John Dalton

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

photo: uh.edu
John Dalton was an English physicist, meteorologist and chemist expert, pioneering work in the development of modern atomic theory, and his research into color blindness (sometimes referred to as Daltonism, in his honour), atomic sign, double proportion law, dalton law, atomic sign, founder of rain cause, author, teacher, and Royal Society member. He never married because never have time for that. Born at Eaglesfield, near Cockermouth in Cumberland, England on September 6, 1766 and dies in Manchester on July 27, 1844 at 78 years old. Because founded atomic theory by scientist not theory likes Democritus that based on philosophy and speculative so Dalton mention as atomic theory father. His father was weaver and has six children. Dalton father is poor that why he can school their child till high school. At 11 years old, Dalton must drop out from school and must looked jobs for him. Dalton and his father were Quaker. Quaker or Friend is a religious movement. Most groups of Friends meet for regular worship, but the form this takes differs considerably between different Yearly Meetings and traditions, ranging from silent meetings with no leader and no fixed plan of what will happen, through to services led by a pastor with readings and hymns (similar to conventional church services). Dalton was humble child and like learning by himself so he clever than another children at his age. In the night he learn math. At 12 years old he became teacher. But his salary was very small only 5 shilling in one week. Two year later he was looking a new job. He got job as farm worker. But this job obviously not matched with he wish. At 15 years old, he became teacher again at Kendal till he got headmaster position at 27 years. Later he moved to Manchester. In this city he met John Gough, a blind philosopher and polymath from whose informal instruction he owed much of his scientific knowledge, Dalton was appointed teacher of mathematics and natural philosophy at the "New College" in Manchester, a Dissenting academy. Dalton stared interesting to meteorologist since 12 yeas old. Starting at that age till he dies, Dalton recorded his observation. For 57 years he recorded 200,000 observations. At 27 years old, his first book Meteorological Observations and Essays (1793) published, which contained the seeds of several of his later discoveries. A second work by Dalton, Elements of English Grammar, was published in 1801. Although Dalton's theory lost credence in his own lifetime, the thorough and methodical nature of his research into his own visual problem was so broadly recognized that Daltonism became a common term for color blindness. Examination of his preserved eyeball in 1995 demonstrated that Dalton actually had a less common kind of color blindness, deuteroanopia, in which medium wavelength sensitive cones are missing (rather than functioning with a mutated form of their pigment, as in the most common type of color blindness, deuteroanomaly). Besides the blue and purple of the spectrum he was able to recognize only one color, yellow, or, as he says in his paper,

that part of the image which others call red appears to me little more than a shade or defect of light. After that the orange, yellow and green seem one colour which descends pretty uniformly from an intense to a rare yellow, making what I should call different shades of yellow.

South Korean Grandmother Passes Driver's Exam After 950 Tries

Sunday, November 8, 2009

photo: news.sky.com
There no word for give up in life dictionary of South Korea Grandmother, Cha Sa-soon (68 years old). After 950 times tried, at the last she passed written exam to get driver's license. Cha Sa-soon has taken the written exam on a near-daily basis since April 2005. The test requires 60% to pass but Mrs Cha has repeatedly scored between 30% and 50%. The 68-year-old grandmother forks out 6,000 won in application fees every time she takes the test. After 950 tries, that amounts to more than five million won (US$ 5.000). But now she has finally passed the written exam with a score of 60, according to police official Choi Young-chul. However, Mrs Cha will not be buying a new motor just yet - she still needs to pass the driving part of the exam before she gets her license. The grandmother has become a familiar figure at the drivers' license agency in Jeonju, 130 miles (120 km) south of Seoul. To Korea Times newspaper, Cha said that driver's license she will used to operate her door-to-door vegetable business a little easier. Keep spirit and never give up, grandma.....

Christopher Latham Sholes

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

photo: mytypewriter.com
In 1875, Christopher Sholes is United States citizen with assistance from Amos Densmore rearranged the typewriter keyboard so that the commonest letters were not so close together and the type bars would come from opposite directions. Thus they would not clash together and jam the machine. The new arrangement was the "QWERTY" arrangement that typists use today. Sholes was a U.S. mechanical engineer who invented the first practical modern typewriter, patented in 1868. Sholes invented the typewriter with partners S. W. Soule and G. Glidden, that was manufactured (by Remington Arms Company) in 1873. The type-bar system and the universal keyboard were the machine's novelty, but the keys jammed easily. To solve the jamming problem, another business associate, James Densmore, suggested splitting up keys for letters commonly used together to slow down typing. This became today's standard "QWERTY" keyboard. Sholes claimed that the new arrangement was scientific and would add speed and efficiency. Sholes lacked the patience required to market the new product and sold the rights to Densmore. He, in turn, convinced Philo Remington (of rifle fame) to market the device. The first "Sholes & Glidden Type Writer" was offered for sale in 1874 but was not an instant success. A few years later, improvements made by Remington engineers gave the machine its market appeal and sales skyrocketed. Sholes spent the end of his life in ever-increasing obscurity. He continued to tinker with various inventions, but none saw the light of day. He was born February 14, 1819 in Mooresburg, Pennsylvania, and died on February 17, 1890 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Here are a few more interesting facts: The Sholes keyboard is called the QWERTY keyboard because of the ordering of the first six keys in the third row. On the original Sholes keyboard, there was no key for the number '1', because the inventors decided that the users could get by with the letter 'l'. There was no shift key, the first typewriters could only type upper case letters. The first shift key typewriter didn't appear on the market until 1878.