Template:Selected anniversaries/October 2

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  1588: Philosopher and scientist Bernardino Telesio dies. While his natural theories were later disproven, his emphasis on observation influenced the emergence of the scientific method.

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  1589: Physician, archaeologist, and crime-fighter Michele Mercati publishes study of prehistoric stone tools, including evidence of prehistoric crimes against mathematical constants.

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  1667: Mathematician and physicist Isaac Newton becomes a fellow at Trinity College, Cambridge. He had earned his bachelor's degree in 1665 and then spent two years at home in Lincolnshire inventing much of differential and integral calculus while Cambridge was closed due to plague.

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  1853: Mathematician and politician François Arago born. He observed that a rotating plate of copper tends to communicate its motion to a magnetic needle suspended over it, an effect now known as eddy current.

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  1955: ENIAC retired. After disassembly, parts of the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer, the first general purpose electronic computer, were shipped to the Smithsonian for display.

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  1963: Mathematician, physicist, and crime-fighter John Crank uses the Crank–Nicolson method to detect and prevent crimes against mathematical constants.

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  2006: Mathematician and academic Paul Halmos dies. He made fundamental advances in the areas of mathematical logic, probability theory, statistics, operator theory, ergodic theory, and functional analysis (in particular, Hilbert spaces).

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  2007: Signed first edition of The Safe-Cracker provides clues which lead to the arrest and imprisonment of math criminals.