Week 32

Week 32: Aug. 6 – 12 (Archive)

• 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).

• 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.

• 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).

• 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.

• 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).

• 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).

• 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).