Her work on galactic rotation curves became one of the main pieces of evidence for the existence of dark matter, and she deserved a Nobel Prize for it.
Image: Vassar College / Emilio Segrè Visual Archives
Today, 15 years ago #OTD the person or group with the fictive name of “Satoshi Nakamoto” created the first cryptocurrency named Bitcoin with the thought of it becoming a secure and fast alternative to fiat currency.
Now it's known as the most wasteful use of electricity, inefficient and limiting capability/functionality, as well as being among the most insecure and de-anonymizing ways to transfer money.
However, what Satoshi Nakamoto probably hasn't expected is how many scam-currencies would come after theirs, and how their invention would create a new breed of the most annoying people known to our species: crypto-bros.
Albert Einstein introduced special relativity in the paper "On The Electrodynamics Of Moving Bodies," published #OTD in 1905 in the journal Annalen der Physik.
Physicist Steven Weinberg was born #OTD in 1933. His 1967 paper "A Model of Leptons" presented a unified theory of the electromagnetic and weak nuclear interactions, and is the most cited paper in particle physics.
Besides his groundbreaking work in particle physics, Weinberg is known for contributions to cosmology and astrophysics, as well as numerous textbooks and popular works.
Mathematician, computer scientist, and WWII code breaker Alan Turing, who established the theoretical foundation for just about every modern computing device, was born #OTD in 1912. His work helped make it possible for you to read this.
The British government prosecuted him for being gay, a monstrous act that eventually led to Turing’s death by suicide. Then they waited over 60 years before issuing a pardon.
Hermann Minkowski addressed the 80th Assembly of German Natural Scientists and Physicians #OTD in 1908, offering a radical four-dimensional reformulation of Einstein's theory of special relativity.
Max Planck presented work on blackbody radiation to the German Physical Society #OTD in 1900. His novel “quantum hypothesis” suggested that matter emits and absorbs light with frequency f only in discrete chunks of energy E=hf.
Astrophysicist Jocelyn Bell Burnell was born #OTD in 1943. As a grad student at Cambridge in 1967, she discovered an entirely new type of celestial object: Pulsars!
Photo: National Science & Media Museum / Science & Society Picture Library
President Carter added water-heating solar panels to the White House #OTD in 1979, to demonstrate an ambitious long term commitment to renewable energy.
President Reagan, who was vehemently opposed to renewable energy, would later order their removal.
The panels weren't removed until 1986, though some of the sources I've seen claim that he ordered the removal as early as 1981. Whatever the timeline, Reagan proposed a budget that reduced Federal funding for renewable energy research by 85%.
Physicist John Archibald Wheeler was born #OTD in 1911.
A titan of 20th century science, Wheeler introduced the S-Matrix; developed the first general theory of fission with Neils Bohr; coined many terms (”worm hole” and “it from bit”) and popularized others (“black hole”); and trained Feynman, Everett, Thorne, and a host of others.
Le 11 décembre 1954 est né Jermaine Jackson, membre avec ses frères Jackie, Tito, Marion et Michael du groupe musical familial "The Jackson 5" (puis "The Jacksons"). Le groupe sera le premier à placer ses quatres premiers singles N°1 consécutifs du Billboard Hot 100 aux USA : "I want you back", "ABC", "The love you save" et "I'll be there".
Physicist and chemist Richard Chace Tolman was born #OTD in 1881. He showed that electricity in metal is the flow of electrons, developed relativistic applications of thermodynamics, and served as science advisor to General Leslie Groves during WWII.
The Voyager 1 space probe was launched from Cape Canaveral #OTD in 1977, a few weeks after Voyager 2.
Now it's the most distant human-made object – about 14.96 billion miles from Earth, racing away from us at 38,000 miles per hour with respect to the Sun.
“There is no joy more intense than that of coming upon a fact that cannot be understood in terms of currently accepted ideas."
Astronomer Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin was born #OTD in 1900. She used quantum mechanics to decode the spectral lines of stars and deduce their elemental composition, concluding they are mostly H and He, and was the first woman to be made full professor and department chair at Harvard.
#OTD ten years ago – the launch of our amazing Gaia mission from Kourou 🚀
It has been mapping the positions, distances, & motions of two billion Milky Way stars & extragalactic objects since, revolutionising astrophysics ✨
I watched the launch with ESA's Director for Human Spaceflight & Operations, Thomas Reiter, & Head of Mission Operations, Paolo Ferri, at the VIP & media event at our European Operations Centre, ESOC, in Darmstadt: my job was to explain the mission science.
Stephen Hawking was born #OTD in 1942. He developed theorems with Penrose that determine when general relativity produces singularities, established classical laws of black hole mechanics, and hypothesized that quantum effects make black holes radiate.
Gentileschi is considered among the most accomplished seventeenth-century artists, initially working in the style of Caravaggio. She was producing professional work by the age of 15. via @wikipedia
Physicist and mathematician Isaac Newton was born #OTD in 1643.
Newton revolutionized our understanding of mathematics, mechanics, gravity, and optics. Later in life he served as warden of the Royal Mint, reforming currency and foiling counterfeiters.
Portrait: Barrington Bramley, after Godfrey Kneller
William Thomson, the Lord Kelvin, was born #OTD in 1824.
With Faraday, he introduced the idea of fields into electromagnetism, laying a foundation for Maxwell's work. Later, he would devise much of the theory and supporting technology for the first transatlantic telegraph cable.
He is largely responsible for the formulation of thermodynamics that emerged in the mid-1800s, including both the First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics.
Physicist Maria Goeppert Mayer was born #OTD in 1906. She developed the nuclear shell model of the nucleus, for which she was awarded the 1963 Nobel Prize in Physics.
Physicist David Bohm, who developed a non-local formulation of quantum mechanics that he hoped would evade some of the conceptually thorny aspects of the Copenhagen Interpretation, and would later inspire the work of John Bell, was born #OTD in 1917.