January and February Historical Events In Spectroscopy
by Leopold May, Catholic University
- January 1, 1960 - First issue of Applied Spectroscopy published by the national
Society for Applied Spectroscopy appeared on this date.
- January 2, 1947 - US Atomic Energy took over from wartime Manhattan Engineer
Commission District on this day.
- January 7, 1833 - This is the birthday of Henry E. Roscoe, who was a researcher
on the chemical action of light. He invented the actinometer with Robert Bunsen
in 1856.
- January 12, 1896 - Henry L. Smith took the first x-ray photograph on this
day.
- January 23, 1872 - Paul Langevin, who was born on this day, did research
on x-rays and magnetism.
- January 23, 1929 - John C. Polanyi,
who was born on this day, used infrared chemiluminescence to follow excited
reaction products. He shared the Nobel Prize in 1986 with Dudley R. Herschbach
and Yuan
T. Lee.
- January 24, 1966 - B. B. Cunningham, et al., made the first reported observation
of the absorption spectrum of a compound of einsteinium at University of California,
Berkeley, on this day.
- January 27, 1918 - John Ferraro, a honorary member of SAS, was born on this
date. His research is in infrared spectroscopy and served as President of
SAS in 1965 and Editor-in-Chief of Applied Spectroscopy (1968-1974).
- January 29, 1838 - This is the birthday of Edward Morley who performed ether
drift experiments with Albert A. Mickelson.
- January 31, 1881 - Irving
Langmuir, who introduced gas-filled tungsten lamps and the use of atomic
hydrogen blowpipe for welding, was born on this day. He invented the condensation
pump for producing high vacuum and evolved the electronic theory with Gilbert
N. Lewis. He did research on surface chemistry for which he received the
Nobel Prize in 1932.
- February 1946 - First issue of Bulletin of the Society
for Applied Spectroscopy was issued during this month and was the forerunner
of the journal, Applied Spectroscopy.
- February 11, 1847 - Thomas
A. Edison, the inventor with over 1000 patents, was born on this day.
Among his inventions was the incandescent lamp.
- February 12, 1933 - Jack
L. Koenig, Honorary Member, was born on this day. He did research on the
application of spectroscopy to polymers.
- February 14, 1917 - This the birthday of Herbert
A. Hauptman who developed methods for determination of crystal structures.
He shared the Nobel Prize with Jerome
Karle in 1985.
- February 16, 1955 - F. P. Bundy, H. T. Hall, H. M. Strong and R. H. O. Wentoff
announced the synthesis of diamonds at GE Research Laboratories, on this day.
- February 16, 1859 - Svante A. Arrhenius,
for whom the unit of wavelength was named, was born on this day. He received
the Nobel Prize in 1903.
- February 22, 1956 - The U.S. releases $1 million worth of uranium for peaceful
atomic power on this day.
- February 26, 1946 - Ahmed
H. Zewail, who was born on this day, received the Nobel Prize last year
for the pioneering investigation of chemical reactions using femtosecond spectroscopy.
- February 28, 1901 - Linus
C. Pauling, who received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1954 and for
Peace in 1962, was born on thisdate. He did research on the structure of molecules,
valency, and resonance.
Return
to the Baltimore-Washington SAS Home Page
Page prepared by: Mike Epstein
Last Modified: March 1, 2000