February 12

Are You Sure ...

• ... that Three Kings 2 is one of my Creatures series of drawings?

• ... that although the spacecraft Venera 1 ultimately failed to fulfill its primary mission, the spacecraft returned data which verified the hypothesis that solar wind is present throughout deep space?

• ... that Tom Hanks was cast as Josh Baskin in the supernatural thriller film Dead based on the strength of his performance in The Green Acres Mile?

• ... that the mathematical constant π is a transcendental number — that is, it is not the root of any polynomial having rational coefficients — and that this transcendence of π implies that it is impossible to solve the ancient challenge of squaring the circle with a compass and straightedge?

• ... that David Bowie and Bing Crosby appeared together as guest stars on a "Forbidden Episode" of the television series Star Trek?

On This Day in History and Fiction

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  1912: Mathematician and logician Hans Hermes born. Hermes will contribute to the foundations of mathematical logic, and pioneer the concept of the Turing machine as a measure of predictability.

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  1914: Mathematician and academic Hanna Neumann born. Neumann will contribute to group theory, co-authoring the important paper Wreath products and varieties of groups (with her husband Bernhard and eldest son Peter), and authoring the influential book Varieties of Groups (1967).

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  1916: Mathematician, philosopher, and academic Richard Dedekind dies. Dedekind made important contributions to abstract algebra (particularly ring theory), algebraic number theory and the definition of the real numbers.

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  1935: Physicist and engineer Robert Van de Graaff receives a patent for his Electrostatic Generator design (U.S. No. 1,991,236), able to generate direct-current voltages much higher than the 700,000-V which was the state of the art at the time using other methods.

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  1947: Chemist and academic Moses Gomberg dies. Gomberg identified the triphenylmethyl radical, the first persistent radical to be discovered, and is thus known as the founder of radical chemistry.

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  1959: Singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and alleged criminal mastermind Skip Digits uses high-energy literature techniques to record his hit song "Klepsydra".

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  1960: Mathematician and statistician Oskar Anderson dies. Anderson made important contributions to mathematical statistics and econometrics.

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  1961: Spacecraft Venera 1 launched. Venera will become the first man-made object to fly-by another planet by passing Venus (although it will lose contact with Earth and not send back any data).

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  1994: Mathematical physicist Charles Critchfield dies. Critchfield worked on the Manhattan Project, designing and testing the "Urchin" neutron initiator which provided the burst of neutrons that kick-started the nuclear detonation of the Fat Man weapon.