December 27 - Happy Birthday, Johannes Kepler and Louis Pasteur

  Posted on December 27, 2021

This is an update of my post published on December 27, 2010:

Two giants of science were born on this day (251 years apart!).

On December 27, 1571, Johannes Kepler was born in Germany. His claim to gigantic-ness—he is even called the Father of Modern Astronomy!— is that he figured out that the planets travel in elliptical (oval-shaped) orbits rather than round orbits, and he figured out three major laws of planetary motion. Sir Isaac Newton's law of gravitation had their genesis in Kepler's laws. Kepler also suggested that the tides were caused by the attraction of the moon. All of that is pretty gigantic!

In 1822, Louis Pasteur was born in France.

Pasteur's claim to gigantic-ality—he is considered one of the founders of microbiology!—is that he discovered much about causes and preventions of diseases: he developed the first vaccine for rabies and anthrax, invented pasteurization of milk, and discovered the role of bacteria in fermentation and was therefore able to improve the manufacture of wine.

For more on Kepler's Three Laws, try Carl Sagan's “Cosmos”...

Here is a video on how one of Louis Pasteur's discoveries not only changed science, but also changed the public's knowledge of - and caring about - science!

Also on this date:

Stanley Sports Day in the Falkland Islands

Howdy Doody Day 

Ta Chiu in Hong Kong

Anniversary of the opening of Radio City Music Hall

Anniversary of the debut of Peter Pan

Kwanzaa (from 12/26/11 to 1/1/12)

Visit the Zoo Day

Anniversary of Carrie Nation smashing a bar

Anniversary of the passage of the Laws of Burgos

Day of the Constitution in North Korea

Plan ahead:

Check out my Pinterest pages on:

• December holidays
• December birthdays
• Historical anniversaries in December

And here are my Pinterest boards for:

• January holidays 
• January birthdays 
• Historical anniversaries in January
  

September 17, 2011 - Van Leeuwenhoek Spots “Animalcules”

 in Dental Plaque! (Ewwww!) – 1683

Until the late 1600s, nobody knew that there were tiny, invisible creatures living among (and in!) us. But on this date in 1683, Antony Van Leeuwenhoek wrote a letter to Britain's Royal Society describing tiny one-celled creatures he discovered while looking through a microscope.

He called these creatures “animalcules,” but today we call them bacteria.

Microscopes had been invented almost a century earlier, and even compound microscopes (those that combine ocular and objective lenses) had been created by Van Leeuwenhoek's time. However, the early compound microscopes were not able to get clear images at more than twenty or thirty times magnification. Van Leeuwenhoek was able to look at much smaller things using the simple microscopes he himself made—the best in the world, for the time—achieving magnifications above 200 times!

And what did he study using his powerful microscope? Plaque scraped from his own teeth and from the teeth of four other people.

Van Leeuwenhoek was surprised to see living creatures “very prettily a-moving.” Some shot through the plaque-and-water mixture, straight and swift, and others “spun round like a top.”

Van Leeuwenhoek later discovered foraminifera fossils, blood cells, animal sperm cells, and vacuoles in cells. (These are like storage bins inside cells. They contain water and important molecules.)

With all of this discovery, you are probably not surprised that Van Leeuwenhoek is considered the “Father of Microbiology.”

Learn more...

Biology4Kids has a website about microorganisms. 

Microbe World has tons of links to explore,  and Science Kids offers videos of microscopic activity. 

To learn about other founders of microbiology, check out this and this other earlier posts. (Both posts include other topics not related to microbiology. Just scan down to the picture of the microscope!) There are also activities such as a fun virtual microscope.

December 27, 2010

Happy Birthday, Johannes Kepler and Louis Pasteur

Two giants of science were born on this day (251 years apart!).

In 1571, Johannes Kepler was born in Germany. His claim to gigantic-ness—he is even called the Father of Modern Astronomy!— is that he figured out that the planets travel in elliptical (oval-shaped) orbits rather than round orbits, and he figured out three major laws of planetary motion. Sir Isaac Newton's law of gravitation had their genesis in Kepler's laws. Kepler also suggested that the tides were caused by the attraction of the moon. All of that is pretty gigantic!

In 1822, Louis Pasteur was born in France. His claim to gigantic-ality—he is considered one of the founders of microbiology!—is that he discovered much about causes and preventions of diseases: he developed the first vaccine for rabies and anthrax, invented pasteurization of milk, and discovered the role of bacteria in fermentation and was therefore able to improve the manufacture of wine.

For more on Kepler's Three Laws, try Carl Sagan's “Cosmos”...

The Science Channel's “Greatest Discoveries” has a segment on Louis Pasteur...