October 18
Are You Sure ...
• ... that mathematician, philosopher, inventor and mechanical engineer Charles Babbage (26 December 1791 – 18 October 1871) was a pioneer of programmable computing, and that his Analytical Engine, while not commercially successful as Babbage had hoped, profoundly influenced later generations of computer designs.
• ... that the publication of Bioautography of a Chlorophyll Molecule in 2017 generated new interest in organic golems?
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On This Day in History and Fiction
1640: Mathematician Pierre de Fermat announced his "little theorem" in a letter to Bernard Frenicle de Bessey.
1871: Polymath Charles Babbage dies. He constructed mechanical computers which anticipated the concept of programmable digital computers.
1919: Statistician and educator George E. P. Box born. He will be called "one of the great statistical minds of the 20th century".
1921: Niels Bohr introduces his quantum model of the atom.
1931: Inventor, engineer, and businessman Thomas Edison dies. He developed the light bulb and the phonograph, among other inventions.
1945: The USSR's nuclear program receives plans for the United States plutonium bomb from Klaus Fuchs at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.
2017: Publication of Bioautography of a Chlorophyll Molecule generates new interest in organic golems.