Week 32

Week 32: Aug. 6 – 12 (Archive)

August 6

  • William H. Wollaston, born 1766, discovered palladium (Pd, 46) and rhodium (Rh, 45); developed method for making platinum malleable; produced platinum wire 1/10,000 cm in diameter.
  • Alexander Fleming, born 1881, discovered penicillin (1929); Nobel Prize in Medicine (1945).

August 7

  • Arthur Michael, born 1853, developed entropy-based theory of organic reactions known as the Michael addition reaction.
  • George C. Pimentel announced evidence of methane and ammonia detected by Mariner 7 near Mars in 1969.

August 8

  • Benjamin Silliman, born 1779, noted teacher; founder and editor of the American Journal of Science.
  • Ernest O. Lawrence, born 1901, built first cyclotron; Nobel Prize in Physics (1939).
  • Paul A. M. Dirac, born 1902, researched relativistic quantum mechanics including electron spin (Dirac equation); Nobel Prize in Physics (1933).

August 9

  • Amedeo Avogadro, born 1776, theorized number of particles in any gas is always same for equal volumes.
  • Erich A.A.J. Huckel, born 1896, developed the Huckel method of approximate molecular orbital (MO) calculations on pi-electron systems; codeveloped Debye-Huckel theory of electrolytic solutions.

August 10

  • Felix Hoffman produced a stable form of acetylsalicylic acid, aspirin, for use in treatment of arthritis in 1897.
  • Arne W. K. Tiselius, born 1902, conducted research on electrophoresis and absorption analysis; Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1948).

August 11

  • Harold B. Dixon, born 1852, researched explosion of gases and combustion.
  • Erwin Chargaff, born 1905, elucidated base pairing in deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) during research (1950–1953).
  • Aaron Klug, born 1926, developed a crystallographic electron microscopic technique for elucidation of nucleic acid protein complexes; Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1982).

August 12

  • James Muspratt, born 1793, improved methods for manufacturing acids.
  • Erwin Schrödinger, born 1887, researched quantum mechanics; formulated Schrödinger wave equation; Nobel Prize in Physics (1933).