August 8 – Happy Birthday, Ernest Lawrence

   Posted on August 8, 2022     

This is an update of my post published on August 8, 2011:

Ernest Lawrence was born in South Dakota on this day in 1901. But his long career as a physicist occurred at the University of California, Berkeley.

Lawrence invented the cyclotron, a type of particle accelerator and atom smasher, in 1929. 

His first model only cost around $25 in materials, could be held in one hand—and it worked! That small model accelerated protons to a remarkable 1% of the speed of light! (Remember that today’s particle accelerators and atom smashers, such as the Large Hadron Collider, cost billions of dollars and are many miles wide! Of course, such huge machines achieve far great speeds and smashing-power than that first model!)

See also  Brothers Terrified By Bigfoot Outside Bedroom Window

The Large Hadron Collider can accelerate particles quite close to the speed of light – so fast a particle could whizz around the Earths equator seven and a  half times in just one second!

Berkeley’s Lawrence Hall of Science is named for Lawrence, as is the chemical element lawrencium. Lawrence won the Nobel Prize in 1939.

Above and below – the Lawrence Hall of Science has wonderful things to see and do to explore various fields of science.

Also on this date:

Independence Day for Bhutan 

Anniversary of the laying of the cornerstone of Uraniborg

Sneak Some Zucchini onto Your Neighbor’s Porch Night

See also  September 23 - Vernal (Spring!) Equinox in Australia

Universal and International Infinity Day

Create / Happiness

Saint Mary MacKillop Day in Australia

Wear Your Mother’s Jewelry Day

Father’s Day in Taiwan

Farmers’ Day in Tanzania

Heroes’ Day in Zimbabwe

(Second Monday of August)

Plan ahead:

Check out my Pinterest boards for:

• August holidays
• August birthdays
• Historical anniversaries in August

And here are my Pinterest boards for:

• September holidays
• September birthdays
• Historical anniversaries in September