Scientific Birthday

Last Updated (Sunday, 05 September 2010 12:39) Written by Raymond Nakamura

My now six-year-old daughter enjoyed her birthday party at Science World last month. I'm celebrating mine online with other scientists born on September 7. This should not in any way be construed as supporting astrology. You can find others on this site, as well as ones for your birthday or any other day. Here are three scientists well-known enough that I'd heard something about them before. 

French naturalist Comte Georges-Louis de Buffon (1707-1788) wrote 44 volumes on Natural History while keeper of the Jardin du Roi (Royal Gardens), way back before the internet, when some people read books. He was the first to suggest the earth might be older than the Bible suggested and that organisms might evolve.

German chemist (Friedrich) August Kekulé von Stradonitz (1829-1896) was originally going to be an architect, but ended up figuring out how molecules are built instead. I'd heard of him for the dream he had about a serpent catching its own tail, which supposedly gave him the idea that benzene had a ring structure. I don't think this has anything to do with Wagner's Ring cycle, however.

American physicist James Alfred Van Allen (1914-2006) headed the first U.S. satellite project, which measured radiation and discovered the Earth's magnetosphere. These two donut-shaped zones of radiation around the Earth, now called Van Allen Belts (not to be confused with Chanel bags), are filled charged particles. 

I apologize for the lack of female representation on my list or non-white people for that matter. If anyone knows of to add to my exclusive list of scientists who share my birthday, please let me know.