Today in History – April 20, 1940 – RCA Demonstrates Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). The history of the SEM begins in 1928 and RCA’s demonstration in 1940. In 1965 the first SEM was marketed by the Cambridge Instrument Company. The provided link includes an article that details the history of the SEM from 1928 to 1965. The author (McMullan), himself an important contributor to this field, traces developments such as the first attempts to image solids (Ruska 1933 and the more successful Von Borries 1940).He discusses von Ardenne’s 1938 highly magnified probe and Mahl’s 1941 transmission electron microscope (TEM).

The author speaks at some length about the Cambridge microscopes since this is where he worked with Oatley and added significant contributions to the field. Other contributors from around the world are detailed. Since this is an excellent article on the history of the SEM until 1965, added here will be a few contributions since that year.

An environmental scanning electron microscope, since it doesn’t need to operate in a vacuum like a standard SEM. Allows for the examination of almost any sample under any gaseous condition. Danilatos in the 1980s first used the term environmental SEM and the first commercial environmental SEM was produced by Electroscan.

In the 1990s Chumbley at Iowa State University, working with R.J. Lee Group, successfully created a remote, web-based control for a SEM. He calls this Project ExCel. This microscope allows pre-collegiate teachers to use the SEM in their classroom by remotely logging in to the SEM at Iowa State and controlling it over the internet. For more information, see the Engineering Pathway’seducational resources on SEMs and microscropy or view our Materials Engineering Education and our Ceramic Engineering Education community sites.

Also on this date in 1902 the Curies isolate radium and in 1964 the first picture phone is demonstrated. For more information, see the Engineering Pathway’s nuclear engineering, information technology and picture phones.

Today in History -  April 17, 1986-  first publication of High T-C Superconductivity in Ceramic. A breakthrough discovery was made in the field of superconductivity. Alex Muller and Georg Bednorz, researchers at the IBM Research Laboratory in Ruschlikon, Switzerland, created a brittle ceramic compound that superconducted at the highest temperature then known: 30 K. What made this discovery so remarkable was that ceramics are normally insulators. They don’t conduct electricity well at all. So, researchers had not considered them as possible high-temperature superconductor candidates. The Lanthanum, Barium, Copper and Oxygen compound that Muller and Bednorz synthesized, behaved in a not-as-yet-understood way. The discovery of this first of the superconducting copper-oxides (cuprates) won the 2 men the Nobel Prize in Physics the following year in 1987.

For more information, see the Engineering Pathway’s educational resources on superconductivity or view our Ceramics Engineering Education and Materials Engineering Education community sites.

Also on this date in 1976, Helios B makes closest approach to the sun.

Today in History – April 14, 1932 – First atom is split by a proton beam on a lithium target.

Two physicists, Englishman Sir John Douglas Cockcroft and Irishman Ernest Walton developed the first nuclear particle accelerator, the Cockcroft-Walton generator. With this equipment, they succeeded in being the first to split the nucleus of an atom. When a proton from the beam supplied by the accelerator struck a lithium nucleus, their unstable combination disintegrated into two alpha particles (helium nuclei). They shared the 1951 Nobel Prize in Physics for this work.

Their accelerator cost 500 pounds, the most ever for a single piece of equipment at the Cavendish Laboratory. The beam of protons produced in a discharge tube containing hydrogen was accelerated through three cylinders containing high-intensity electrical fields. The beam passed through a mica window, hit targets of lithium or boron, and produced alpha particles which were confirmed by photographing their tracks in a cloud chamber.

Annotations of two books which provide interesting insights into the lives of these scientists and details of their work are found in Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues (http://alsos.wlu.edu).

For more information, see the Engineering Pathway’s educational resources on particle physics or view our Nuclear Engineering Education community site.

Today in History – April 14, 1932 – First atom is split by a proton beam on a lithium target.

Two physicists, Englishman Sir John Douglas Cockcroft and Irishman Ernest Walton developed the first nuclear particle accelerator, the Cockcroft-Walton generator. With this equipment, they succeeded in being the first to split the nucleus of an atom. When a proton from the beam supplied by the accelerator struck a lithium nucleus, their unstable combination disintegrated into two alpha particles (helium nuclei). They shared the 1951 Nobel Prize in Physics for this work.

Their accelerator cost 500 pounds, the most ever for a single piece of equipment at the Cavendish Laboratory. The beam of protons produced in a discharge tube containing hydrogen was accelerated through three cylinders containing high-intensity electrical fields. The beam passed through a mica window, hit targets of lithium or boron, and produced alpha particles which were confirmed by photographing their tracks in a cloud chamber.

Annotations of two books which provide interesting insights into the lives of these scientists and details of their work are found in Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues (http://alsos.wlu.edu).

For more information, see the Engineering Pathway’s educational resources on particle physics or view our Nuclear Engineering Education community site.

Today in History- October 9, 1936 – Hoover Dam goes online and begins transmitting electricity to Los Angeles. For over a decade afterwards, the Hoover power plant was the world’s largest hydroelectric installation in the U.S. with an installed capacity of 2.08 million kilowatts, generating more than 4 billion kilowatt-hours a year.

Hoover Dam was built at the height of the Depression and provided thousands of jobs for American workers.  To their credit, they completed the dam in less than five years – ahead of schedule and under budget.

Hoover Dam is a curved gravity dam with Lake Mead pushes one one side and Black Canyon on the other, creating large compressive forces. It is reported that there is enough concrete in Hoover Dam (4.5 million cubic yards) to build a two-lane road from Seattle, Washington, to Miami, Florida, or a four-foot-wide sidewalk around the Earth at the Equator. The chemical heat produced by the curing concrete was dissipated by ice water circulating through more than 580 miles of steel pipes embedded in the dam.  It is estimated that if the concrete had been allowed to cool naturally, it would still be warm to the touch!!

See the Engineering Pathway’s educational resources on dam design and construction. or visit the Civil Engineering Education, Materials Engineering Education or the Electrical Engineering Education community sites.

Today in History- September 30, 1935 – Dedication of Hoover Dam, Boulder City, Nevada. The concrete-arch dam, originally called Boulder Dam, supplied the first U.S. hydroelectric plant to produce over a million kilowatts. Hoover Dam serves Nevada and the Los Angeles area.

Hoover Dam was built at the height of the Depression and provided thousands of jobs for American workers.  To their credit, they completed the dam in less than five years – ahead of schedule and under budget.

Hoover Dam is a curved gravity dam with Lake Mead pushes one one side and Black Canyon on the other, creating large compressive forces. It is reported that there is enough concrete in Hoover Dam (4.5 million cubic yards) to build a two-lane road from Seattle, Washington, to Miami, Florida, or a four-foot-wide sidewalk around the Earth at the Equator. The chemical heat produced by the curing concrete was dissipated by ice water circulating through more than 580 miles of steel pipes embedded in the dam.  It is estimated that if the concrete had been allowed to cool naturally, it would still be warm to the touch!!

See the Engineering Pathway’s educational resources on dam design and construction. or visit the Civil Engineering Education, Materials Engineering Education or the Electrical Engineering Education community sites.

Also on this day in history in 1882, the first U.S. hydroelectric plant went online. Rayon was patented in 1902 and the first nuclear submarine was commissioned in 1954.

Have you developed courseware – interactive websites, simulations, tutorials, case studies, software environments or tools – designed to enhance engineering education? We want to see it! Submissions due July 17, 2009.

The Premier Award for Excellence in Engineering Education Courseware, hosted by the Engineering Pathway, is open to a wide range of submissions of high-quality, engaging, non-commercial learning innovations designed to enhance engineering education. Submissions for 2009 are due by July 17, 2009, and the Premier Courseware of 2009 will be announced at the Frontiers In Education Conference to be held October 18-21 in San Antonio, Texas. More details on the Premier Award and current and previous winners can be found on the Engineering Pathway at: http://www.engineeringpathway.org/premier/.

Check out our prior Premier Award winners. The 2008 Premier Award for Excellence in Engineering Education Courseware was awarded to Richard Anderson, Ruth Anderson, Natalie Linnell, Craig Prince and members of the development team from the University of Washington for Classroom Presenter.

Classroom Presenter is a Tablet PC-based interaction system that supports the sharing of digital ink on slides between instructors and students. Classroom Presenter enables the flexible delivery of lecture content and can increase student engagement and understanding of material. When used as a presentation tool, Classroom Presenter allows the integration of digital ink and electronic slides, making it possible to combine the advantages of whiteboard style and slide-based presentation. The ability to link the instructor and student devices, and to send information back and forth provides a mechanism for introducing active learning into the classroom and creates additional feedback channels.

Richard Anderson is a professor of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington and also serves as Associate Chair of educational programs. He won the 2007 UW Faculty Innovator for Teaching Award. Ruth Anderson teaches Computer Science at the University of Washington.  Natalie Linnell and Craig Prince are both PhD students at University of Washington working on educational technology with Richard Anderson.

The Engineering Pathway (www.engineeringpathway.org) is a portal to high-quality teaching and learning resources in applied science and math, engineering, computer science/information technology and engineering technology, for use by K-12 and university educators and students. Engineering Pathway is the engineering education “wing” of the National Science Digital Library (NSDL) at www.nsdl.org.

The Engineering Pathway also hosts Engineering Education communities in all ABET-accredited computing and engineering disciplines as well as emerging new interdisciplinary communities.

Today in History – April 20, 1940 – RCA Demonstrates Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). The history of the SEM begins in 1928 and RCA’s demonstration in 1940. In 1965 the first SEM was marketed by the Cambridge Instrument Company. The provided link includes an article that details the history of the SEM from 1928 to 1965. The author (McMullan), himself an important contributor to this field, traces developments such as the first attempts to image solids (Ruska 1933 and the more successful Von Borries 1940).He discusses von Ardenne’s 1938 highly magnified probe and Mahl’s 1941 transmission electron microscope (TEM).

The author speaks at some length about the Cambridge microscopes since this is where he worked with Oatley and added significant contributions to the field. Other contributors from around the world are detailed. Since this is an excellent article on the history of the SEM until 1965, added here will be a few contributions since that year.

An environmental scanning electron microscope, since it doesn’t need to operate in a vacuum like a standard SEM. Allows for the examination of almost any sample under any gaseous condition. Danilatos in the 1980s first used the term environmental SEM and the first commercial environmental SEM was produced by Electroscan.

In the 1990s Chumbley at Iowa State University, working with R.J. Lee Group, successfully created a remote, web-based control for a SEM. He calls this Project ExCel. This microscope allows pre-collegiate teachers to use the SEM in their classroom by remotely logging in to the SEM at Iowa State and controlling it over the internet. For more information, see the Engineering Pathway’seducational resources on SEMs and microscropy or view our Materials Engineering Education and our Ceramic Engineering Education community sites.

Also on this date in 1902 the Curies isolate radium and in 1964 the first picture phone is demonstrated. For more information, see the Engineering Pathway’s nuclear engineering, information technology and picture phones.

Today in History -  April 17, 1986-  first publication of High T-C Superconductivity in Ceramic. A breakthrough discovery was made in the field of superconductivity. Alex Muller and Georg Bednorz, researchers at the IBM Research Laboratory in Ruschlikon, Switzerland, created a brittle ceramic compound that superconducted at the highest temperature then known: 30 K. What made this discovery so remarkable was that ceramics are normally insulators. They don’t conduct electricity well at all. So, researchers had not considered them as possible high-temperature superconductor candidates. The Lanthanum, Barium, Copper and Oxygen compound that Muller and Bednorz synthesized, behaved in a not-as-yet-understood way. The discovery of this first of the superconducting copper-oxides (cuprates) won the 2 men the Nobel Prize in Physics the following year in 1987.

For more information, see the Engineering Pathway’s educational resources on superconductivity or view our Ceramics Engineering Education and Materials Engineering Education community sites.

Also on this date in 1976, Helios B makes closest approach to the sun.

Today in History – April 10, 1662 – Robert Hooke’s first publication – a pamphlet on capillary action, to the Society for the Promoting of Physico-Mathematical Experimental Learning. The Society had been constituted, to promote experimental philosophy, by at a meeting of a dozen scientists in Gresham College on 28 Nov 1660. The Society subsequently petitioned King Charles II to recognise it and to make a royal grant of incorporation. The Royal Charter, which was passed by the Great Seal on 15 Jul 1662, created the Royal Society of London. On 5 Nov 1662, Hooke was appointed its Curator of Experiments. However, Hooke is more famous for Hooke’s Law, dealing with elasticity in springs.

The Latin anagram ‘ceiiinosssttuv‘ was published by Robert Hooke (1635-1703) in 1676. Before patents and intellectual property rights, publishing an anagram was a way to announce a discovery without giving any details. The Latin ‘Ut tensio sic vis’ literally translated into English would read “of the extension, so the force”, but in modern English, we would say “Extension is directly proportional to force”. In 1678 Hooke published the solution to the anagram and went on to explain what became known as Hooke’s law for the force and extension of a spring.

Hooke’s Law: F = – k X, where F is the force, X the distance compressed or extended from equilibrium, and k a constant of proportionality or spring constant.

Hooke’s Law is valid for some other materials besides springs under certain loading conditions. For example, it is only valid in steel for stresses below its yield strength.

While Hooke was perhaps best known for this law, he also was involved in various scientific inquiries. He is the father of microscopy and his publication Micographia in 1665 included the first set of observations under a microscope and a theory of light that included the discovery of the phenomenon of refraction. Later he discussed thin films and postulated their periodicity. Many of his works were in the field of mechanics; springs and elasticity, vibrating strings and pendulums, circular motion and celestial dynamics, to name a few. Hooke also ventured into geology with his Lectures and Discourses on Earthquakes he contributed to our understanding of crystals and fossils. His work with fossils made him an early proponent of evolution. Hooke also developed a theory of combustion and related it to animal respiration. He performed experiments on dogs for the Royal Society. Pairing his interest in microscopy with biology he was the first to use the term cell to describe the basic unit of life, comparing its structure to a prison cell. He was also interested in studying the theory and practice of music, was an important architect of his era, studied the rotations of Mars and Jupiter, was the first to state that matter expands when heated and is, in fact, made up of small particles separated by relatively larger spaces.

In addition he postulated the inverse square law for gravitational attraction that was later developed by Newton. It was rumored that jealousy over Hooke’s contribution to the theory of gravitational attraction, attributed mostly to Newton, led to Newton obscuring the work of Hooke – including failing to preserve the only known portrait of Hooke. At the time Hooke was curator of the Royal Society and Newton served as its president.

Robert Boyle, the father of modern chemistry, was greatly aided by Robert Hooke’s air pump which he used in his experiments. He also drew inspiration from Hooke’s work with springs. Robert Boyle is now recognized as one of the founders of modern chemistry. What is not so apparent, nor recognized, is that it was Robert Hooke who actually created the air pump on which Boyle’s experiments could be conducted. Much of Boyle’s work on gasses may have been inspired, if not strongly based, on work carried out by Hooke on the science of springs and elasticity.

Robert Boyle wondered if the air pushed back in the same way that a spring will push back when it is compressed. He knew that compressed springs obeyed Hooke’s law: that the amount of force with which they push back increases in proportion to the extent to which they are compressed-for every centimetre of compression the force increases by the same amount. He was curious to see if the “spring” of gases, as he called pressure, behaved in the same manner. Which begs the question: was it Robert Hooke who provided much of the thinking and intuitive-modelling behind the discoveries made by Boyle on the nature of gases?

As a back drop for the amazing quality and quantity of Hooke’s science, one should look at the society and history of the times when Hooke was working. Cromwell’s middle class revolution was nearing its end and Charles II was restored to the throne. Pirates roamed the seas. Captain Kidd (1645-1701) was a contemporary of Hooke’s. Witchcraft trials were frequent, perhaps the most famous in Essex in 1645. Bubonic plague was rampant. The Great Plague of London in 1666 killed between 75,000 and 100,000 people – a fifth of the population. While the world was in such turmoil, the great minds of early science gathered to discuss ideas. And Hooke may have been the best of those scientists.

For more information, see the Engineering Pathway’s educational resources on Hooke’s Law or view our Materials Engineering Education and our Engineering Mechanics Education community sites.

Also on this date in 1790, the U.S. Patent Law was signed into law by President Washington. The first patent issued under this statute was signed by George Washington on 31 Jul 1790 for Samuel Hopkins’ process to make potash and pearl ash. For more information, see the Engineering Pathway’s educational resources on patents and inventions.

Today in History – November 14, 1985 – Fullerenes were first introduced in the journal Nature,. Earlier in September during 11 days of collaborative research, Robert F. Curl, Jr., Richard Smalley and Sir Harold W. Kroto discovered the first fullerene, C60, a spherical cluster of carbon atoms. The discovery was coined buckminsterfullerenes or buckyballs after famed architect Buckminster Fuller and his geodesic domes and molecularly-inspired architectural design concepts. Fullerenes opened a new branch of chemistry and all three men were awarded the 1996 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for their work. for their work. See the Engineering Pathway’s related engineering education resources in fullerenes and buckyballs.

For more on related curricular programs and educational resources visit the Biomolecular and Chemical Engineering Education or the Materials Engineering Education community sites. Or visit our resources on See the Engineering Pathway’s related engineering education resources on Buckminster Fuller an the Architectural Engineering Education community site.

Also on this date in 1896, the power plant at Niagara Falls joins long distance electric power grid. See related resources in hydroelectric power, electric power grids, as well as dam design, construction and safety.