July 30: Regnier de Graaf and Henry Ford born are born, MacArthur Fellow Julia Hall Bowman Robinson dies

Regnier de Graaf

Dutch physician, physiologist, and anatomist Regnier de Graaf was born today on 30 July 1641.

 Reinier de Graaf
Reinier de Graaf (Credit: Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen)

 

De Graaf made key discoveries in reproductive biology and was the first to develop a syringe to inject dye into human reproductive organs so he could understand their structure and function.

Henry Ford

Born today in 1863, American inventor and automobile manufacturer Henry Ford. Formerly with the Edison Illuminating Company, Ford revolutionised the automobile industry with standardised and interchangeable parts and the innovation of the assembly line. Ford is best known for the low-cost reliable Model T – available in any colour you wanted, so long as it was black.

Julia Robinson

American mathematician and MacArthur Fellow Julia Hall Bowman Robinson died today in 1985, aged 65. Robinson was noted for her contributions to the fields of computability theory and computational complexity theory—most notably in decision problems. Her work on Hilbert’s tenth problem (now known as Matiyasevich’s theorem or the MRDP theorem) played a crucial role in its ultimate resolution.

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