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 [...]

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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 [...]

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Today in History – July 4, 1997 – Launched on December 4, 1996, Pathfinder impacted the surface of Mars on July 4, 1997 at a velocity of  18 m/s (40 mph) and then bounced into the air 15 times at a maximum height of  15 meters (50 feet), before rolling and coming to rest  1 [...]

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Today in History – June 23, 1964 - Kilby patents the integrated circuit.
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 [...]

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