| Date | Text | |
|---|---|---|
03 May 1860
Vito Volterra |
birth Vito Volterra Born 3 May 1860; died 11 Oct 1940 at age 80. Italian mathematician who made important contributions to calculus, and mathematical theories in astronomy, elasticity and biometrics. His mathematical talent appeared as a young boy. In 1905, he began to develop the theory of dislocations in crystals that led to improved understanding of the behaviour of ductile materials. During WWI he established the Italian Office of War Inventions and designed weapons for use by airships, for which he proposed the use of helium instead of flammable hydrogen. He is remembered for achievements in function theory and differential equations. In biology, in 1925, he formulated a pair of differential equations relating populations of prey and predators (also independently proposed by Alfred J. Lotka in 1925). |
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03 May 1860
John Scott Haldane |
birth John Scott Haldane Born 3 May 1860; died 14 Mar 1936 at age 75. Scottish physiologist and philosopher of science whose extensive work on human respiration included the effects of pulmonary diseases and the physiology of the blood. Early in his career he studied the air in sewers for microorganisms, which he found rather limited. Haldane was known for experimentation on himself to find the amount of carbon dioxide in the blood was a stimulus for the respiratory centre of the brain. He reported on investigations of the effects of carbon monoxide from mine fires and explosions (1896). For the safety of deep-sea divers, he built on Paul Bert's work on the bends and produced the first staged decompression tables (1907). He also devised a decompression apparatus. He invented a gas mask used in WW I. |
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