December BAH Short List
Earthrise is the name given to NASA image AS8-14-2383, taken by astronaut William Anders during the Apollo 8 mission, the first manned voyage to orbit the Moon. Taken on December 24, 1968.
On 26 December 1898, the Curies announced the existence of a second element, which they named “radium”, from the Latin word for “ray”.
Marie Skłodowska-Curie (7 November 1867 – 4 July 1934) was a Polish and naturalized-French physicist and chemist who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity. She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, the only woman to win in two fields, and the only person to win in multiple sciences. She was also the first woman to become a professor at the University of Paris, and in 1995 became the first woman to be entombed on her own merits in the Panthéon in Paris.
Bertrand Russell 1950 Nobel Prize for Literature
Views on religion[edit]
Russell described himself as an agnostic, “speaking to a purely philosophical audience”, but as an atheist “speaking popularly”, on the basis that he could not disprove the Christian God similar to the way that he could not disprove the Olympic Gods either.[138] For most of his adult life Russell maintained that religion is little more than superstition and, despite any positive effects that religion might have, it is largely harmful to people. He believed that religion and the religious outlook serve to impede knowledge and foster fear and dependency, and are responsible for much of our world’s wars, oppression, and misery. He was a member of the Advisory Council of theBritish Humanist Association and President of Cardiff Humanists until his death.[139] (from wikipedia)
- http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1950/russell-bio.html
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertrand_Russell
Other calendars
- Anti-Defamation League ADL 2015 12 December
- Freedom from Religion Foundation FFRF Calendar 12
- United Nations Observations UN Proclamations & Observances UN Proclomations & Observances 2015 12 December
Full BAH Research
December
| Name & Event | Reason important to Secular Humanism | Calendar Month |
| Bertrand Russell 1950 Prize for Literature | The Nobel Prize in Literature 1950 was awarded to Bertrand Russell“in recognition of his varied and significant writings in which he champions humanitarian ideals and freedom of thought”.l Principal publications l German Social Democracy, 1896 l Foundations of Geometry, 1897 l A Critical Exposition of the Philosophy of Leibniz, 1900 l Principles of Mathematics, vol. 1, 1903 l Philosophical Essays, 1910 l (with Dr. A. N. Whitehead) Principia mathematica, 3 vols, 1910-13 l The Problems of Philosophy, 1912 l Our Knowledge of the External World as a Field for Scientific Method in Philosophy, 1944 l Principles of Social Reconstruction, 1916 l Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays, 1918 l Roads to Freedom: Socialism, Anarchism and Syndicalism, 1918 l Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy, 1919 l The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism, 1920 l The Analysis of Mind, 1921 l The Problem of China, 1922 l The ABC of Atoms, 1923 l (with Dora Russell) The Prospects of Industrial Civilisation, 1923 l Logical Atomism, 1924 l The ABC of Relativity, 1925 l On Education, 1926 l The Analysis of Matter, 1927 l An Outline of Philosophy, 1927 l Sceptical Essays, 1928 l Marriage and Morals, 1929 l The Conquest of Happiness, 1930 l The Freedom and Organisation 1814-1914, 1934 l In Praise of Idleness, 1935 l Which Way to Peace?, 1936 l (with Patricia Russell editor of) The Amberley Papers, 2 vols, 1937 l Power: a new Social Introduction to its Study, 1938 l An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth, 1941 l History of Western Philosophy, 1946 l Human Knowledge, its Scope and Limits, 1948 l Authority and the Individual, 1949 l Unpopular Essays, 1950 | December 1950 |
| Earthrise and the Apollo project | Earthrise is the name given to NASA image AS8-14-2383, taken by astronaut William Anders during the Apollo 8 mission, the first manned voyage to orbit the Moon.[1] [2] Initially, before Anders found a suitable 70 mm color film, mission commander Frank Borman took a black-and-white photograph [3] of the scene, with the Earth’s terminator touching the horizon. The land mass position and cloud patterns in this image are the same as those of the color photograph entitled Earthrise. [4] | December 24, 1968 The photograph was taken from lunar orbit on December 24, 1968, with a highly modified Hasselblad 500 EL with an electric drive. The camera had a simple sighting ring rather than the standard reflex viewfinder and was loaded with a 70 mm film magazine containing custom Ektachrome film developed by Kodak. An audio recording of the event is available [5] with transcription [6] which allows the event to be followed closely – excerpt:[7] Anders: Oh my God! Look at that picture over there! There’s the Earth coming up. Wow, is that pretty. Borman: Hey, don’t take that, it’s not scheduled. (joking) Anders: (laughs) You got a color film, Jim? Hand me that roll of color quick, would you… Lovell: Oh man, that’s great! |
| Marie Curie | At that time, no one else in the world of physics had noticed what Curie recorded in a sentence of her paper, describing how much greater were the activities of pitchblende and chalcolite than uranium itself: “The fact is very remarkable, and leads to the belief that these minerals may contain an element which is much more active than uranium.” She later would recall how she felt “a passionate desire to verify this hypothesis as rapidly as possible.”[29] On 14 April 1898 the Curies optimistically weighed out a 100-gram sample of pitchblende and ground it with a pestle and mortar. They did not realize at the time that what they were searching for was present in such minute quantities that they would eventually have to process tons of the ore.[29]In July 1898 Curie and her husband published a joint paper announcing the existence of an element which they named “polonium”, in honour of her native Poland, which would for another twenty years remain partitioned among three empires.[7] On 26 December 1898, the Curies announced the existence of a second element, which they named “radium”, from the Latin word for “ray”.[17][24][30] In the course of their research, they also coined the word “radioactivity”.[7] At that time, no one else in the world of physics had noticed what Curie recorded in a sentence of her paper, describing how much greater were the activities of pitchblende and chalcolite than uranium itself: “The fact is very remarkable, and leads to the belief that these minerals may contain an element which is much more active than uranium.” She later would recall how she felt “a passionate desire to verify this hypothesis as rapidly as possible.”[29] On 14 April 1898 the Curies optimistically weighed out a 100-gram sample of pitchblende and ground it with a pestle and mortar. They did not realize at the time that what they were searching for was present in such minute quantities that they would eventually have to process tons of the ore.[29] In July 1898 Curie and her husband published a joint paper announcing the existence of an element which they named “polonium”, in honour of her native Poland, which would for another twenty years remain partitioned among three empires.[7] On 26 December 1898, the Curies announced the existence of a second element, which they named “radium”, from the Latin word for “ray”.[17][24][30] In the course of their research, they also coined the word “radioactivity”.[7] | April, July, December Radium article in December |