#OTD in 1933.
Hungarian-American physicist Leo Szilard conceived of the idea of the nuclear chain reaction while waiting for a traffic light in Bloomsbury, London. He patented the idea in 1936.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Szilard
#OTD in 1933.
Hungarian-American physicist Leo Szilard conceived of the idea of the nuclear chain reaction while waiting for a traffic light in Bloomsbury, London. He patented the idea in 1936.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Szilard
Two-way mathematical 'dictionary' could connect quantum physics with number theory
by Institute of Science and Technology Austria via @physorg_com
https://phys.org/news/2024-09-mathematical-dictionary-quantum-physics-theory.html
#OTD in 1822.
French physicist Augustin-Jean Fresnel, in a "note" read to the Academy of Sciences, reports a direct refraction experiment verifying David Brewster's hypothesis that photoelasticity (as it is now known) is stress-induced birefringence.
French physicist Léon Foucault was born #OTD in 1819.
He is best known for his demonstration of the Foucault pendulum, a device demonstrating the effect of Earth's rotation. With Hippolyte Fizeau he carried out a series of investigations on the intensity of the light of the sun, as compared with that of carbon in the arc lamp, and of lime in the flame of the oxyhydrogen blowpipe. His is one of the 72 names inscribed on the Eiffel Tower.