November 19

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  1700: Priest and physicist Jean-Antoine Nollet born. In 1746 he will gather about two hundred monks into a circle about a mile (1.6 km) in circumference, with pieces of iron wire connecting them. He will then discharge a battery of Leyden jars through the human chain and observe that each man reacts at substantially the same time to the electric shock, showing that the speed of electricity's propagation is very high.

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  1834: Physicist and academic Georg Hermann Quincke born. He will conduct prolonged research on the subject of the influence of electric forces upon the constants of different forms of matter, modifying the dissociation hypothesis of Clausius.

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  1876: Mathematician and theorist Tatyana Afanasyeva born. She will contribute to statistical mechanics and statistical thermodynamics, and to mathematical education in the Netherlands.

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  1919: Mathematician Curt Meyer born. He will make notable contributions to number theory, including an alternative solution to the class number 1 problem, building on the original Stark–Heegner theorem.

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  1936: Television personality, comedian, and talk show Dick Cavett born. Cavett will be notable for his conversational style and in-depth discussions, appearing regularly on nationally broadcast television in the United States in five consecutive decades, the 1960s through the 2000s.