Today in History – February 1, 1972 – First scientific hand-held calculator, the HP-35, introduced for $395. I was an undergraduate in engineering when the HP-35 was released. I couldn’t afford to buy one and stuck with my slide rule. But the next year, I gave in and bought the next model, the HP-45 and [...]

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Today in History – January 26, 1926 – Scottish Engineer John Baird gives first public demonstration of television in London. According to BBC News, his first prototype in 1924 was crudely made of a washstand, a tea chest and a project lamp in a biscuit tin, scanning disks made from carboard and lenses, all held [...]

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Today in History – January 11, 1954 – Although radio weather broadcasts have been around since 1922, it was not until 1953 that BBC executives, gathered for a luncheon, introduced the idea of presenting a weather forecast on television. These BBC executives searched the Met Office and chose the 32-year-old George Cowling, a former Royal [...]

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Today in History – December 29, 1891 – Thomas Alva Edison patents “transmission of signals electrically” by radio. Close to a year later, on August 9, 1892, he received a patent for a two-way radio. Also on this date in 1952, the first transistor hearing aid went on sale by the Sonotone Corporation.  This hearing [...]

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Today in History – December 21, 1807 – Fourier introduces his series at the Paris Institute. Joseph Fourier’s memoir, On the Propagation of Heat in Solid Bodies, was read to the Paris Institute. It introduced the expansion of functions into trigonometric series which are now called Fourier series. The Fourier series allows periodic functions to [...]

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