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April 18 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 18 in Physics History - Births – Physicists born on April 18

H.L. Callendar (18 Apr 186 - 21 Jan 1930)

He was an English physicist who published the first-ever steam table in 1915. He was known for his work in thermometry, calorimetry, and the thermodynamic properties of steam. He also invented the platinum residence thermometer used in the electrical resistivity of platinum, radio balance, and rolling chart thermometer.

Maurice Goldhaber (18 Apr 1911 -11 May 2011)

He was an Austrian American physicist who devised an experiment to show that neutrinos always rotate in the only counterclockwise direction. His method did not involve the use of an accelerator instead he used simple and elegant apparatus. He oversaw experiments at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York which led to 3 Nobel Prizes. He also discovered that the nucleus of the deuterium atom consists of a proton and a Neutron.

April 18 in Physics History - Deaths – Physicists died on April 18

Albert Einstein (14 Mar 1879 - 18 Apr 1955)

He was a German-American physicist who developed the social and general theories of relativity and won the Noble Prize for physics for his explanation of the photoelectric effect in 1921. Einstein advanced a series of theories that proposed entirely new ways of thinking about space, time, and gravitation. His theory of relativity and gravitation revolutionized scientific and philosophic inquiry. Einstein died in April 1955 from an abdominal aortic aneurysm. He has requested that his body be cremated but in a bizarre incident, pathologist Thomas Harvey removed his brain during his autopsy and kept it to study and unlock the secret of this genius. After Einstein’s son’s approval, he cut his brains into pieces, and a handful of studies have been conducted on it since the 1980s.

John Ambrose Fleming (29 Nov 1849 - 18 Apr 1945)

He was an English electrical engineer who coined the name for the diode which he invented. It acted only as a rectifier as it was a vacuum tube with two electrodes in which the electrons flowed from filament to anode only. It means that the current was being restricted to flow in only one direction. For an AC, only the positive half of the waves were passed rectifying from AC to DC. It was used in the telecommunication industry.

Édouard Roche (17 Oct 1820 - 18 Apr 1883)

He was a French mathematical astronomer who was the first to propose a model of the earth with a solid core. He determined the Roche Limit for satellites that says smaller bodies could not lie within 2.44 radii of the larger body without breaking apart from the effect of the gravitational force between them. He studied the internal structure of celestial bodies and later he showed the instability of a rapidly rotating lens-shaped body.

April 17 - Events – Physics Events of April 17

No Physics Events Happened On This Day

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.