New: Famous Scientists on US Postage Stamps

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Robert J. Berger" <rberger () ibd com>
Date: May 28, 2005 7:28:58 PM EDT
To: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
Cc: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Subject: New: Famous Scientists on US Postage Stamps


American Scientists Press Release

http://shop.usps.com/cgi-bin/vsbv/postal_store_non_ssl// 
display_products/productDetail.jsp?OID=4849393&info=more#Press_Release

CELEBRATING MORE THAN A CENTURY OF SCIENCE ON U.S. POSTAGE
STAMPS WASHINGTON — Four American Scientists-Thermodynamicist
Josiah Willard Gibbs, geneticist Barbara McClintock,
mathematician John von Neumann and physicist Richard
P. Feynman-were honored with postage stamps dedicated in a
special ceremony today at Henry R. Luce Hall, Yale University,
New Haven, CT.

As host to the event, New Haven holds the unique distinction of
being the only city in the nation where the stamps will be
available May 4. The stamps will be available at Post Offices
and Philatelic Centers nationwide May 5.

"These are some of the greatest scientists of our time, their
pioneering discoveries still influence our lives today," said
John F. Walsh, a member of the U.S. Postal Service's Board of
Governors, who dedicated the stamp.

Joining Walsh were Paul A Fleury, Dean of Engineering, Yale
University; Michelle Feynman, Feynman's daughter; Marina
Whitman, Von Neumann's daughter; Marjorie M. Bhavnani,
McClintock's niece; John Willard Gibbs III, Gibbs' cousin; John
Marburger, Director, Office of Science Technology; and Victor
Stabin, stamp artist. Honored guests included Richard Levin,
President, Yale University and John DeStefano, Mayor, New Haven,
CT.

"This is truly an honor for, not only science enthusiasts and
scientists, but for our community as well," said DeStefano. "As
a life-long resident of New Haven, I am thrilled these beautiful
scientist stamps are being issued here."

Artist Victor Stabin started with collages featuring portraits
of the scientists and drawings associated with their major
contributions to create the stamps. Information about the
specific elements in each collage is printed on the back of each
stamp.

Josiah Willard Gibbs (1839-1903)

Historians and scientists alike have called Josiah Willard Gibbs
one of the greatest scientists of the 19th century. Some have
declared his discoveries to be as fundamental in nature as those
of Galileo and Newton. Over the course of his career, Gibbs made
important contributions in vector analysis, electromagnetic
theory and statistical mechanics, but he is best known for
developing the modern method of thermodynamic analysis.

Gibbs attended Yale, and earned the first doctorate in
engineering to be conferred in the United States. He then
accepted a position at Yale as professor of mathematical
physics. This is where he taught for the rest of his
life-teaching and applying his intellect to the theoretical
problems of the day.

Throughout his career, Gibbs published many books, including "On
the Equilibrium of Heterogeneous Substances," which introduced
the Phase Rule, said to be the most important single linear
equation in the history of science.

Gibbs wrote five papers on the electromagnetic theory of light,
prepared classroom notes that eventually became the first
English language work on modern vector analysis, and in 1902
published his classic "Elementary Principles in Statistical
Mechanics."

For his extraordinary achievements, Gibbs received some of the
most prestigious awards of his time, including the Rumford Prize
of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1880 and the
Copley Medal of the Royal Society of London in 1901.

Barbara McClintock (1902-1992)

In 1983, the renowned geneticist Barbara McClintock received the
Nobel Prize in the category of "Physiology or Medicine" for
discovering genetic transposition. McClintock's research on
Indian corn plants led to her discovery that genetic material
can change positions on a chromosome or move from one chromosome
to another. Her discovery was confirmed immediately in corn and
in the 1960s and 1970s in bacteria and other organisms.

It was at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York that she
discovered transposition in the course of experiments on
mutations caused by broken chromosomes. She called her mobile
genetic elements "controlling elements," to indicate they
controlled the action of other genes during
development. McClintock was among the first biologists to think
concretely about the way genetic material controls the
development of the organism.

John von Neumann (1903-1957)

One of the preeminent mathematicians of the 20th century, John
von Neumann made numerous scientific contributions in both pure
and applied mathematics. Among them was a machine that became a
model for virtually all modern computers.

He joined Albert Einstein and other scientists at the Institute
for Advanced Study, founded in 1930 at Princeton, NJ. In 1937,
von Neumann obtained U.S. citizenship, and by 1943 was serving
as a consultant on the U.S. project to build an atomic bomb at
Los Alamos, NM.

"A First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC (Electronic Discrete
Variable Automatic Computer)," written by von Neumann in June
1945, described a design based on the stored-program concept,
meaning that operating instructions could be entered into a
computer via punched cards and then stored internally.

The new machine, completed in 1952, became a prototype for
almost every computer built since then. For his part in its
development, von Neumann received the Enrico Fermi Award in
1956, the most prestigious science and technology award of the
United States of America.

Von Neumann made two other significant contributions that by
themselves would have brought fame. He provided the mathematical
foundations for quantum mechanics and, with Oskar Morgenstern,
co-authored "Theory of Games and Economic Behavior" (1944). This
theory, which has applications in business and military
strategies, analyzes situations involving conflicting interests
in terms of the opposing players' gains and losses.

Richard P. Feynman (1918-1988)

Richard P. Feynman was a highly original theoretical
physicist. He won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965 with Julian
Schwinger and Shin'ichero Tomonaga for fundamental work in
quantum electrodynamics, which the three carried out
independently in the 1940s. His new formulation of quantum
theory included innovative diagrams-now called Feynman
diagrams-devised to help visualize the dynamics of atomic
particles.

Over several decades, Feynman also made significant
contributions to many other areas of physics, including the
computation theory, the fundamental theory for the weak nuclear
force, which he developed with colleague Murray Gell-Mann. He
even delved into biology.

Today, Feynman is also remembered for his major role in the
Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident
in 1986.

In addition to the Nobel Prize, this respected physicist and
educator received the Albert Einstein Award in 1954, the Ernest
Orlando Lawrence Award in 1962, the Oersted Medal for teaching
in 1972, the National Medal of Science in 1979 and many other
honors-but he often said the best reward was "the pleasure of
finding things out."

---
Robert J. Berger - Internet Bandwidth Development, LLC.
Voice: 408-882-4755 eFax: +1-408-490-2868
http://www.ibd.com



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