Have a great science/math/teaching joke? We want to hear them!

May 19

1914 – Austrian-British molecular biologist Max Perutz is born. Perutz receives the Nobel prize for his work studying the structure of hemoglobin, the iron-containing portion of erythrocytes that transport oxygen in the blood.

May 20

1570 – The first modern atlas, Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, is printed by Abraham Ortelius.

1875 – Seventeen nations sign the Metre Convention in Paris, France. This treaty creates organizations tasked with developing the metric system for use globally. Nearly a decade later this work results in the International System of Units.

 1851 – German-American inventor Emile Berliner is born. Berliner invents the gramphone record, which quickly gains in popularity over Thomas Edison’s wax cylinders.

1860 – German chemist and zymologist Eduard Buchner is born. Buchner demonstrates that live yeast cells are not necessary for fermentation, earning him the Nobel prize.

1918 – American geneticist Edward B. Lewis is born. Lewis receives the Nobel prize for his studies of the genes of fruit flies. After World War II, radioactive materials were ubiquitous in everyday products. Lewis speaks out in publications and in front of the US Congress on the dangers of accumulated exposure to radioactivity.

May 21

1792 – French mathematician, scientist, and engineer Gaspard-Gustave Coriolis is born. Coriolis describes the phenomenon which becomes known as the Coriolis effect. Coriolis publishes a textbook on mechanics, making the erudite subject more applicable to industry, and coins the word “work” to describe a force acting on a object over a distance.

1799 – British paleontologist Mary Anning is born. Anning’s discoveries and identifications of the fossil remains of previously unknown organisms contributes greatly to the new field of paleontology, significantly impacting the fundamental changes which are occurring at this time in scientific thinking and our understanding of the history of the earth.

1850 – Italian vulcanologist Giuseppe Mercalli is born. Mercalli’s study of volcanoes and earthquakes results in a standardized classification of earthquake events that will be called the Mercalli intensity scale.

1860 – Dutch physician and physiologist Willem Einthoven is born. Einthoven invents a device to detect and record the electrical activity of the heart. Einthoven receives the Nobel prize for his invention of the electrocardiogram, or EKG.

1921 – Soviet nuclear physicist Andrei Sakharov is born. Sakharov helps the Soviet Union develop a thermonuclear weapon. Having been personally affected by the ethical implications of his involvement in the creation of a new weapon of mass destruction, Sakharov speaks out against the use of nuclear weapons. Sakharov receives the Nobel peace prize for his activism. Two prizes which bear Sakharov’s name are later created to be awarded to scientists who promote human rights.

May 23

1908 – American physicist John Bardeen is born. Bardeen receives the Nobel prize for his work on the invention of the transistor, and a Nobel prize for his contributions to BCS theory, a fundamental component of the phenomenon of superconductivity.

1934 – American physicist Robert Moog is born. Moog pioneers electronic music with the invention of the Moog synthesizer.

May 24

1595 – The nomenclator of the Leiden University Library in the Netherlands appears. This is the first printed catalog of the contents of an institutional library.

May 25

2012 – The Dragon spacecraft developed by SpaceX becomes the first commercial spacecraft to dock with the International Space Station.

Have a good science/math/teaching joke? We want to hear them!

More than 200 educators from across the nation, all leaders in STEM education, are expected to attend.

“Our registration numbers have consistently increased over the years, and it appears as though we will hit a record this year,” said Mark Santee, vice president of product and marketing at WebAssign. “It is a gratifying validation of our mission to improve teaching and learning. And we’re proud again to bring so many dedicated STEM faculty to the Raleigh area.”

This year’s WAUG meeting will celebrate the 15th anniversary of WebAssign. WAUG ’13 registrants will learn about WebAssign’s innovative features that increase student engagement and learning, and will have the opportunity to meet with other adopters to exchange ideas about what has been working in their respective courses. In addition, attendees will have a chance to meet with WebAssign developers, experts, and executive team members.

Registration is open now, there is no fee to attend, and space is limited so sign up today! Read more about last year’s WAUG event, which was attended by over 150 teachers, and check out our WAUG promo video below:

May 12

1910 – British chemist Dorothy Hodgkin is born. Hodgkin’s work advances the techniques of X-ray crystallography, which is used to determine the microscopic structures of materials. Hodgkin uses these techniques to determine the structure of several biomolecules such as penicillin, insulin, and vitamin B12, for which she receives the Nobel prize. Hodgkin’s methods improve future research into the structure of biomolecules, providing significant advances to our understanding of the function of these molecules, and allowing for the invention and synthesis of novel medical treatments such as new antibiotics and other pharmaceuticals.

May 13

1857 – British physician Sir Ronald Ross is born. Ross receives the Nobel prize for his discovery of the parasite that causes malaria inside of the digestive tract of the mosquito. The confirmation of a vector for the disease encourages Ross to investigate methods of controlling the mosquito population, and therefore the malaria disease, by controlling the mosquito’s access to water, which is a critical step in its life cycle. This investigation leads to his development of mathematical models for epidemiology.

1880 – American inventor Thomas Edison performs the first test of his electrified railway system in Menlo Park, New Jersey.

1883 – Greek pathologist Georgios Papanikolaou is born. Papanikolaou’s investigations into the causes of cancer result in his invention of the Papanikolaou test or “Pap smear” for cervical cancer.

1958 – The trade mark Velcro is registered. Invented a decade earlier by Swiss electrical engineer George de Mestral,  Velcro is soon used for a variety of applications from apparel to space travel.

May 14

1899 – French physicist Pierre Victor Auger is born. Auger observes that the events associated with cosmic rays tended to occur in multitudes all at the same time, causing him to conclude that these events were all initiated by a single event. This phenomenon later becomes known as an air shower.

May 15

1857 – Scottish astronomer Williamina Fleming is born. Fleming discovers over 10,000 stars, 59 nebulae, over 310 variable stars, and 10 novae. Fleming’s most well-known discovery is of the Horsehead Nebula.

1859  - French physicist Pierre Curie is born. Pierre Curie and his brother Jacques Curie demonstrate the piezoelectric effect whereby a compressed crystal generates electricity. Pierre Curie later shares the Nobel prize with his wife, Marie Curie, for pioneering the study of radioactivity, a term which they invented.

May 16

1718 – Italian mathematician Maria Gaetana Agnesi is born. Agnesi is quickly recognized as a child prodigy, mastering at least seven languages by the age of thirteen. At age nine, she published and delivered a discourse in Latin defending the right of women to benefit from higher education. Agnesi writes the first book involving both differential and integral calculus, and an introduction to the works of Euler for young mathematicians.

1831 – Welsh-American scientist and musician David Edward Hughes is born. Hughes develops improvements for the microphone and teleprinter, invents an early precursor to radio transmissions, the spark-gap transmitter, and also invents the crystal radio.

1845 – Russian biologist Élie Metchnikoff is born. Metchnikoff theorizes that white blood cells envelop harmful bacteria and destroy them. His research leads to the realization that this mechanism, called phagocytosis, is utilized by innumerable single and multicellular organisms. Metchnikoff’s work on phagocytosis earns him the Nobel prize.

1960 – The first optical laser is used by Theodore Maiman at Hughes Research Laboratories. This is the first use of a ruby laser.

May 17

1749 – English physician Edward Jenner is born. Jenner becomes a pioneer in the field of immunology, and develops the smallpox vaccine after observing that milkmaids who were exposed to cowpox were immune to smallpox. Over 200 years later, the World Health Organization would declare that the disease of smallpox had been eradicated.

2005 – Photos from the Hubble Space Telescope confirm that Pluto has two additional moons, Hydra and Nix. A year later, the International Astronomical Union states that a planet must satisfy three criteria: 1) it is in orbit around the sun, 2) it has sufficient mass to assume a nearly round shape, and 3) it has “cleared the neighborhood” around its orbit. The discovery of Pluto’s additional moons results in its reclassification as a plutoid, as it fails to meet the third criteria for being a planet.

May 18

1850 – English engineer, mathematician, and physicist Oliver Heaviside is born. Heaviside spends much of his life reforming the mathematics used in physics. Originally, James Clerk Maxwell’s equations describing electromagnetism was formulated using 20 equations and 20 variables. Heaviside applies the techniques of vector calculus to condense Maxwell’s work into only four equations. Heaviside predicts the existence of  a portion of the ionosphere which would later be called the Kennelly–Heaviside layer. He invents the Heaviside step function, and invents many of the terms used to describe electromagnetism, including admittance, conductance, inductance, impedance, permeability, and permittance.

And for those of you interested in how this graph was created, here is the code used:

<waplot aspectratio=’.75′ axesorigin=’{0,0}’ frame=’false’ view=’-32,32;-25,15′>
<plot type=’region’ range=’-35,35; -30,20′ vars=’x, y’ color=’blue’ opacity=’.4′>
x > -35
</plot>

7*Sin[4*theta] + 3
</plot>

7*Sin[4*theta + Pi/2] + 3
</plot>

7*Sin[4*theta] + 3
</plot>

7*Cos[4*theta + Pi/2] + 3
</plot>

7*Sin[4*theta + Pi] + 3
</plot>

7*Cos[4*theta + Pi] + 3
</plot>
<plot type=’implicit’ range=’-31,31; -10,10′ vars=’x, y’ color=’purple’ thickness=’Thickness[.015]‘>
x == {-30, -20, 20, 30}
</plot>
<plot type=’1d’ range=’-30,-20′ vars=’x’ color=’purple’ thickness=’Thickness[.015]‘>
2Abs[x + 25]
</plot>
<plot type=’1d’ range=’20,30′ vars=’x’ color=’purple’ thickness=’Thickness[.015]‘>
2Abs[x - 25]
</plot>
<plot type=’disk’ edgecolor=’yellow’ facecolor=’yellow’>
{{0,0}, 2.5}
</plot>
<plot type=’implicit’ range=’-32,32;-23,-19′ vars=’x, y’ color=’RGBColor(13/255,97/255,50/255)’ thickness=’thick’>
x == {-30,-24,-18,-12,-6,0,6,12,18,24,30}
</plot>
<plot type=’region’ range=’-2,2; -19,-16′ vars=’x, y’ color=’red’ >
x^2/4 + (y+15)^2/16 < 1
</plot>
<plot type=’region’ range=’-2,2; -16,-15′ vars=’x, y’ color=’red’>
y < Abs[Abs[x] – 1] – 16
</plot>
<plot type=’linechart’ color=’red’ thickness=’thick’>
{{-1.5, -16}, {1.5, -16}}
</plot>
<plot type=’implicit’ range=’-2,2; -19,-15′ vars=’x, y’ color=’purple’ thickness=’thick’>
x^2/4 + (y+15)^2/16 == 1
</plot>
<plot type=’linechart’ color=’purple’ thickness=’thick’>
{{-2, -15}, {-1, -16}, {0, -15}, {1, -16}, {2, -15}}
</plot>
<plot type=’region’ range=’-32,-28; -19,-16′ vars=’x, y’ color=’RGBColor(189/255,123/255,1)’ >
(x + 30)^2/4 + (y+15)^2/16 < 1
</plot>
<plot type=’region’ range=’-32,-28; -16,-15′ vars=’x, y’ color=’RGBColor(189/255,123/255,1)’>
y < Abs[Abs[x + 30] – 1] – 16
</plot>
<plot type=’linechart’ color=’RGBColor(189/255,123/255,1)’ thickness=’thick’>
{{-31.5, -16}, {-28.5, -16}}
</plot>
<plot type=’implicit’ range=’-32,-28; -19,-15′ vars=’x, y’ color=’purple’ thickness=’thick’>
(x + 30)^2/4 + (y+15)^2/16 == 1
</plot>
<plot type=’linechart’ color=’purple’ thickness=’thick’>
{{-28, -15}, {-29, -16}, {-30, -15}, {-31, -16}, {-32, -15}}
</plot>

<plot type=’implicit’ range=’-8,-4; -19,-15′ vars=’x, y’ color=’purple’ thickness=’thick’>
(x + 6)^2/4 + (y+15)^2/16 == 1
</plot>
<plot type=’linechart’ color=’purple’ thickness=’thick’>
{{-8, -15}, {-7, -16}, {-6, -15}, {-5, -16}, {-4, -15}}
</plot>
<plot type=’region’ range=’-14,-10; -19,-16′ vars=’x, y’ color=’magenta’ >
(x + 12)^2/4 + (y+15)^2/16 < 1
</plot>
<plot type=’region’ range=’-14,-10; -16,-15′ vars=’x, y’ color=’magenta’>
y < Abs[Abs[x + 12] – 1] – 16
</plot>
<plot type=’linechart’ color=’magenta’ thickness=’thick’>
{{-13.5, -16}, {-10.5, -16}}
</plot>
<plot type=’implicit’ range=’-14,-10; -19,-15′ vars=’x, y’ color=’purple’ thickness=’thick’>
(x + 12)^2/4 + (y+15)^2/16 == 1
</plot>
<plot type=’linechart’ color=’purple’ thickness=’thick’>
{{-14, -15}, {-13, -16}, {-12, -15}, {-11, -16}, {-10, -15}}
</plot>
<plot type=’region’ range=’-20,-16; -19,-16′ vars=’x, y’ color=’green’ >
(x + 18)^2/4 + (y + 15)^2/16 < 1
</plot>
<plot type=’region’ range=’-20,-16; -16,-15′ vars=’x, y’ color=’green’>
y < Abs[Abs[x + 18] – 1] – 16
</plot>
<plot type=’linechart’ color=’green’ thickness=’thick’>
{{-19.5, -16}, {-16.5, -16}}
</plot>
<plot type=’implicit’ range=’-20,-16; -19,-15′ vars=’x, y’ color=’purple’ thickness=’thick’>
(x + 18)^2/4 + (y+15)^2/16 == 1
</plot>
<plot type=’linechart’ color=’purple’ thickness=’thick’>
{{-20, -15}, {-19, -16}, {-18, -15}, {-17, -16}, {-16, -15}}
</plot>
<plot type=’region’ range=’-26,-22; -19,-16′ vars=’x, y’ color=’RGBColor(114/255,139/255,225/255)’>
(x + 24)^2/4 + (y+15)^2/16 < 1
</plot>
<plot type=’region’ range=’-26,-22; -16,-15′ vars=’x, y’ color=’RGBColor(114/255,139/255,225/255)’>
y < Abs[Abs[x + 24] – 1] – 16
</plot>
<plot type=’linechart’ color=’RGBColor(114/255,139/255,225/255)’ thickness=’thick’>
{{-25.5, -16}, {-22.5, -16}}
</plot>
<plot type=’implicit’ range=’-26,-22; -19,-15′ vars=’x, y’ color=’purple’ thickness=’thick’>
(x + 24)^2/4 + (y+15)^2/16 == 1
</plot>
<plot type=’linechart’ color=’purple’ thickness=’thick’>
{{-26, -15}, {-25, -16}, {-24, -15}, {-23, -16}, {-22, -15}}
</plot>
<plot type=’region’ range=’4,8; -19,-16′ vars=’x, y’ color=’cyan’ >
(x – 6)^2/4 + (y+15)^2/16 < 1
</plot>
<plot type=’region’ range=’4,8; -16,-15′ vars=’x, y’ color=’cyan’>
y < Abs[Abs[x - 6] – 1] – 16
</plot>
<plot type=’linechart’ color=’cyan’ thickness=’thick’>
{{4.5, -16}, {7.5, -16}}
</plot>
<plot type=’implicit’ range=’4,8; -19,-15′ vars=’x, y’ color=’purple’ thickness=’thick’>
(x – 6)^2/4 + (y+15)^2/16 == 1
</plot>
<plot type=’linechart’ color=’purple’ thickness=’thick’>
{{8, -15}, {7, -16}, {6, -15}, {5, -16}, {4, -15}}
</plot>
<plot type=’region’ range=’10,14; -19,-16′ vars=’x, y’ color=’orange’ >
(x – 12)^2/4 + (y+15)^2/16 < 1
</plot>
<plot type=’region’ range=’10,14; -16,-15′ vars=’x, y’ color=’orange’>
y < Abs[Abs[x - 12] – 1] – 16
</plot>
<plot type=’linechart’ color=’orange’ thickness=’thick’>
{{10.5, -16}, {13.5, -16}}
</plot>
<plot type=’implicit’ range=’10,14; -19,-15′ vars=’x, y’ color=’purple’ thickness=’thick’>
(x – 12)^2/4 + (y+15)^2/16 == 1
</plot>
<plot type=’linechart’ color=’purple’ thickness=’thick’>
{{14, -15}, {13, -16}, {12, -15}, {11, -16}, {10, -15}}
</plot>
<plot type=’region’ range=’16,20; -19,-16′ vars=’x, y’ color=’pink’ >
(x – 18)^2/4 + (y+15)^2/16 < 1
</plot>
<plot type=’region’ range=’16,20; -16,-15′ vars=’x, y’ color=’pink’>
y < Abs[Abs[x - 18] – 1] – 16
</plot>
<plot type=’linechart’ color=’pink’ thickness=’thick’>
{{16.5, -16}, {19.5, -16}}
</plot>
<plot type=’implicit’ range=’16,20; -19,-15′ vars=’x, y’ color=’purple’ thickness=’thick’>
(x – 18)^2/4 + (y+15)^2/16 == 1
</plot>
<plot type=’linechart’ color=’purple’ thickness=’thick’>
{{20, -15}, {19, -16}, {18, -15}, {17, -16}, {16, -15}}
</plot>
<plot type=’region’ range=’22,26; -19,-16′ vars=’x, y’ color=’yellow’ >
(x – 24)^2/4 + (y+15)^2/16 < 1
</plot>
<plot type=’region’ range=’22,26; -16,-15′ vars=’x, y’ color=’yellow’>
y < Abs[Abs[x - 24] – 1] – 16
</plot>
<plot type=’linechart’ color=’yellow’ thickness=’thick’>
{{22.5, -16}, {25.5, -16}}
</plot>
<plot type=’implicit’ range=’22,26; -19,-15′ vars=’x, y’ color=’purple’ thickness=’thick’>
(x – 24)^2/4 + (y+15)^2/16 == 1
</plot>
<plot type=’linechart’ color=’purple’ thickness=’thick’>
{{26, -15}, {25, -16}, {24, -15}, {23, -16}, {22, -15}}
</plot>
<plot type=’region’ range=’28,32; -19,-16′ vars=’x, y’ color=’RGBColor(128/255,128/255,255/255)’ >
(x – 30)^2/4 + (y+15)^2/16 < 1
</plot>
<plot type=’region’ range=’28,32; -16,-15′ vars=’x, y’ color=’RGBColor(128/255,128/255,255/255)’>
y < Abs[Abs[x - 30] – 1] – 16
</plot>
<plot type=’linechart’ color=’RGBColor(128/255,128/255,255/255)’ thickness=’thick’>
{{28.5, -16}, {31.5, -16}}
</plot>
<plot type=’linechart’ color=’purple’ thickness=’thick’>
{{28, -15}, {29, -16}, {30, -15}, {31, -16}, {32, -15}}
</plot>
<plot type=’implicit’ range=’28,32; -19,-15′ vars=’x, y’ color=’purple’ thickness=’thick’>
(x – 30)^2/4 + (y+15)^2/16 == 1
</plot>
</waplot>

Dr. Savkar shared some of his experience with us below, but we invite you to hear more about his innovative approach to teaching during his presentation at our WebAssign Users Group Conference this summer!

What is your teaching philosophy?

My philosophy of teaching is primarily motivated by the impact of education on society in general. Over the years my teaching philosophy has evolved with how my audience (my students) have evolved during this period. It is important to me that the students are the central point of my teaching. I always go with an open mind in a classroom full of students to make them an active part of the teaching and learning process.

What teaching practices do you employ to get your students engaged in learning?

The activity of teaching and learning is an extremely symbiotic process. On one end of this process, the students learn material presented in the classroom, while on the other end, the teacher tries to comprehend if his students are truly learning the material being taught in the class. To me these activities are closely related to the success of teaching and learning, inside and outside of the classroom. As teachers, the first challenge we face is that of motivating our students to learn.

As a teacher it is necessary to have a clear vision of goals for your students. Acknowledging the variation in individual learning abilities of the student can help in outlining these goals in the classroom to a broad spectrum of students. Each student is unique in his/her way and brings a preexisting process of learning and understanding material.  I recollect a quote that I recently heard at a talk given by famous mathematics educator Dr. Herbert Gross, “Students don’t fail calculus, they just don’t pass algebra.” This very statement has resonated with my understanding of how students in differential and integral calculus struggle to internalize the concepts that are built on the fundamental understanding of algebra, arithmetic, and trigonometry. It is then no surprise to me that as a teacher my focus has always been to solidify the foundation of basic mathematics for my students.

What are your best practice suggestions for using WebAssign?

WebAssign has evolved over the last seven years since I first started using it as a tool to have students do their online homework. While it is extremely difficult to keep up with the pace that technology changes, it is also important to recognize that WebAssign has kept up with changing times.  I have used WebAssign more as an assessment tool than as a tool that just allows students to do their homework. WebAssign offers psychometric data on questions that have been answered by millions of other students. This allows you to pick the difficulty level of each problem. Over the years, one of the features that has helped me look at student understanding is the time spent on homework. Another important feature that helps me in my class is the record WebAssign keeps of student’s wrong answers to the homework questions. I have used these wrong answers to spotlight common misconceptions in the class. This actually allows me to have a common theme on which I can build the concepts.

Last year was the first time I used WebAssign with a completely online class for finite mathematics with business majors. We were able to get really good data on student learning based on how they responded to modules in WebAssign and our in-house LMS (learning management system).

What role does technology play in your teaching?

In this world of emerging technologies, it is essential to keep in mind that students, now more than ever, have access to new technologies such as iPhone, iPads, laptops, and so on. These technologies are playing a significant role in improving the overall understanding of material in the subject of mathematics.

Over the past three years, I have received two grants to enhance the teaching and learning experience in large lecture classrooms. I have been able to increase the in-class participation of students, to increase their interaction with instructors, and to help them organize their study material throughout the semester.

May 5

1858 – American physician John Leal is born. Inspired by his experience treating typhoid fever, Leal is the first to conceive of using chlorine to disinfect drinking water. In 1908, Leal hires the most well-known sanitation engineer of his time, George Fuller, to construct the first water chlorination system. Within a decade of the first implementation of the water chlorination system, over a thousand cities in North America were using similar systems. The combination of disinfection and filtration of water supplies results in the rapid decline of deaths from typhoid fever in the US over the next thirty years.

1961 – American aviator and astronaut Alan Shepard becomes the first American in space. Commander Shepard journeys outside of the earth’s atmosphere in the Mercury-Redstone 3 spacecraft as part of NASA’s Project Mercury.  Shepard would later command the Apollo 14 mission, and be the only member of the Mercury 7 to walk on the moon.

May 6

1871 – French chemist Victor Grignard is born. Grignard receives the Nobel prize for his work developing the Grignard reaction. The Grignard reaction is an important technique for synthesizing organic molecules from smaller, precursor ingredients.

1929 – American chemist Paul Lauterbur is born. Lauterbur builds upon existing research into the phenomenon of nuclear magnetic resonance to develop a method of distinguishing between regular water and heavy water. Lauterbur’s research later results in the development of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technology.

May 7

1909 – American inventor and scientist Edwin Land is born. Land shakes up the film industry by developing the first instant camera. After founding the Polaroid Corporation, Land helps design the optics of the Lockheed U-2 spy plane.

1946 – Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering, later called Sony, is founded.

May 8

1919 – American social psychologist Leon Festinger is born. Festinger’s pioneering work on cognitive dissonance and social comparison theory leads to the decline of behaviorism as the dominant view of social psychology. Festinger’s emphasis on laboratory experimentation brings greater scientific rigor to the field of social psychology.

1980 – The World Health Organization reports that smallpox has been globally eradicated as a result of successful vaccination programs.

May 10

1788 – French engineer and physicist Augustin-Jean Fresnel is born. Fresnel contributes greatly to the theory of wave optics, and improves the visibility of lighthouses with his invention of the Fresnel lens.

1900 – English-American astronomer and astrophysicist Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin is born. Over the course of her career, Payne makes over three million observations of the magnitudes of variable stars. These observations make it possible to determine the many paths of stellar evolution.

1930 – American physicist George E. Smith is born. Smith receives the Nobel prize for his work co-inventing the charge-coupled device. The charge-coupled device, or CCD is the electronic “film” used in digital cameras, imaging satellites, and orbital telescopes.

May 11

1918 – American physicist Richard Feynman is born. Feynman receives the Nobel prize for his work developing the theory of quantum electrodynamics. Feynman works on the Manhattan Project developing the atomic bomb, and serves on the Rogers Commission investigating the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. Feynman also contributes to the fields of quantum mechanics, superfluidity, quantum computing, nanotechnology, and bongo drums.

1946 – American physician Robert Jarvik is born. Jarvik invents the first artificial heart to be successfully transplanted into a human.

1987 – American cardiac surgeon Bruce Reitz performs the first successful heart-lung transplant.

1997 – Russian chess grandmaster and former World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov is defeated by IBM supercomputer Deep Blue in their final chess game.

Have a better math/science/teaching joke than this one? Send it in here to be posted as one of our Friday Funnies!

April 28

1900 – Dutch astronomer Jan Oort is born. While studying the motions of stars in our galaxy he notices the amount of observable objects in the galaxy do not account for its total mass. Although it is shown later that Oort’s measurements are erroneous, it is an error that reflects the greater truth, and is cited as the first evidence of dark matter. Oort also discovers the galactic halo, and is remembered for promoting the theory of the Oort cloud to explain the existence and behavior of comets.

1906 – Austrian-American mathematician and logician Kurt Gödel is born. Gödel proposes the existence of inherent limitations in mathematics when he publishes his incompleteness theorems in 1931 at age 25.

April 29

1854 – French physicist and mathematician Henri Poincaré is born. Poincaré  proposes the Poincaré conjecture which remains unsolved until the early 2000′s. Poincaré is later remembered as one of the founders of several fields of physics and mathematics including special relativity, chaos theory, and topology.

1893 – American chemist Harold Urey is born. Urey is the first to detect the isotope of hydrogen, deuterium, and receives the Nobel prize for his discovery of heavy water. During World War II, Urey and his team develop a gaseous diffusion method of separating isotopes of the radioactive element uranium, a process which is necessary for the Manhattan Project to produce the atomic bomb. After the war, Urey conducts an experiment which demonstrates that the conditions of early earth were capable of producing amino acids necessary for the origin of life.

April 30

1777 – German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss is born. Beginning in his teens, Gauss produces a ground-breaking mathematical discovery in nearly every year of his life. Although most students of science and mathematics will later associate him with the invention of the Gaussian surface and Gauss’s law, Gauss is one of the greatest mathematicians in history.

1916 – American mathematician Claude Shannon is born. Shannon’s 1937 master’s thesis proposes a circuit design which serves as the foundation for all modern digital electronics, including computers.

May 1

1753 – Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus publishes his Species Plantarum, which serves as the foundation for modern classification of plants.

1825 – Swiss mathematician Johann Jakob Balmer is born. Balmer derives an empirical formula for the visible spectral lines of hydrogen, which will later be known as the Balmer series.

1852 – Spanish neuroscientist Santiago Ramón y Cajal is born. Cajal investigates the structure and growth of neurons, showing that the nervous system is composed of a multitude of individual cells. Cajal’s discovery of what will later be known as the neuron doctrine earns him the Nobel prize.

May 2

1844 – Canadian-American inventor Elijah McCoy is born. McCoy receives 57 patents for his inventions related to the lubrication of steam engines.

2000 – United States President Bill Clinton announces that Global Positioning Systems (GPS) will no longer be restricted to military use.

May 3

1892 – English physicist George Paget Thomson is born. Thomson receives the Nobel prize for his work showing that electrons experience diffraction, and therefore exhibit the properties of waves.

1933 – American phyicist Steven Weinberg is born. Weinberg shows that electromagnetism and the weak interaction responsible for radioactive decay are the result of the same underlying physical phenomenon. This unification of two forces known as the electroweak interaction earn him the Nobel prize.

1978 – The first spam e-mail is sent by the Digital Equipment Corporation to every ARPANET address on the United States west coast.

May 4

1825 – English biologist Thomas Henry Huxley is born. Huxley becomes an early and outspoken proponent of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, and argues for reforms in science education in schools. As a result of his studies of the fossils of the dinosaurs Compsognathus and Archaeopteryx, Huxley correctly concludes that modern birds evolved from dinosaurs.