Today in History – January 13, 1942 – Henry Ford patents a plastic automobile.

The plastic car Ford patented used soy-based plastics and was 25% to 33% lighter than conventional cars of his day. Ford’s dream was to use agricultural-based plastics to provide another market for farmers to sell their crops.

Sustainability in design is beginning to make a comeback as manufacturers are using recycled products in car interiors. However in today’s oil-conscious world, car manufacturers are focusing most heavily on hybrid vehicles and fuel diversity. A variety of new cars are equipped with engines that are designed to run on both traditional gasoline and an ethanol blend. And although many more plastics and composites are being used in cars, they are not of the type that Ford envisioned. A recent article in Business Week (“Lighter Cars Can Help the U.S. Kick Oil”) points out that vehicle weight has only risen over recent decades. A significant decrease in weight, like the one that Ford initially achieved, could be just as beneficial to fuel economy.

For more information, see the Engineering Pathway’s related resources plastics and their applications. Or visit the Materials Engineering Education or the Mechanical Engineering Education community sites.

Today in History – December 16, 1915 – Albert Einstein publishes the General Theory of Relativity.

General Theory of relativity is a theory of gravity. Ninety-one years ago on this day he published his mathematical formula for the theory of relativity. The theory introduced the famous concept of gravitation and inertia equivalence, which in turns asserts ‘gravitation as a determiner of the curvature in a space-time continuum.’ It is obvious from the quote the complexity of this theorem and even to this day people have trouble grasping the concepts. His contribution of this theory has helped us better understand the fourth dimension known as time. The theory of relativity introduced concepts that changed the way we think of time and gravity, making it monumental in our history.

For related curricular resources, visit the Engineering Pathway’s educational resources on Einstein and relativity or the Nuclear Engineering Education community.

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.

Today in History- October 21, 1824 – Portland cement is patented by Joseph Aspdin, a stone mason in Yorkshire, England (UK patent No. 5022). He made it by burning finely pulverized lime and clay at high temperatures in kilns and grinding the mixture into a powder. This hydraulic cement would then harden with the addition of water. The result was a manufactured counterpart to ancient (27 BC) Roman cement made from lime and volcanic ash. He named his invention “Portland cement” as it resembled the high quality building  stone quarried on the Isle of Portland off the British coast.

See the Engineering Pathway’s educational resources on Portland cement and concrete or visit the Civil Engineering Education, Construction Engineering Education or the Architectural Engineering Education community sites.

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 29, 1954 – CERN convention ratified. A small number of scientists first envisioned CERN vision as an opportunity to bring nations together through science and build a world-class laboratory for nuclear and particle physics in Europe. CERN’s founding convention emphasized that that it should foster international collaboration, promote contacts between and interchange of scientists and make its results freely available through  advanced training and publications. “When the 12 founding Member States ratified the CERN convention on 29 September 1954,” explains CERN’s Director General Robert Aymar, “they gave the new organization a mission to provide first class facilities, to coordinate fundamental research in particle physics, and to help reunite the countries of Europe after two world wars.“ The official groundbreaking of the CERN laboratory occurred in Geneva on May 17, 1954.

Today, CERN has achieved its mission and more, hosting around half the world’s particle physicists, with  membership that includes 60 countries and 8,000 scientists; it boasts a large number of Nobel Laureates as well.  CERN supports the world’s largest set of complex scientific instruments so study the basic particles of matter and related energy releases when they collide.  “It is no accident,” says Aymar, “that many of the countries about to join the European Union are already members of CERN. Scientific collaboration has proved to be a valuable step on the way to collaboration at the political level.“

The 50th anniversary of CERN officially  began on 8 March 2004 with the launch of a Swiss postage stamp dedicated to CERN (see upper left figure).

More recently, CERN launched the Large Hadron Collider as the center for world-wide research on particle physics for the next decade.

CERN has also stimulated a number of other developments beyond fundamental particle physics. It was here that the World Wide Web was launched when CERN’s Tim Berners-Lee submitted a proposal titled: Information Management : a Proposal” in 1990.  His idea, later refined by collaborator Robert Cailiau, was to “merge the technologies of personal computer, computer networking and hpertext into a powerful and easy to use global information system“. The first web server in the U.S. came on-line in December 1991 at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) in Menlo Park, California.  The first browsers in the X-window system. The version called Mosaic published in 1993 by the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois became the version that was most widely used with its easy to use user interface and ability to run on a wide range of  computer platforms. The world’ first WWW conference was held at CERN in May 1994, attended by 400 users and developers. By the end of  1994, the Web had 10,000 servers and exponentially increasing traffic. The rest is history. In March 2009, CERN celebrated the 20th anniversary of the Web.

For more information, see the Engineering Pathway‘s resources on the CERN and particle physics, including their educational site.  For related educational resources, visit the Engineering Science Education Community site. The Engineering Pathway also hosts Engineering Education communities in all ABET-accredited disciplines.

Today in History – August 27, 2003 – World’s largest battery is connected to provide emergency power to Fairbanks, Alaska’s second-largest city. Backup power is critical here as Alaska could become an “electrical island” when the power lines go down. In fact, environmental conditions cause a total city blackout every two or three years. In this $35 million rechargeable battery array, 13,760 large nickel-cadmium cells weigh a total of 1,300 tons and cover 2,000 square meters.

See the Engineering Pathway’s educational resources on batteries. For related curricular resources, visit the Electrical Engineering Education or the Mechanical Engineering Education disciplinary communities.

Also on this date in 1875, Gallium is discovered by P.E. Lecoq de Boisbaudran.  His first spectroscopic analysis of the tiny amount (he estimated 1/100 mg) an unknown violet line at 417.0, indicating a new element. Except for mercury, caesium, and rubidium, Gallium is the only metal which can be liquid near room temperatures. It is also used in semiconductor applications.  See the Engineering Pathway’s educational resources on Gallium or visit the Electrical Engineering Education, Materials Engineering Education or the Chemical Engineering Education disciplinary communities for curricular resources.

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.