Week 38

Week 38: Sep. 17 – 23 (Archive)

September 17

  • Peter Cooper Hewitt obtained a U. S. patent for mercury vapor lamp in 1901.

September 18

  • Edwin M. McMillan, born 1907, codiscovered neptunium (Np, 93); in 1940, codiscovered plutonium (Pu, 94); Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1951).

September 19

  • Alexandre M. Butlerov presented first definition and use of term "chemical structure" before Speyer Congress in 1861.

September 20

  • James Dewar, born 1842, showed many common substances phosphoresce at liquid air temperature; codeveloped cordite; in 1892, invented vacuum flask (Dewar flask); first person to liquefy hydrogen (1899).

September 21

  • Louis P. Cailletet, born 1832, researched liquefaction of gases, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, and air.

September 22

  • Michael Faraday, born 1791, discovered electromagnetic induction, specific inductive capacity, Faraday's laws on electrolysis, and rotation of plane-polarized light in magnetic field; liquefied chlorine.
  • First liquid chlorine shipped in U.S. by Electro-Bleaching Gas Company, Niagara Falls, NY, in 1909.

September 23

  • John Sheehan, born 1915, synthesized penicillin-V (1957).
  • Clifford G. Shull, born 1915, researcher in using neutrons to study atomic structure of materials; Nobel Prize in Physics (1994).