March 12 in Physics History
Physics history will help you to develop a better understanding of the physics world!
birthdays & deaths
Explore all birthdays & deaths of physicists occurred on this day with their short biography!
physics Events
Know all important discoveries made by physicists & events happened on this day with complete information!
March 12 in Physics History - Births – Physicists born on March 12
Gustav Robert Kirchhoff (12 Mar 1824 - 17 Oct 1887)
He was a German physicist who established the theory of spectrum analysis with Robert Bunsen. He found that when light passes through a gas, the gas absorbs those wavelengths that it would emit if heated, which explained the numerous dark lines in the Sun’s spectrum. In Kirchhoff’s laws, he generalized the equations describing current flow in three dimensions, currents, voltages, and resistances of electrical networks.
Wally Schirra (12 Mar 1923 - 3 May 2007)
He was an American astronaut and pilot who was the only astronaut to fly Gemini, Mercury, and Apollo mission. He studied aeronautical engineering and became a Naval aviator. He was one of the seven men NASA named as the original Mercury astronauts for one-man missions. He made six orbits in a little over 9 hours in the Earth orbit space flight. He took off again as commander pilot in Gemini 6 on 15 Dec 1965. He launched on 11 Oct 1968 as commander of Apollo 7 for about 11 days.
John Theophilus Desaguliers (12 Mar 1683 - 29 Feb 1744)
He was a French-English chaplain and physicist who studies at Oxford and became an experimental assistant to Sir Isaac Newton. His experimental lectures in mechanical philosophy and electricity attracted a wide audience, as a curator at the Royal Society. He was the one who coined the terms conductor and insulator. He also made the invention of his own, such as a planetarium and improvements to machines. He was a prolific author and translator.
Leo Esaki (Born on 12 Mar 1925)
He is a Japanese physicist who shared the Noble prize in physics for his work in electron tunneling in solids in 1973. Tunneling is a quantum mechanical effect in which an electron passes through a potential barrier even though classical theory predicted that it could not. His discovery led to the creation of the Esaki diode which is an important component of solid-state physics.
March 12 in Physics History - Deaths – Physicists died on March 12
Sir William Bragg (2 Jul 1862 - 12 Mar 1942)
He was a British scientist in solid-state physics who was a joint winner of the Noble Prize for physics for research on the determination of crystal structures in 1915. During WW I, he was appointed as an incharge of research on the detection and measurement of underwater sounds in connection with the location of submarines. He also constructed the wavelengths of X-rays. He was knighted in 1920.
Johann Jakob Balmer (1 May 1825 - 12 Mar 1898)
He was a Swiss mathematician and physicist who discovered a formula basic to the development of atomic theory. His most important work was on spectral series by giving a formula relating the wavelengths of the spectral lines of the hydrogen atom in 1885. Wavelengths are accurately given using h=3,4,5,6.
Michael Idvorsky Pupin (4 Oct 1858 - 12 Mar 1935)
He was a Serbian-American physicist who devised a means of greatly extended the range of long-distance telephone communication by placing loading coils at predetermined intervals along the transmitting wire. He became an instructor in mathematical physics at Columbia University, New York City in 1890. He discovered that atoms struck by X-rays emit secondary X-ray radiation in 1986. Pupin won a Pulitzer Prize in 1924 for his autobiographical work, From Immigrant to Inventor in 1923.
March 12 in Physics History - Events – Physics Events on March 12
The First Motion Picture
The first motion picture, the Phonofilm with the sound-on-film track was demonstrated at a press conference in 1923. It was developed by Dr. Lee De Forest, inventor of the radio tube. The sound was imaged in a narrow margin alongside the picture frames on the film. The DeForest process read a series of light and dark areas on the film itself, using a photocell to convert to audio.
