We hope that you are successful in working with your students to keep them excited about the process of science. We know that in the middle of the school year it can get to be a real challenge to keep your students focused on all that you have to offer. I encourage you to keep up the good work. And don’t hesitate to contact Capital Microscope when you are looking for the perfect science equipment to make science the exciting, active process that we know it can be.
We have some terrific values on our website. Click here to go to our home page to find all the Special Offers shown on that page. For example the National EcoLine Handheld Digital USB Microscope is only $89. This handheld digital USB microscope can enhance students’ discovery process by letting them see things up close. It also allows the capture of images on your computer so you can use the images to further enhance your students’ understanding of science.
We also continue to have great pricing on all our Ohaus balances such as the Ohaus Scout Pro. It has a 400 g capacity with a precision of 0.1 g and is specially priced at only $127.40. You can also find more about all our balances on our website at Balances.
Now is also a good time to schedule my visit to your school to service your microscopes and balances. I can work within your budget to get your equipment in top shape so your students can perform well in the lab with minimal frustration. Go to our Microscope Service page on our website to find out exactly all that our service includes. Contact me directly to discuss how we can help you get your microscopes operating like new at an extremely reasonable cost. We also can adjust, calibrate, zero, and clean mechanical balances. This will help those weighing labs go much smoother for you students.
Quote
Here is a quote to help your students understand the importance of experimentation.
It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how smart you are. If it doesn't agree with experiment, it's wrong. - Richard P. Feynman
Thursday, January 19, 2012
January Science History Tidbits
General
In 1885, the first U.S. patent for a roller coasting structure was issued to La Marcus Thompson of Coney Island, NY. (No. 332,762). Coney Island, at the terminus of New York City's extensive trolley line, was already a popular amusement park in 1884, when Thompson opened a new attraction - the Gravity Pleasure Switchback Railway. For a five-cent ticket, passengers sat sideways in cars that by gravity descended the gentle waves of the 600-foot wooden mini-railway, reaching a top speed of six miles per hour. The enormously popular ride earned back Thompson's original $1,600 investment within three weeks. Within four years, he had built about 50 more across the nation and in Europe. On 22 Dec 1885, he patented the gravity switch-back railway.
Biology
In 1947, Stanford University reported the isolation of the polio virus, after three years of research funded by the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis. The work was done by Drs Hubert S. Loring and C.E. Schwerdt of the Stanford Dept. of Chemistry. Laboratory tests and photographs showed it to be at least 80% pure, and that it could lead to producing an impurity-free vaccine for use against infantile paralysis. Other vaccines existing at the time had problems with large amounts of impurities. The virus was obtained by purification from ground-up brain and spinal cord of rats infected with the polio virus. Electron microscope photographs showed the virus as a spherical partical about 25 nanometers across.
Earth Science
In 1610, Galileo dated his first letter describing telescopic observations in which he saw the moon's cratered surface using his twenty-powered spyglass. He wrote, “... it is seen that the Moon is most evidently not at all of an even, smooth, and regular surface, as a great many people believe of it and of the other heavenly bodies, but on the contrary it is rough and unequal. In short it is shown to be such that sane reasoning cannot conclude otherwise than that it is full of prominences and cavities similar, but much larger, to the mountains and valleys spread over the Earth's surface.” Galileo went on to describe the phenomena in considerable detail, rehearsing, as it were, the observations and conclusions he was to publish more elaborately a few months later in Sidereus Nuncius.
Physics
In 1919, Professor Ernest Rutherford succeeded in splitting the atom. By bombarding nitrogen atoms with alpha particles emitted by radioactive materials he transmuted the nitrogen atoms into oxygen.
Chemistry
In 1833, Robert Kane, a 24-year-old Irish chemist, published a paper in which he was the first to propose the existence of the -C2H5 ethyl radical (Dublin Journal of Medical and Chemical Sciences, which he founded). His idea was initially "a subject of amusement and ridicule among the chemical circles" of Dublin. A year later, when similar ideas were proposed by Justus Liebig, the authority of that great German chemist gave credibility to the concept, and Kane eventually received the credit for it. By the age of 22, he had already written a book, Elements of Practical Pharmacy, and was a professor of chemistry at Dublin's Apothecaries' Hall. His research spanned inorganic, organic, physical, biological and applied chemistry.
In 1885, the first U.S. patent for a roller coasting structure was issued to La Marcus Thompson of Coney Island, NY. (No. 332,762). Coney Island, at the terminus of New York City's extensive trolley line, was already a popular amusement park in 1884, when Thompson opened a new attraction - the Gravity Pleasure Switchback Railway. For a five-cent ticket, passengers sat sideways in cars that by gravity descended the gentle waves of the 600-foot wooden mini-railway, reaching a top speed of six miles per hour. The enormously popular ride earned back Thompson's original $1,600 investment within three weeks. Within four years, he had built about 50 more across the nation and in Europe. On 22 Dec 1885, he patented the gravity switch-back railway.
Biology
In 1947, Stanford University reported the isolation of the polio virus, after three years of research funded by the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis. The work was done by Drs Hubert S. Loring and C.E. Schwerdt of the Stanford Dept. of Chemistry. Laboratory tests and photographs showed it to be at least 80% pure, and that it could lead to producing an impurity-free vaccine for use against infantile paralysis. Other vaccines existing at the time had problems with large amounts of impurities. The virus was obtained by purification from ground-up brain and spinal cord of rats infected with the polio virus. Electron microscope photographs showed the virus as a spherical partical about 25 nanometers across.
Earth Science
In 1610, Galileo dated his first letter describing telescopic observations in which he saw the moon's cratered surface using his twenty-powered spyglass. He wrote, “... it is seen that the Moon is most evidently not at all of an even, smooth, and regular surface, as a great many people believe of it and of the other heavenly bodies, but on the contrary it is rough and unequal. In short it is shown to be such that sane reasoning cannot conclude otherwise than that it is full of prominences and cavities similar, but much larger, to the mountains and valleys spread over the Earth's surface.” Galileo went on to describe the phenomena in considerable detail, rehearsing, as it were, the observations and conclusions he was to publish more elaborately a few months later in Sidereus Nuncius.
Physics
In 1919, Professor Ernest Rutherford succeeded in splitting the atom. By bombarding nitrogen atoms with alpha particles emitted by radioactive materials he transmuted the nitrogen atoms into oxygen.
Chemistry
In 1833, Robert Kane, a 24-year-old Irish chemist, published a paper in which he was the first to propose the existence of the -C2H5 ethyl radical (Dublin Journal of Medical and Chemical Sciences, which he founded). His idea was initially "a subject of amusement and ridicule among the chemical circles" of Dublin. A year later, when similar ideas were proposed by Justus Liebig, the authority of that great German chemist gave credibility to the concept, and Kane eventually received the credit for it. By the age of 22, he had already written a book, Elements of Practical Pharmacy, and was a professor of chemistry at Dublin's Apothecaries' Hall. His research spanned inorganic, organic, physical, biological and applied chemistry.
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