Today in History – May 17, 1954 – Official groundbreaking of the CERN laboratory occurred in Geneva. 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 [...]

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Today in History – May 13, 1958 – Velcro® trademark is registered for a fabric hook and loop fastener. The way George de Mestral, a Swiss mountaineer, tells the story, he was hiking with his dog in 1948 and was frustrated to see all of these burrs covering them both when he returned home. He says [...]

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Today in History – April 21, 1997 – Timothy Leary and Gene Roddenberry launched into orbit. LSD guru Timothy Leary and “Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry (left image) hitched a ride into space, along with 22 other people as part of a new commercial “memorial space flight” venture of Texas-based Celestis Inc. The Spanish Pegasus [...]

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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 [...]

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Today in History – April 6, 1938 – Teflon ® is discovered. In 1938, Du Pont researcher Roy J. Plunkett and his technician Jack Rebok accidentally discovered the chemical compound polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) that was later marketed as a commercial product in 1946 under the name Teflon®. Discovery of Teflon® is a good example of serendipity [...]

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