January
Important dates in History
January
30: Heart
Pacemaker
In 1957,
an external artificial pacemaker with internal heart electrode is first used.
To maintain a patient's heartbeat rhythm an electrode was sewn to the wall of
the heart and connected through the chest to an external desk-top pulse generator.
A team of scientists at the University of Minnesota, led by Dr C. Walton Lillehei,
made this medical advance. However, such bulky equipment was not a good long-term
solution since infection often occurred along the electrode wires, and the device
required no interruption in the house electricity. So Dr. Lillehei also initiated
research on the use of a small portable external pacemaker for these patients
with heart block. This ultimately led to the development of the billion-dollar
pacemaker industry.
January
27: Incandescent
Lamp
In
1880, Thomas Edison received a patent (#223,898) for his electric incandescent
lamp he invented on 21 Nov 1879. Edison's invention of the light bulb had a major
impact on the electronics and computer industries. During the two years of research
it took to develop the bulb, one of Edison's assistants noticed a flow of energy
from one electrode to another in a pattern later known as the Edison effect. Later,
the Edison effect was discovered to be an electron flow, which laid the basis
for the electron tube and thence the entire electronics industry.
January
24: Early
Computer
In 1948, IBM presented its "SSEC" in New York
City. The Selective Sequence Electronic Calculator handled both data and instructions
using electronic circuits made with 13,500 vacuum tubes and 21,000 relays. The
was perhaps the earliest true computer.
January
22:
André-Marie Ampère
(Born January 22, 1775; Died June
10, 1836)
French
mathematician and physicist who founded and named the science of electrodynamics,
now known as electromagnetism. His interests included mathematics, metaphysics,
physics and chemistry. In mathematics he worked on partial differential equations.
Ampère made significant contributions to chemistry. In 1811 he suggested
that an anhydrous acid prepared two years earlier was a compound of hydrogen with
an unknown element, analogous to chlorine, for which he suggested the name fluorine.
He produced a classification of elements in 1816. Ampère also worked on
the wave theory of light. By the early 1820's, Ampère was working on a
combined theory of electricity and magnetism, after hearing about Oersted's experiments.
January
21: British
physicist H.L.Callendar dies
(Born April 18, 1863; Died January
21, 1930)
Hugh Longbourne Callendar was a British physicist who made notable
contributions to thermometry, calorimetry, and knowledge of the thermodynamic
properties of steam. Callendar in 1886 described a precise thermometer based on
the electrical resistivity of platinum; since then, platinum resistance thermometers
have been prescribed for the determination of temperatures between the defined
points of internationally recognized temperature scales. Later he developed the
electrical continuous-flow calorimeter, which measures the heat-carrying properties
of liquids. He also invented the compensated air thermometer (1891), and a radio
balance (1910).
January
21: Inventor
Elisha Gray
(Born August 2, 1835; Died January 21, 1901)
American
scientist and innovator who would have been known to us as the inventor of the
telephone if Alexander Graham bell hadn't got to the patent office before him
earlier that day, resulting in a famous legal battle. He subsequently joined Western
Electric where he designed the telegraph printer, the answer-back call-box of
the A.D.T. System, and the needle annunciator, among other inventions. He also
goes down in history as the accidental creator of the first electronic musical
instrument using his discovery of the basic single note oscillator and design
of a simple loudspeaker device.
January
20: Zenobe-
Theophile Gramm
(Born JApril 4, 1826; Died January 20, 1901
French electrical engineer and inventor (1869) of the Gramme dynamo, a continuous-current
electrical generator that gave principal impetus to the development of electric
power. In 1870 he invented a continuous-current dynamo with a ring armature (a
ring of soft iron around which were placed insulated copper coils). This produced
much higher voltages than other dynamos of the time and was the first high-voltage
direct-current generator practical for mass production and distribution. Driven
by steam-engines, they were immediately successful and were used for a variety
of purposes, including factory lighting, electroplating, and lighthouses. With
these dynamos, the era of large-scale electrical engineering began.
January
17: Friedrich
Wilhelm Georg Kohlrausch
(Born October 14, 1840; Died January 17,
1910)
German physicist who investigated the properties of electrolytes (substances
that conduct electricity in solutions by transfer of ions) and contributed to
the understanding of their behaviour. Some of Kohlrausch's pioneering achievements
include conductivity measurements on electrolytes, his work on the determination
of basic magnetic and electrical quantities, and the enhancement of the associated
measuring technologies. It was under his direction that the "Physikalisch-
Technische Reichsanstalt" (the then Imperial Physical Technical Institute
in Germany) created numerous standards and calibration standards which were also
used internationally outside Germany.
January
16: Van de Graaff inventor dies
Robert Jemison
Van de Graaff: (Born: December 20, 1901; Died: January 16, 1967)
American
physicist and inventor of the Van de Graaff generator, a type of high-voltage
electrostatic generator that serves as a type of particle accelerator. It uses
the principle of electric fields that charges on a dome can leap off at points
where the curvature is great. Thus, a dome of great radius will inhibit the electric
discharge and create stored charge at a high voltage. This device has found widespread
use not only in atomic research but also in medicine and industry.
January
15: In
1907, the three-element vacuum tube was issued a U.S. patent to its inventor,
Dr 
Lee de
Forest as a "device for amplifying feeble electric currents - such, for example,
as telephone currents" (No. 841,387). The tube was evacuated, with some remaining
conducting gas molecules, and it was suggested using for the heated electrode
such material as platinum, tantalum or carbon. He had made a public annoucement
of his device a few months earlier, on 20 Oct 1906 at a meeting of the American
Institute of Electrical Engineers held in New York City. On 18 Feb 1908, he received
another patent for the grid electrode tube (No. 879,532).
January
14: Precursor of the electric telephone inventor,
Johann Phillipp Reis
dies
(Born
January 7, 1834: Died January 14, 1874)
German
physicist who constructed a precursor of the electric telephone. At the age of
27, he constructed a rudimentary transmitter by placing an animal ear membrane
in front of an electrical 
contact.
A galvanic inductor oscillated in the receiver in the same manner as the transmitted
signal. Reis's instrument conveyed certain sounds, poorly, but no more than that;
intelligible speech could not be reproduced. The professors to whom this invention
was presented were not very impressed and this version of the "telephone"
never received any financial support and no patent ensued. Reis' devices were
fragile and clumsy laboratory models, never put to public use.
January
13:
English electrical engineer Sabastian Ziani de Ferranti
dies January 13, 1930
English electrical engineer (born April 9,
1864)who promoted the installation of large electrical generating stations and
alternating current distribution networks in England. He was interested in electrical
and mechanical devices as a youth, and in 1881, began such employment while in
his late teens. In his 20's, he began planning an ambitious generating station
about 8 miles outside London, to use transmission at an unprecedented 10,000 volts
- four times greater than previously practical. For this he began designing suitable
cables, transformers and generators. His idea of making high voltage flexible
cables using wax-impregnated paper for insulation was a landmark development used
exclusively until the advent of synthetic materials. His 176 patents cover varied
inventions.
January
12: In
1886, a patent for an "Electrode for Telephone- Transmitters" was issued
to Thomas Alva Edison (No. 348114). The patent application was dated one year
earlier on 12 Jan 1885.
January
12: Co-founder of Hewlett Packard Company: Died 12 Jan 2001
William
(Redington) Hewlett (born 20 May 1913) was an American electrical engineer who
co-founded the Hewlett-Packard Company, a leading manufacturer computers, computer
printers, and analytic and measuring equipment. In 1939, he formed a partnership
known as Hewlett-Packard Company with David Packard, a friend and Stanford classmate.
(The order of their names was determined by a coin toss.) HP's first product was
an audio oscillator based on a design developed by Hewlett when he was in graduate
school. Eight were sold to Walt Disney for Fantasia. Lesser-known early products
were: bowling alley foul-line indicator, automatic urinal flusher, weight-loss
shock machine. The company's first "plant" was a small garage in Palo
Alto, with $538 initial capital.
January
9: Willis
Rodney Whitney, American chemist: Died January 9, 1958
Willis Rodney Whitney (born August 22, 1868) was a chemist and founder of the
General Electric Company's research laboratory, where he directed pioneering work
in electrical technology and was credited with setting the pattern for industrial
scientific laboratory research in the United States.
January
8:
John W. Mauchly, American Physicist and engineer: Died
January 8, 1980.
Mauchly (born August 30, 1907) was coinventor
in 1946, with John P. Eckert, of the Electronic 
Numerical
Integrator and Computer (ENIAC), the first general-purpose electronic computer.
Mauchly initially conceived of the computer's architecture, and Eckert possessed
the engineering skills to bring the idea to life. ENIAC was developed (1946) for
the US Army Ordnance Department as what was probably the first general-purpose
electronic computer. It was a vast machine, consuming 100 kW of electric power
and containing 18,000 electronic valves. Their successful UNIVAC computer (1951)
was the first commercial computer, and introduced magnetic tape for programming.
January
7: 1943
- Nikola Tesla, Yugoslavian physicist (tesla motor), dies at 86
Serbian-American inventor
and researcher (born 9/10 Jul 1856) who discovered the rotating magnetic field,
the basis of most alternating-current machinery. He emigrated to the United States
in 1884 and sold the patent rights to his system of alternating-current dynamos,
transformers, and motors to George Westinghouse.
Photos
courtsey of Today in Science
