Important historic dates in science

September 30: First nuclear submarine
In 1954, the world's first nuclear submarine, the "USS Nautilus," was commissioned at Groton, Conn. Its nuclear reactor eliminated the diesel engines which had limited a sub’s range and speed. The nuclear reactor also eliminated the need for diesel fuel storage spaces and the need to surface periodically to recharge batteries. Nautilus could dive longer, faster, and deeper than any submarine before it. It was lauched 17 Jan 1954. Crew: 11 officers, 100 enlisted. Length: 319 feet, beam (hull diameter): 27 feet. Maximum depth: 400+ feet. Nautilus continued to break records in 1958 by becoming the first vessel to travel under the Arctic ice and cross the North Pole. Decommissioned in 1980, the sub was converted into a museum in 1985.

September 29: Enrico Fermi
(Born September 29, 1901: Died November 29, 1954)
Italian-born American physicist who was one of the chief architects of the nuclear age. He developed the mathematical statistics required to clarify a large class of subatomic phenomena, discovered neutron-induced radioactivity, and directed the first controlled chain reaction involving nuclear fission.

September 28: William Harrison Bennett
(Born June 13, 1903: Died September 28, 1987)
American physicist who discovered (1934) the pinch effect, an electromagnetic process that may offer a way to magnetically confine a plasma at temperatures high enough for controlled nuclear fusion reactions to occur. He proposed (1936) the tandem Van de Graaff accelerator, which later became widely used in nuclear research. He invented a radio-frequency mass spectrometer, developed in 1950. Since it required no heavy magnet, it was the first launched into space to measure the masses of atoms. Sputnik III carried the first R-F mass spectrometer into space. It was the only space instrument used by the Russians and credited to an American inventor in their own Russian-language publications.

September 27: William Hume-Rothery
(Born May 15, 1899: Died September 27, 1968)
British metallurgist, internationally known for his work on the formation of alloys and intermetallic compounds. During WW II, he supervised many government contracts for work on complex aluminium and magnesium alloys. He established that the microstructure of an alloy depends on the different sizes of the component atoms, the valency electron concentration, and electrochemical differences.

September 26: Harrison S.Brown
(Born September 26, 1917: Died December 8, 1986)
Harrison (Scott) Brown was an American geochemist known for his role in isolating plutonium for its use in the first atomic bombs and for his studies regarding meteorites and the Earth's origin. He was one of 67 concerned Manhattan Project scientists at Oak Ridge to sign a July 1945 petition to the President, which said, in part, "...Therefore we recommend that before this weapon be used without restriction in the present conflict, its powers should be adequately described and demonstrated, and the Japanese nation should be given the opportunity to consider the consequences of further refusal to surrender." His later studies included mass spectroscopy, thermal diffusion, fluorine and plutonium chemistry, geochemistry and planetary structure.

September 25: Thomas Chrowder Chamberlain
(Born September 25, 1843: Died November 15, 1928)
U.S. geologist and educator, born in Mattoon, Illinois, known for his "planetesimal hypothesis". With Forest Ray Moulton in 1904, he proposed that the solar system formed after gas flares were ripped from the sun by the gravitational field of a passing star. The flares then condensed into "planetesimals," arrayed in a spiral extending from the sun, gradually accumulated material and became the planets we know today. From 1876, he was Wisconsin Geological Survey's chief geologist, moving to head the glacier division of the U.S. Geological Survey (1881). He was president of the University of Wisconsin (1887-92), and then for 26 years he was head of its geology department of the University of Chicago. He founded The Journal of Geology.

September 24: Hans Geiger
(Born September 30, 1882: Died September 24, 1945)
Hans (Wilhelm) Geiger was a German physicist who introduced the Geiger counter, the first successful detector of individual alpha particles and other ionizing radiations. After earning his Ph.D. at the University of Erlangen in 1906, he collaborated at the University of Manchester with Ernest Rutherford. He used the first version of his particle counter, and other detectors, in experiments that led to the identification of the alpha particle as the nucleus of the helium atom and to Rutherford's statement (1912) that the nucleus occupies a very small volume in the atom. Geiger returned to Germany in 1912 and continued to investigate cosmic rays, artificial radioactivity, and nuclear fission.

September 23: Truman announces Soviet A-bomb
In 1949, President Truman shocked America with a terse announcement: "We have evidence that within recent weeks an atomic explosion occurred in the USSR." The alarm stimulated activity in scientific and political circles, and an arms race was the clear response when on January 31,1950 President Harry S. Truman announced a program to develop the American hydrogen bomb. "I have directed ... work on all forms of atomic weapons, including the so called hydrogen or superbomb. Like all other work in the field of atomic weapons, it is ... consistent with the overall objectives of our program for peace and security ... until a satisfactory plan for international control of atomic energy is achieved."

September 22: Otto Robert Frisch
(Born October 1, 1904: Died September 22, 1979)
Austrian-British nuclear physicist, born in Vienna, who, with his aunt Lise Meitner, described the division of neutron-bombarded uranium into lighter elements. He named the process fission, borrowing a term from biology (1939). At the time, Meitner was working in Stockholm and Frisch (1934-39) at Copenhagen under Niels Bohr, who brought their observation to the attention of Albert Einstein and others in the United States. He did research with James Chadwick 1940-43, and was head of the Critical Assembly Group on the Los Alamos project 1943-46. After World War II, Frisch became a science writer on atomic physics for the layman.

September 21: Donald A. Glaser
(Born September 21, 1926)
American physicist, winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1960 for his invention of the bubble chamber, used to observe the behaviour of subatomic particles. Particle tracks in Glaser's chamber are composed of small gas bubbles in a heated liquid. Rapid pressure reduction, say, by a piston, causes a tendency to boil. If maintained in a superheated, unstable state without boiling, the slightest disturbance in the liquid, gives rise to an instantaneous boiling. Glaser's idea was that an atomic particle passing through the liquid would be able to provoke boiling by means of the ions which the atomic particle produces along its path and which act as bubble-development centers. A flash picture records the particle's path.

September 20: Giovanni Battista Donati
(Born December 16, 1826: Died September 20, 1873)
Italian astronomer who, on Aug. 5, 1864, was first to observe the spectrum of a comet (Comet 1864 II). This observation indicated correctly that comet tails contain luminous gas and do not shine merely by reflected sunlight.

September 19: First US underground nuclear test
In 1957, the United States conducted its first underground nuclear test, in the Nevada desert, at Area 12 of the Nevada Test Site. The Atomic Energy Commission's (AEC) first fully contained underground nuclear detonation named the Rainier event, detonated in a horizontal tunnel, about 47 meters (1600 feet) into the mesa and 274 meters (900 feet) beneath the top of the mesa.

September 18: Sir John Cockcroft
(Born May 27, 1897: Died September 18, 1967)
British physicist, joint winner (with Ernest T.S. Walton of Ireland) of the 1951 Nobel Prize for Physics for pioneering the use of particle accelerators in studying the atomic nucleus. Together, in 1929, they devised an accelerator that generated large numbers of particles at lower energies. The Cockcroft-Walton generator they built was the first atom-smasher. In 1932, they used it to disintegrate lithium atoms by bombarding them with protons - the first artificial nuclear reaction not utilizing radioactive substances. This type of accelerator proved to be one of the most useful in the world's laboratories. They conducted further research on the splitting of other atoms and established the importance of accelerators as a tool for nuclear research.

September 17: Oswald Garrison Villard Jr.
(Born September 17, 1916: Died January 7, 2004)
American electronics engineer who developed over-the-horizon radar (a way to detect objects out of direct sight by bouncing radar off the ionosphere, an electrically charged layer in the upper atmosphere) so radar could peer around the Earth's curvature to detect aircraft and missiles thousands of miles away. His interest in electricity began with a copy of Harper's Electricity Book for Boys. At age 12, he put together a radio from a kit. During WW II, he researched countermeasures to protect Allied forces against enemy radio and radar devices. He made pioneering studies of radar jamming.

September 16: Solar eclipse
In 1662, the first recorded astronomical observation of the first Astronomer Royal was John Flamsteed's observation of a solar eclipse from his home in Derby at the age of sixteen, about which he corresponded with other astronomers. Flamsteed's interest in astronomy was stirred by the solar eclipse, and besides reading all he could find on the subject he attempted to make his own measuring instruments.

September 15: Cosmic radiation
In 1910, cosmic radiation was the subject of a paper published in Physikalische Zeitchrift by Theodor Wulf, a priest and amateur physicist. He reported the result of four days of observations he made the previous Spring from the top of the Eiffel Tower. He suggested that Earth was under constant bombardment from radiation from outer space, from sources other than the sun.

September 14: Karl Taylor Compton
(Born September 14, 1887: Died June 22, 1954)
American educator and physicist who directed development of radar during WW II. His research included the passage of photoelectrons through metals, ionization and the motion of electrons in gases, fluorescence, the theory of the electric arc, and collisions of electrons and atoms. In 1933, President Roosevelt asked him to chair the new Scientific Advisory Board. When the National Defense Research Committee was formed in 1940, he was chief of Division D (detection: radar, fire control, etc.) In 1941, he was in charge of those divisions concerned with radar within the new Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD). Afterwards he was cited for personally shortening the duration of the war. (Brother of Arthur H. Compton.)

September 13: Horace Welcome Babcock
(Born September 13, 1912: Died August 29, 2003)
American astronomer, who with his father, Harold Babcock, was first to measure the distribution of magnetic fields over the solar surface. Horace invented and built many astronomical instruments, including a ruling engine which produced excellent diffraction gratings, the solar magnetograph, and microphotometers, automatic guiders, and exposure meters for the 100 and 200-inch telescopes. By combining his polarizing analyzer with the spectrograph he discovered magnetic fields in other stars. He developed important models of sunspots and their magnetism, and was the first to propose adaptive optics (1953).

September 12: Irène Joliot-Curie
(Born September 12, 1897: Died March 17, 1956)
French physical chemist, wife of Frédéric Joliot-Curie, who were jointly awarded the 1935 Nobel Prize for their discovery of artificially produced radioactive elements. She was the daughter of Nobel Prize winners Pierre and Marie Curie.

September 11: Radiosotopes exported
In 1947, radioactive isotopes produced from phosphorus-31, arrived at Canberra, Australia, being the first export of radioisotopes from the U.S. They were to be used in Australia's X-ray and medical laboratory. Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tenn., produced the isotopes as a by-product of the chain reaction in a uranium pile. They travelled by airplane via San Francisco, California.

September 10: Arthur Holly Compton
(Born September 10, 1892: Died March 15, 1962)
American physicist and engineer. He was a joint winner, with C.T.R. Wilson of England, of the Nobel Prize for Physics (1927) for his discovery and explanation of the change in the wavelength of X rays when they collide with electrons in metals. This so-called Compton effect is caused by the transfer of energy from a photon to a single electron, then a quantum of radiation is re-emitted in a definite direction by the electron, which in so doing must recoil in a direction forming an acute angle with that of the incident radiation. During WW II, in 1941, he was appointed Chairman of the National Academy of Sciences Committee to Evaluate Use of Atomic Energy in War, assisting in the development of the atomic bomb. [Image: Compton (left) with his assistant Richard L. Doan, 1936.]

September 9: Edward Teller
(Born January 15, 1908: Died September 9, 2003)
Hungarian-born American nuclear physicist who participated in the production of the first atomic bomb (1945) and who led the development of the world's first thermonuclear weapon, the hydrogen bomb. After studying in Germany he left in 1933, going first to London and then to Washington, DC. He worked on the first atomic reactor, and later working on the first fission bombs during WW II at Los Alamos. Subsequently, he made a significant contribution to the development of the fusion bomb. His work led to the detonation of the first hydrogen bomb (1952). He is sometimes known as "the father of the H-bomb." Teller's unfavourable evidence in the Robert Oppenheimer security-clearance hearing lost him some respect amongst scientists.

September 8: Hideki Yukawa
(Born January 23, 1907: Died September 8, 1981)
Japanese physicist who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1949 for research in the theory of elementary particles. In 1935, he published a paper entitled On the Interaction of Elementary Particles. I* in which he proposed a new field theory of nuclear forces and predicted the existence of the previously unknown meson. Mesons are particles heavier than electrons but lighter thanprotons. Encouraged by the discovery by American physicists of one type of meson in cosmic rays, in 1937, he devoted himself to the development of the meson theory, on the basis of his original idea. Since 1947 he worked mainly on the general theory of elementary particles in connection with the concept of the "non-local" field. *Proc.Phys.-Math.

September 7: James Alfred Van Allen
(Born September 7, 1914)
American physicist whose discovery of the Van Allen radiation belts, two zones of radiation encircling the Earth, brought about new understanding of cosmic radiation and its effects upon the Earth.

September 6: Atomic electricity generator
In 1954, ground breaking took place at Shippingport, Pennsylvania, for the first U.S. full-scale atomic electricity generating station devoted exclusively to peaceful uses. Televised from Denver, Colorado, President Eisenhower remotely signalled a radio-controlled bulldozer. On 2 Dec 1957, the reactor reached critical power. It produced its full rated net capacity of 60 megawatts about 3 weeks later on 23 Dec. This would be sufficient to supply a city of 250,000 homes. The plant consisted of a single pressurized water-type reactor which heated steam to drive an electrical turbine-generator. The plant was formally dedicated by the same president on 25 May 1958, by remote control from Washington, D.C. It operated until 1982.

September 5: Ludwig EDuard Boltzmann
(Born February 20, 1844: Died September 5, 1906)
Physicist who founded statistical mechanics, a mathematical study of the second law of thermodynamics, which explains and predicts how the properties of atoms (such as mass, charge, and structure) determine the visible properties of matter (such as viscosity, thermal conductivity, and diffusion). He also worked out a kinetic theory of gases, and the Stefan-Boltzmann law concerning a relationship between the temperature of a body and the radiation it emits. His firm belief and defense of atomism (that all matter is made of atoms) against hostile opposition to this new idea, may have contributed to his suicide in 1906.

September 4: Dalton's atomic symbols
In 1803, John Dalton recorded in his notebook "Observations on the Ultimate Particles of Bodies and their Combinations," in which his atomic symbols were introduced and which he continued to use.

September 3: Carl David Anderson
(Born September 3, 1905: Died January 11, 1991)
American physicist who, with Victor Francis Hess of Austria, won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1936 for his discovery of the positron, or positive electron, the first known particle of antimatter. He examined the photographs of cosmic rays taken as they passed through a Wilson cloud chamber in a strong magnetic field. Besides the curved paths of negative electrons, he found also paths deviating in the opposite direction, corresponding to positively charged particles - yet having the the same mass as an electron! Previously, Dirac had predicted such particles by theoretical solution to electromagnetic field equations. Anderson has now found the existance of positron.

September 2: Frederick Soddy
(Born September 2, 1877: Died September 22, 1956)
English chemist and physicist who received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1921 for investigating radioactive substances. He suggested that different elements produced in different radioactive transformations were capable of occupying the same place on the Periodic Table, and on February 18, 1913 he named such species "isotopes" from Greek words meaning "same place." He is credited, along with others, with the discovery of the element protactinium in 1917.

September 1: Atomic testing resumed
In 1961, the Soviet Union ended a moratorium on atomic bomb testing with an above-ground nuclear explosion in central Asia. The USSR had ended speculation the day before in a TASS broadcast that announced it had resumed atomic testing, and by September 5th, had conducted three nuclear weapons tests. President Kennedy ordered the resumption of U.S. underground weapons testing. The U.S. response began on September 15, 1961 with a series of nine low yield underground experiments at Yucca Flat with a further 62 tests there in 1962. The Soviet Union activity extended to a series of 50 detonations. On August 5, 1963 the Limited Test Ban Treaty was signed in Moscow prohibiting testing in outer space, underwater or in the atmosphere.

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