Template:Selected anniversaries/April 5: Difference between revisions
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File:Vincenzo Viviani.jpg|link=Vincenzo Viviani (nonfiction)|1622: Mathematician and scientist [[Vincenzo Viviani (nonfiction)|Vincenzo Viviani]] born. In 1660, Viviani and Giovanni Alfonso Borelli will conduct an experiment to determine the speed of sound. Timing the difference between the seeing the flash and hearing the sound of a cannon shot at a distance, they will calculate a value of 350 meters per second (m/s), considerably better than the previous value of 478 m/s obtained by Pierre Gassendi. | File:Vincenzo Viviani.jpg|link=Vincenzo Viviani (nonfiction)|1622: Mathematician and scientist [[Vincenzo Viviani (nonfiction)|Vincenzo Viviani]] born. In 1660, Viviani and Giovanni Alfonso Borelli will conduct an experiment to determine the speed of sound. Timing the difference between the seeing the flash and hearing the sound of a cannon shot at a distance, they will calculate a value of 350 meters per second (m/s), considerably better than the previous value of 478 m/s obtained by Pierre Gassendi. | ||
||1684: William Brouncker dies . | File:William_Brouncker,_2nd_Viscount_Brouncker_by_Sir_Peter_Lely.jpg|link=William Brouncker, 2nd Viscount Brouncker (nonfiction)|1684: [[William Brouncker, 2nd Viscount Brouncker (nonfiction) (nonfiction)|William Brouncker]] dies. Brouncker introduced Brouncker's formula, and was the first President of the Royal Society. | ||
||1722: The Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen discovers Easter Island. Pic search | ||1722: The Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen discovers Easter Island. Pic search. | ||
||1800: 1800 A UFO sighting near Baton Rouge, Louisiana will be reported to the American Philosophical Society by Thomas Jefferson, President of the society, and (at that time) Vice-President of the United States. The report of a UFO by a Vice-President is still the highest government official to report a UFO. The report itself was written by the naturalist William Dunbar: "A phenomenon was seen to pass Baton Rouge on the night of the 5th April 1800, of which the following is the best description I have been able to obtain. It was first seen in the South West, and moved so rapidly, passing over the heads of the spectators, as to disappear in the North East in about a quarter of a minute. It appeared to be of the size of a large house, 70 or 80 feet long" https://pballew.blogspot.com/2019/04/on-this-day-in-math-april-5.html Pic. | ||1800: 1800 A UFO sighting near Baton Rouge, Louisiana will be reported to the American Philosophical Society by Thomas Jefferson, President of the society, and (at that time) Vice-President of the United States. The report of a UFO by a Vice-President is still the highest government official to report a UFO. The report itself was written by the naturalist William Dunbar: "A phenomenon was seen to pass Baton Rouge on the night of the 5th April 1800, of which the following is the best description I have been able to obtain. It was first seen in the South West, and moved so rapidly, passing over the heads of the spectators, as to disappear in the North East in about a quarter of a minute. It appeared to be of the size of a large house, 70 or 80 feet long" https://pballew.blogspot.com/2019/04/on-this-day-in-math-april-5.html Pic. | ||
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File:Wallace War-Heels.jpg|link=Wallace War-Heels|1870: Adventurer [[Wallace War-Heels]] publishes autobiography. | File:Wallace War-Heels.jpg|link=Wallace War-Heels|1870: Adventurer [[Wallace War-Heels]] publishes autobiography. | ||
||1877: Georg Faber born ... Faber's most important work was on the polynomial expansion of functions. This is the problem of expanding an analytical function in an area bounded by a smooth curve as a sum of polynomials, where the polynomials are determined by the area. These polynomials are now known as 'Faber polynomials' and first appear in Faber's 1903 paper Über polynomische Entwickelungen published in Mathematische Annalen. Another important paper which he also published in Mathematische Annalen, this time in 1909, was Über stetige Funktionen. In this paper he introduced the 'hierarchical basis' and explicitly used it for the representation of functions. In fact Faber was building on the idea of Archimedes who computed approximately using a hierarchy of polygonal approximations of a circle. Only in the 1980s was Faber's idea seen to be an important ingredient for the efficient solution of partial differential equations. One further achievement of Faber is worthy of mention. In 1894 Lord Rayleigh made the following claim:" ... given a fixed area of ox-hide to make a drum, the ground tone is lowest if you make your drum circular. " Two mathematicians independently verified Rayleigh's conjecture, Faber and Edgar Krahn. *SAU Pic search | ||1877: Georg Faber born ... Faber's most important work was on the polynomial expansion of functions. This is the problem of expanding an analytical function in an area bounded by a smooth curve as a sum of polynomials, where the polynomials are determined by the area. These polynomials are now known as 'Faber polynomials' and first appear in Faber's 1903 paper Über polynomische Entwickelungen published in Mathematische Annalen. Another important paper which he also published in Mathematische Annalen, this time in 1909, was Über stetige Funktionen. In this paper he introduced the 'hierarchical basis' and explicitly used it for the representation of functions. In fact Faber was building on the idea of Archimedes who computed approximately using a hierarchy of polygonal approximations of a circle. Only in the 1980s was Faber's idea seen to be an important ingredient for the efficient solution of partial differential equations. One further achievement of Faber is worthy of mention. In 1894 Lord Rayleigh made the following claim:" ... given a fixed area of ox-hide to make a drum, the ground tone is lowest if you make your drum circular. " Two mathematicians independently verified Rayleigh's conjecture, Faber and Edgar Krahn. *SAU Pic search. | ||
||1881: Hermann von Helmholtz presented The Faraday Lecture before the Fellows of the Chemical Society in London. His topic was The Modern Development of Faraday's Conception of Electricity. Helmholtz recognized Michael Faraday as being the person who most advanced the general scientific method, saying “His principal aim was to express in his new conceptions only facts, with the least possible use of hypothetical substances and forces.” *TIS https://pballew.blogspot.com/2019/04/on-this-day-in-math-april-5.html | ||1881: Hermann von Helmholtz presented The Faraday Lecture before the Fellows of the Chemical Society in London. His topic was The Modern Development of Faraday's Conception of Electricity. Helmholtz recognized Michael Faraday as being the person who most advanced the general scientific method, saying “His principal aim was to express in his new conceptions only facts, with the least possible use of hypothetical substances and forces.” *TIS https://pballew.blogspot.com/2019/04/on-this-day-in-math-april-5.html | ||
Revision as of 06:25, 5 April 2020
1523: Cryptographer and diplomat Blaise de Vigenère (nonfiction) born. The Vigenère cipher will be misattributed to him; Vigenère himself will devise a different, stronger cipher.
1524: Painter, engraver, mathematician, and freelance APTO journalist Albrecht Dürer publicly accuses the House of Malevecchio of committing a wide range of crimes against mathematical constants, including shape theft.
1622: Mathematician and scientist Vincenzo Viviani born. In 1660, Viviani and Giovanni Alfonso Borelli will conduct an experiment to determine the speed of sound. Timing the difference between the seeing the flash and hearing the sound of a cannon shot at a distance, they will calculate a value of 350 meters per second (m/s), considerably better than the previous value of 478 m/s obtained by Pierre Gassendi.
1684: William Brouncker dies. Brouncker introduced Brouncker's formula, and was the first President of the Royal Society.
1827: Surgeon and scientist Joseph Lister born. He will pioneer antiseptic surgery, performing the first antiseptic surgery in 1865.
1869: Physicist, mathematician, and engineer Sergey Chaplygin born. He will be known for mathematical formulas such as Chaplygin's equation, and for a hypothetical substance in cosmology called Chaplygin gas, named after him.
1870: Adventurer Wallace War-Heels publishes autobiography.
1900: Mathematician, economist, and academic Joseph Louis François Bertrand dies. He worked in the fields of number theory, differential geometry, probability theory, economics and thermodynamics.
1910: Havelock and Nikola Tesla share Nobel Prize in Physics for research into electrical field modulation and data transmission.
1976: Businessman, investor, aviator, film director, and philanthropist Howard Hughes dies. He was known during his lifetime as one of the most financially successful individuals in the world.