Wednesday, September 7, 2011

September 7, 2011

Good morning! It's The Nerd's Almanac for Wednesday, September 7, 2011.

It's the anniversary of television, first demonstrated on this date in 1927. Philo Taylor Farnsworth was 14 years old when he devised the principles of the image dissector based on the back-and-forth motion of plowing a field, and demonstrated a working model six years later.

Today is the birthday of economist Hermann Heinrich Gossen, born in Prussia in 1810. He is best known for his contributions to the theory of marginal utility.

Its also the birthday of David Packard, born in Colorado in 1912. He co-founded Hewlett-Packard in 1939 and retired from the company in 1993. For a couple years during the Nixon administration, he served as Deputy Secretary of Defense, where he brought his business management insight to the department.

And it's the birthday of James Van Allen, born in Iowa in 1914. He was a space scientist, and designed equipment responsible for the detection of the radiation belts surrounding the Earth, which were named in his honor.

Also celebrating birthdays today are three actors of interest to many nerds. Michael Emerson played Benjamin Linus on Lost. Mira Furlan played Ambassador Delenn on Babylon 5 and Danielle Rousseau on Lost. And Toby Jones voiced the part of Dobby the house elf in the Harry Potter movies.

Here is a quote for today...
"Don't be afraid to make mistakes; if you don't make mistakes, you're not reaching far enough."
-- David Packard

And that's the almanac for today. Nerds of the world, we salute you!

Sources:
Wikipedia: September 7

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)