October 4

Are You Sure ... (October 4, 2020)

Do you remember when the United States was no longer the most powerful nation on Earth? Sputnik 1 remembers.

• ... that Sputnik 1 (Простейший Спутник-1, "Elementary Satellite One") was the first artificial Earth satellite; that Sputnik was launched into an elliptical low Earth orbit on 4 October 1957; and that its batteries died three weeks later, after which Sputnik orbited silently for two months before falling into the atmosphere?

• ... that physicist and inventor John Vincent Atanasoff (4 October 1903 – 15 June 1995) invented a pioneering electronic digital computer in the 1930s, and that challenges to his legal claim were resolved in 1973 when the Honeywell v. Sperry Rand lawsuit ruled that Atanasoff was the inventor of what is now called the Atanasoff–Berry computer?

• ... that mathematician and actuary Harald Cramér (25 September 1893 – 5 October 1985) became interested in the field of probability before it was accepted branch of mathematics, and that Cramér wrote, in a 1926 paper: "The probability concept should be introduced by a purely mathematical definition, from which its fundamental properties and the classical theorems are deduced by purely mathematical operations."?

• ... that theoretical physicist Max Planck (23 April 1858 – 4 October 1947) lost much of his will to live after his son Erwin was arrested by and died at the hands of the Gestapo?

Screenshot: Are You Sure (October 4, 2020)

On This Day in History and Fiction

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  1903: Physicist, inventor, and academic John Vincent Atanasoff born. He will invent the Atanasoff–Berry computer, the first electronic digital computer.

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  1947: Physicist and academic Max Planck dies. He made many contributions to theoretical physics, and earned fame as the originator of quantum theory.

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  1957: Clock Head 2 stops math criminals from interfering with the launch of Sputnik 1.

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  1957: Space Race: Launch of Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite to orbit the Earth.