Pulsar, a fast rotating neutron star that emits a beam of electromagnetic radiation. The radiation of a pulsar can only be observed when the beam of emission is pointing toward the Earth, much the way a lighthouse can only be seen when the light is pointed in the direction of an observer, and is responsible for the pulsed appearance of emission.
On November 22, 1944, British astrophysicist and philosopher Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington passed away. He became famous for his 1919 solar eclipse expedition to Principe, where he conducted astrophysical experiments to give proof for Albert Einstein's seminal theory of general relativity.
On November 8, 1656, Sir Edmond Halley was born. The astronomer, geophysicist, mathematician, meteorologist, and physicist, was best known for computing the orbit of the eponymous Halley's Comet.
On October 11, 1745, German cleric Ewald Georg von Kleist and independently of him Dutch scientist Pieter van Musschenbroek from the city of Leiden, Netherlands, invented a predecessor of today's battery, the Leyden Jar.
On October 10, 1957, the world's first major nuclear accident took place. The Windscale fire happened in Cumbria, U.K. and was Great Britain's worst nuclear accident in history.
On September 22, 1791, the famous chemist and physicist Michael Faraday was born. He is responsible for the discovery of the electromagnetic induction, the laws of electrolysis and best known for his inventions, which laid the foundations to the electrical industry.
On September 4, 1906, German biophysicist and Nobel laureate Max Delbrück was born in Berlin. His best known achievement for that he won the Nobel prize was the discovy that bacteria become resistant to viruses (phages) as a result of genetic mutations.
Sir Fred Hoyle, born in 1915 was a famous astronomer, mathematician, and author. The scientist was the first to coin the term "Big Bang" for the now prevailing theory of the early development of the universe in 1949, even though he happened to be a strong opponent of this theory.
From the invention of a new power source or engine up to a vehicle that applies this power source to move forward sometimes is only a small step. But, to become a commercial success, this step might take even decades. Just think of the oldest type of engine powered by steam.
For sure you do remember that poster from your classroom with all the chemical elements ordered in the so-called periodic table. But, certainly only a few of you will have heard about Henry Moseley and his concept of the atomic numbers.
When in 1952 the world's first thermonuclear fusion bomb was ignited, mathematicians and physicists thought it would be rather unlikely that testing the device might result in burning all the nitrogen in the earth's atmosphere. But, the possibility could not be excluded completely. Nevertheless, they have tested the bomb and fortunately for us not the like did happen. One of the key persons behind the development of the hydrogenic bomb was Stanislaw Ulam, who together with physicist Edward Teller came up with the first successful design.
394 years ago, famous astronomer Johannes Kepler discovered the 3rd and also last of his planetary laws, and concluded the general revolution of our celestial world that started with Nikolaus Kopernikus about 100 years earlier. And that made him rather popular as he still is today. Did you know that there is a Kepler crater on the Moon, a Kepler crater on Mars, a Kepler asteroid, a Kepler supernova, of course there has to be a space mission named after him, even an opera
Today for us it's pretty normal that electricity can be transmitted on a wire, because it's part of our daily life. But, in the early 18th century, when the English nature-scientist Stephen Gray was able to show that electricity really can be transmitted on a string of copper, it was an unheard-of revelation.
Lately, several earthquakes have caused fear and chaos in Italy. Just yesterday, 10 people have lost their lives after the 5.8 quake in Modena and many more are presumably buried underneath the ruins. Earthquakes happen every day around the globe, only this year 7156 quakes have been registered by seismometers, but most of them stay unnoticed for us humans.