Every Day Is Special

January 27 – Happy Birthday, Dmitri Mendeleev

Posted on January 27, 2016

As I did when writing about James Watt, I am going to wish Dmitri Mendeleev a happy birthday on the date he actually used: January 27. But Mendeleev was born on this date in Russia, in 1834...so this date is O.S. (Old Style).

Many encyclopedias report his birthday as the New Style date of February 8. 1834. (Russia didn't switch to the "New Style" Gregorian calendar until 1918, about 11 years after Mendeleev died.)

Mendeleev was born in a village in Siberia. His father was a teacher of fine arts, politics, and philosophy – but unfortunately he went blind and lost his teaching position. The family became shaky, financially speaking, and Mendeleev's mother restarted her family's abandoned glass factory. However, more bad luck plagued the family: Mendeleev's father died, and the glass factory burned down.

I'm not sure what happened to all of Mendeleev's siblings – he had either 10, 12, 13, or 16 brothers and sisters, depending on what source you consult! – but Mendeleev was the youngest, and Wikipedia reports that his mother crossed the entire country to Moscow and then St. Petersburg to seek a university education for her youngest son. Although the family was by then quite poor, Mendeleev was able to get an education and became a chemist.

His biggest contribution to scientific knowledge was his arrangement of the elements in a periodic table – the one we use to this day (although of course expanded with newly discovered elements).

Mendeleev also used his periodic table to correct the properties of already known elements and to predict the properties of eight elements that had not yet been discovered!

Periodically speaking...

Mendeleev was not the first scientist to notice the patterns of the elements' properties – properties such as boiling point, color, ability to transmit (conduct) electricity, and how reactive they are with other elements. Several scientists had made similar observations in 1864 and 1865. However, their description of the patterns – or periodicity – did not gain much notice.

Mendeleev, not aware of those scientists' work, had a dream in which the elements fell into place in a table. He woke from the dream and scribbled down the arrangement; he later claimed that he only had to make one small correction to that dream-inspired table.

In 1869, Mendeleev made a formal presentation of his periodic table to the Russian Chemical Society. He gained international fame and many honors for this work. Although many thought Medeleev should have received a Nobel Prize in Chemistry, there is a crater on the Moon named for this scientist, and the chemical element mendelevium (Md) is also named for him.

By the way, Mendeleev also investigate petroleum and helped to found the first oil refinery in Russia.

Celebrate!

Check out this NeoK12 YouTube video.
Check out the periodic table in this modern, interactive form.

Consider buying or making periodic table cards or other items.
Learn the Periodic Table song! It's a challenge!

Also on this date:

National Geographic Day

Soldag in Norway

Thomas Crapper Day

Vietnam Peace Day

Mozart's birthday

Author Lewis Carroll's birthday

Plan ahead:

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February holidays
February birthdays
Historical anniversaries in February

January 26 – Michigan Celebrates Its Statehood!

Posted on January 26, 2016

Michigan was once owned (by which I mean settled and used) by the Algonquian peoples, the Odaawaa peoples, and Boodewaadamii peoples. Some of the Algonquians were in the group that called themselves the Ojibwe – and were called "Chippewa" by the French.

French explorers and woodsmen began to settle in what is now Michigan in the 1600s, eventually establishing trading posts. From 1660 until 1763, the area was part of “New France,” but when the French lost the French and Indian War to the British, Michigan and the parts of New France that were east of the Mississippi River became British lands.

Yes, even though they were being used by the original owners such as the Ojibwe!

After the American Revolutionary War, one would think that Michigan would pass to the new nation, the United States of America. But the the imprecise maps of the time and the unclear language of the 1783 Treaty of Paris resulted in the British still having control of Michigan, including the important town of Detroit. In 1791, the region was considered part of Upper Canada.

A couple of treaties later, after the War of 1812, Michigan finally became American territory.

And finally finally, on this date in 1837, Michigan had a large enough population of non-native "Americans" to qualify as a state.

What's special about Michigan?

The first thing I ever learned about Michigan was its unique shape. It is the only state to consist of two peninsulas (pieces of land that jut out into water so that they are surrounded by water on three sides). And the two peninsulas are unconnected to one another. My wooden puzzle of the U.S. had two separate pieces for Michigan—the mitten-shaped piece, and the dog-shaped piece (to my child's mind).

Obviously, Michigan is very much a “Great Lakes” state. The Great Lakes are not only the largest lakes in the U.S. (although most are ALSO partly “in” Canada), they are among the largest lakes in the world! The five interconnected lakes make the largest group of freshwater lakes on Earth, and Lake Superior is the second largest lake in the world, and Lake Michigan is the largest lake in the world that is entirely within one country.

The Great Lakes were very important for shipping and travel, especially in the past, and so important settlements grew into important towns, which in turn grew into important cities. Now some call the area surrounding the lakes the Great Lakes Megalopolis, which is made up of Chicago, Toronto, Detroit, Montreal, Minneapolis-Saint Paul, Cleveland-Akron, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Columbus, Milwaukee, Ottawa, Grand Rapids, Buffalo, Rochester, Toledo, and so on and on! Several of those cities are in Michigan.

Michigan is full of water, obviously, and full of forests and plants that love all that water—and of course water and forests is a pretty good recipe for gorgeous scenery. Take a gander at some of the lovely sights to be seen in Michigan:

Palms Book State Park, which features a spring,
a pool of clear water that visitors can
peer into from a CCC-built raft that
is drawn across the lake by cables

Tahquamenon Falls, the second largest
waterfall in the U.S. (by volume)

Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore,

which was dubbed “The Most Beautiful

Place in America” by Good Morning

America, in 2011

Mackinac Island, which has its great natural
beauties but also some fairly swank hotels

Also on this date:

Aviator Bessie Coleman's birthday

Author Mary Mapes Dodge's birthday

Lotus 1-2-3 Day

Australia Day

Republic Day in India

Up Helly Aa

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February holidays
February birthdays
Historical anniversaries in February

January 25 – Betico Croes Day in Aruba

Posted on January 25, 2016

Sadly, the fellow some call the “Father of the Aruban Nation” wasn't able to see his goal come to pass.

That happens a lot, actually – people who strive for big goals often set in motion the accomplishment of that goal, but don't live to see it. Gilberto Francois "Betico" Croes had a saying about that:

He said, “If I die in the field, grab the flag and continue the battle.”

This monument to Croes shows
him still holding the flag...

NOTE:Croes said his famous quote in another language: “Si mi cai na caminda, gara e bandera y sigui cu e lucha.” That looks a lot like Spanish to me, but not exactly; plus, I didn't think that an Aruban patriot would be speaking Spanish. It is probably one of the official languages of Aruba, Papiamento, which is a creole language made up of Portuguese, Dutch, African languages, and other languages (including Spanish). It is the most widely spoken language on the Caribbean ABC islands (Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao).

Betico Croes thought that Aruba should separate from the rest of the Netherlands Antilles and should become an autonomous country. He led a political party, helped design a national seal and flag, and co-wrote a patriotic hymn (anthem) for the island. He helped in the writing of the constitution. He worked to get a referendum vote on the question of whether Aruba should be independent of the Netherlands; a whopping 83% of the islanders voted YES.

He also worked to get Aruba to diversify its economy, especially concentrating on tourism, and he worked on plans and projects for the future he didn't live to see.

Croes helped set up the conference to discuss independence and to prepare a timetable for Aruba's autonomy, but shortly after he returned victorious from the conference, he was in an automobile accident. He went into a coma and died almost a year later, apparently never regaining consciousness.

By the way, I hope you will notice that, although Croes said “if I die in the field...continue the battle,” the battle he spoke of was political, not violent. It's tragic that he died, but there doesn't seem to be any evidence that his death was a part of any conspiracy...

Arubans honor Croes's memory today, his birthday. Croes was born in 1938 and died in 1986.

Hmm...“Father of the Aruban Nation,” independence, autonomy, and victory...But Aruba isn't independent, is it?

Aruba did become independent of the Netherland Antilles, on January 1, 1986 (just one day after Croes's car accident!), but it is still a part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is considered an autonomous country within the kingdom, along with Curaçao, Sint Maarten, and the Netherlands. It has its own parliament but depends on the Netherlands for foreign policy and defense.

Full-on independence was scheduled for 1996, ten years after Aruba's separation from the Netherland Antilles. But in 1995 it was postponed... indefinitely.

Good for tourism

Aruba is sunny and arid. Actually, knowing that they can be pretty sure that they are going to have sunny weather is a good thing for tourists, who often travel to Aruba to enjoy the beaches, scuba diving, and sky diving.

Also on this date:

Opposite Day

A Room of One's Own Day

Day of Serpents in Lithuania

Burn's Night in Scotland

Russian Students' Day

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February holidays
February birthdays
Historical anniversaries in February

January 24 – Happy Birthday, Michio Kaku

Posted on January 24, 2016

How would you like to be a futurist?

That's someone who tries to systematically make and develop predictions of the future based on trends in the present – and on cutting-edge scientific developments and technological advances – and on knowledge and reason.

It is definitely NOT someone who makes predictions based on so-called ESP or magic or some sort of mystical force.

Michio Kaku is a lot of things. He's a writer, a speaker, and a television personality. He's a theoretical physicist and a college professor. He's a popularizer of science.

But the FIRST thing that Wikipedia lists about Kaku is that he is a futurist. How cool is that?

Michio Kaku was born in California. Kaku's parents met in an internment center, where Americans who just happened to be of Japanese descent were locked up during World War II. Kaku's parents were not able to surmount the prejudice against Japanese Americans in order to have well-paid careers, so Kaku grew up fairly poor. However, Kaku's parents did manage to support his interests. He took him to university libraries when he was still just a kid, and they also allowed him to do experiments in the house.

And in the garage.

Yeah, about those experiments...

When Michio Kaku was still in high school, he built an “atom smasher” (a particle accelerator) in his parents' garage! He used 400 pounds of scrap metal and 22 miles of copper wire and ended up creating a 2.3 million volt accelerator that generated a magnetic field 20 thousand times greater than Earth's. It was powerful enough to create antimatter.

Yikes!

Luckily, his parents didn't say, “No, honey, you cannot build a 2.3 million volt ANYTHING in our garage,” like every other parent on the planet would surely say...And luckily, Kaku didn't kill himself with his atom smasher!

What DID result from this science fair project is that famed physicist Edward Teller took Kaku as a protege.

Despite the fact that Kaku had showed so much promise, so young, despite the fact that he graduated summa cum laude from Harvard University and was first in his physics class, despite the fact that he received a Ph.D. and held a lectureship at Princeton University –

Despite all of that oh-so-special brainiac stuff, Michio Kaku was drafted into the United States Army during the Vietnam War! He completed basic training and advanced infantry training, but luckily the war ended before he was put in harm's way. (!)

Luckily not just for him and his loved ones, but for all of us. Kaku has made a lot of progress in physics – he was one of the founders of string field theory – but has also dedicated a lot of time and effort to explaining science to the general public. Take advantage of all of our luck by checking out his books and TV shows and videos. Here's a few to get you started: