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April 14 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!

April 14 in Physics History - Births – Physicists born on April 14

Harold Stephen Black (14 Apr 1898 -11 Dec 1983)

American electrical engineer who gave the negative feedback principle in amplifiers. This principle was based on the amplification which was fed back into the output that produced nearly distortionless and steady amplification. He joined the forerunner of bell labs in 1921 and worked on the elimination of distortion. Accept mainly involved feeding systems output back to the input. Nowadays this principle has found widespread applications in electronics.

Christiaan Huygens (14 Apr 1629 - 8 Jul 1695)

He was a Dutch physicist and astronomer who discovered the true shape of the rings of Saturn and founded the wave theory of light. He discovered the first moon of Saturn platinum Titan on 25 March 1655. Discovery used a lens ground for himself. The first pendulum clock was patented by him in 1656. He also studied and made the first map of Mars and on 14 January 2005 NASA launch the space probe that was named after Huygens that landed on Titan.

April 14 in Physics History - Deaths – Physicists died on April 14

Henri Giffard (8 Feb 1825 - 14 Apr 1882)

He was a French engineer who built the first airship and he traveled in it from Paris to Trappes at the speed of 8kmph. His idea of injector for feeding water into the boiler of steam locomotive earned him the Academie des sciences prize for mechanics. The balloon was cigar-shaped with a one-cylinder steam engine and it was lightweight. Later years, he constructed large tethered hydrogen balloons out of which, one balloon carried 52 passengers at the Paris Exposition 1878. Sadly he died by suicide after becoming blind and he left much money in his well for humanitarian and scientific purposes.

April 14 in Physics History - Events – Physics Events of April 14

Atom Split By A Proton Beam

A proton beam split the atom in 1932 on a lithium target. It was carried out in the first nuclear particle accelerator which was developed by Sir John Douglas Cockcroft and Irishman Ernest Walton. The event shared the Nobel Prize for this discovery in 1951. Walton was the one who first split the atom.

Telescope Term

Prince Frederick Ko Kaisi used the word telescope in public at a banquet held by the pioneer scientific society in 1611. This event was held to honor Galileo Galilei after he showed the guests the satellite of Jupiter, other celestial marbles, and an inscription on a building 3 miles away. It is said that even though the name was announced by Casi to Christian Galileo’s instrument, the word telescope originated in Greek.

April 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!

April 12 in Physics History - Births – Physicists born on April 12

Edward Walter Maunder (12 Apr 1851 - 21 Mar 1928)

He was an English astronomer who first started the British Civil Services Commission examination for the post of photographic and spectroscopic assistant at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich. He worked at the observatory for the next forty years measuring the sunspots and checking historic records. He found a lack of reports on sunspots from 1645 to 1715. Instead of questioning this, he started researching and found that there are indeed decades-long times when the sun has very few sunspots. Now we call these periods as Maunder minima.

Ferdinand von Lindemann (12 Apr 1852 - 6 Mar 1939)

He was a German mathematician who proved that π is not a solution to any algebraic equation with a rational coefficient. This explained the insoluble natural or classical Greek mathematical problem of constructing a square with the same area as a given circle using a ruler and compasses alone. He discussed Hermite’s methods that he used to prove that ‘e’ is transcendental. He extended Hermite’s results in 1882 to show that π was also transcendental.

April 12 in Physics History - Deaths – Physicists died on April 12

Charles Messier (26 Jun 1730 - 12 Apr 1817)

He was a French astronomer who first compiled a systematic catalog of “M objects” and discovered 15 comets. His catalog contained nebulae, 103-star clusters, and galaxies. He concluded the alphanumeric names for objects like M1, M2, etc.

Geoffrey F. Chew (5 Jun 1924 - 12 Apr 2019)

He was an American physicist who led the group of S-matrix theorists researching the strong interaction and the bootstrap principle. He was a graduate student of Enrico Fermi. His group calculated the interactions of bound-states without assuming that there is a point-particle field theory underneath.

Igor Tamm (8 Jul 1895 - 12 Apr 1971)

He was a Soviet physicist who shared the Noble Prize with Pavel A  Cherenkov, and Ilya M. Frank for physics for his works in explaining Cherenkov radiation. He developed the theoretical interpretation of the Cherenkov effect which states that the radiation of electrons moves faster than the speed of light through matter. He also developed a method for studying the interaction of nuclear particles and contributed towards the methods for the control of thermonuclear reactions.

April 12 in Physics History - Events – Physics Events of April 12

First Man To Orbit The Earth

On this day, Yuri Gagarin became the first man to orbit the Earth in 1961. The control of the spacecraft was locked to prevent him from taking control of the ship. It had a radio, television, and life-supporting equipment. He ejected and made a planned descent landing with his parachute but the Soviet Union denied this to save its reputation. After 7 years, he died in a plane crash.

The First Yo-Yo Toy In Space

The first yo-yo toy was taken into space in the Space Shuttle Discovery mission 51-D in 1985. With this yellow plastic Duncan Imperial yo-yo, other toys were exhibited during a time in orbit. Astronauts did the tricks with toys but the yo-yo sleeper trick couldn’t work without normal gravity. While spinning, the gyroscope showed exceptional stability. The flywheel slowed without normal gravity.

Space Shuttle Columbia Was Launched

Columbia, the American Space Shuttle was launched into space in 1981. John W. Young was the mission commander.