April 26 in Physics History
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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 26 in Physics History - Births – Physicists born on April 26
Owen Willans Richardson (26 Apr 1879 - 15 Feb 1959)
He was an English physicist who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics for his discovery of Richardson’s law that relates how the electron emission increases as the absolute temperature of the metal surface is raised. This is why a heated filament in a vacuum tube releases a current of electrons. His research was also on the gyromagnetic effect, photoelectric effect, the emission of electrons by chemical reactions, and the spectrum of hydrogen.
Arno Penzias (Born on 26 Apr 1933)
He is a German American astrophysicist who discovered a faint electromagnetic radiation throughout the universe with Robert Woodrow Wilson. This discovery earned him a share of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1978. Their discovery strongly supported the big bang model of Cosmic evolution.
April 26 in Physics History - Deaths – Physicists died on April 26
Srinivasa Ramanujan (22 Dec 1887 - 26 Apr 1920)
He was an Indian mathematician whose contribution to the field of mathematics is immense. He was a self-taught genius who worked on continued fractions, infinite series, and electrical functions. He also worked notably on hypergeometric series. His extraordinary familiarity with numbers can be shown by some incidents. One of those incidents was in a hospital in England. When his Cambridge professor G.H. Hardy visited him and remarked that he had taken taxi number 1729, Ramanujan immediately responded that this number was quite remarkable. He said that it is the smallest integer that can be represented in two ways by the sum of two cubes: 1729= 1³+12³=9³+10³.
Arnold Sommerfeld (5 Dec 1868 - 26 Apr 1951)
He was a German physicist who significantly contributed to the field of quantum theory and its application to spectral lines and the Bohr atomic model. His atomic model permitted the explanation of fine spectral lines. He first worked on the theory of gyroscope and then on the wave spreading in wireless telegraphy.
Yuval Ne'eman (14 May 1925 - 26 Apr 2006)
He was an Israeli theoretical physicist who in 1961, devised a method of grouping baryons in such a way that they fell into logical families. It is now known as the Eightfold way. He found it the space program of Israel and also served as the head of Israel’s atomic energy commission.
Guillermo Haro (21 Mar 1913 - 26 Apr 1988)
He was a Mexican astronomer who was interested in astronomy while he worked as a newspaper reporter. Because of his interest, he was awarded the staff position at Luis Erro of the Tonantzintla observatory without any formal training. He along with George Herbig discovered the Herbig-Haro objects. These objects are the stars that are much younger than the rest of the stars in the sky and their distinguishing anomalies in the spectra remained unexplained for many years. He was also elected as the first foreign associate of the royal astronomical society in 1959.
April 26 in Physics History - Events – Physics Events of April 26
Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster
In Russia, one of the four reactors of the Chernobyl nuclear plant exploded in 1986. This was the world’s worst civil nuclear catastrophe. A massive cloud of radioactive dust was sent over Europe. The cause of the explosion was an experiment that accidentally went wrong. It was announced two days later. The number of people that were killed during the explosion is 31 and several thousand more those involved in the clean-up. Since then, children have died from radiation-related illnesses. Millions of people have been affected by the disaster in Ukraine and its final shutdown took place on 15 December 2000.
