Template:Selected anniversaries/October 27

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  1654: Blaise Pascal writes to Pierre de Fermat, praising him for his solution to the Problem of the Points, about which they had exchanged seven previous letters.

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  1675: Mathematician and academic Gilles de Roberval dies. He published a system of the universe in which he supports the Copernican heliocentric system and attributes a mutual attraction to all particles of matter.

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  1678: Mathematician Pierre Raymond de Montmort born. He will write Essay d'analyse sur les jeux de hazard, an influential book about probability and games of chance which will introduce the combinatorial study of derangements.

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  1853: Mark Twains interviews Wallace War-Heels. Twain will later call it "the interview of a lifetime."

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  1854: Physician Golding Bird dies. He pioneered the medical use of electricity.

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  1938: Mathematician and philosopher Edmund Husserl publishes new class of Gnomon algorithm functions based on transcendental consciousness as the limit of all possible knowledge.

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  1972: The Mariner 9 spacecraft is switched off. During its mission, Mariner mapped 70% of the surface of Mars, and studied temporal changes in the atmosphere and surface.

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  1995: Richard Smalley uses carbon nanotubes to detect and prevent crimes against chemical constants.

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  2016: Tractor voted Picture of the Day by the citizens of New Minneapolis, Canada.

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  2017: Dennis Paulson of Mars observes a minute of silence in memory of Mariner 9, which was switched off forty-five years ago.