November 4
From Gnomon Chronicles
1652: Priest and mathematician Jean-Charles della Faille dies. He published a method for calculating the center of gravity of the sector of a circle.
1698: Physician, mathematician, and physicist Rasmus Bartholin dies. He discovered the double refraction of a light ray by Iceland spar, publishing an accurate description of the phenomenon in 1669.
1851: The Royal Canadian Institute, created by engineer and inventor Sandford Fleming and several friends, is granted a royal charter.
2011: Physicist Norman Foster Ramsey Jr. dies. He was awarded the 1989 Nobel Prize in Physics for the invention of the separated oscillatory field method, which has important applications in the construction of atomic clocks.
