Today in History – December 27, 1571 – Birth of Johannes Kepler.  When Kepler made his calculations from measurements taken by Tycho Brahe and himself, at the turn of the seventeenth century, they had to create many of the instruments that they used.  The types of tedious observations and measurements taken by Brahe and Kepler [...]

[Read more →]

Today in History – December 25, 1642 – Isacc Newton‘s birth. Also on this date in 1741 astronomer Anders Celsius introduces the temperature scale that bears his name. For more information, see the Engineering Pathway‘s resources on Newton and engineering mechanics or the Celsius scale and temperature measurement. For curricular resources, visit the Engineering Mechanics [...]

[Read more →]

Today in History – December 8, 1993 – First functional GPS (Global Positioning System) was developed. The technology initially developed for military use eventually made its way into our daily lives- most notably in cars and cell phones. Using information from a number of satellites orbiting the Earth (originally with 24, now a total of [...]

[Read more →]

Today in History – November 25, 1867 – Alfred Nobel receives the patent for dynamite. While in Paris, Nobel came to work with Ascanio Sobrero, the inventor of nitroglycerine. Though it was ten times stronger that black powder, it was highly unstable. Nobel was intrigued with nitroglycerine’s potential as a construction tool. But he knew [...]

[Read more →]

Today in History – January 31, 1958 – Explorer 1 became the United States of America’s first satellite to orbit the Earth after it was launched on January 31, 1958. After the Soviet Union’s successful launch of Sputnik I on October 4, 1957, the United States of America embarked upon a program to launch it [...]

[Read more →]