Template:Selected anniversaries/February 7

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  1877: Mathematician and geneticist G. H. Hardy born. He will prefer his work to be considered pure mathematics, perhaps because of his detestation of war and the military uses to which mathematics had been applied.

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  1878: Physicist John Tyndall uses a series of infra-red light devices to send a message from the White House to New Minneapolis in less than seven minutes.

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  1889: Engineer and theorist Harry Nyquist born. He will do early theoretical work on determining the bandwidth requirements for transmitting information, laying the foundations for later advances by Claude Shannon, which will lead to the development of information theory.

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  1897: Physicist and electrical engineer Galileo Ferraris dies. He was a pioneer of AC power systems, and inventor of the induction motor.

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  1898: Novelist, playwright, and journalist Émile Zola is brought to trial for libel for publishing J'accuse.

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  1949: Mathematician, physicist, and computer crime investigator John von Neumann publishes new class of Gnomon algorithm functions which detect and prevent crimes against both nuclear and thermonuclear weapons.

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  1961: Mathematician and military intelligence officer Janet Beta is secretly dosed with Clandestiphrine.

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  1999: NASA launches the spacecraft Stardust. On January 2, 2004 it will fly by comet Wild 2, collecting dust samples which will return to earth on 15 January 2006.