Today in History -  May 20, 1899 – the American Physical Society (APS) is founded for the advancement and diffusion of the knowledge of physics. It was originally formed at Columbia University by 36 scientists from 17 institutions who elected Henry Rowland as their first president and A.A. Michelson as the first vice-president. It has [...]

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Today in History – April 22, 1970 – First Earth Day. Senator Gaylord Nelson, founder of Earth Day, says that the idea for Earth Day evolved over a period of seven years starting in 1962. He wanted President Kennedy to give visibility to pollution and the environmental degradation that was appearing throughout the country, but [...]

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Today in History – January 26, 1697-  Isaac Newton solves Bernoulli’s brachistochrone problem, inventing the “calculus of variations”. The story goes that Jean Bernoulli gave Isaac Newton a challenge solve the following problem in six months: We are given two fixed points in a vertical plane. A particle starts from rest at one of the [...]

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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 – July 30, 1959 – Noyce patents the integrated circuit – 50th anniversary. Jack Kilby at Texas Instruments and Robert Noyce at the small Fairchild Semiconductor start-up company were both working on the concept of an integrated circuit in 1958. Prior to this invention, only parts of a circuit – such as [...]

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