Tuesday 10 August 2010

Geek Dates

We're looking for some geek dates.

No, not dinner and a movie with a guy/ gal who has an impressive collection of 1987 synthesizers (though that might be cool too). We're looking for momentous dates in geek history to include in the calendar. A lot of calendars mark significant saints days, but the Libel Reform team pointed out Geek Calendar should be a bit different, with notes relating to science and technology instead. We agreed and decided we need about three "geeky dates" for each month. Our calendar's going to have two Decembers and two Janurarys, so we need double for those months.

This is what we have so far. What else should be there? Maybe we should replace some of the ones we have? Let us know what you think - here or on twitter.

December 10 Ada Lovelace born (1815)
December 17 Humphry Davy born (1778)

January 8 Alfred Russel Wallace born (1823)
January 12 HAL9000's birthday

February 11 Palindrome day (at least in UK, it'll be 11/2/2111 whoops obviously we mean 11/02/2011...)
February 12 Charles Darwin born (1809)

March 16 Caroline Herschel born (1750)
March 3 Alexander Graham Bell born (1847)
March 25 Themes tunnel opened (1853)

April 25 Publication of double helix DNA structure (1953)
April 30 Publication of Einstein's thesis (1905)

May 4 Star Wars day (May the 4th/ force...)
May 11 Richard Feynman born (1918)
May 25 Towel day

June 6 playable version of Tetris completed (1984)

July 5 Dolly the Sheep born (1996)

August 1 Discovery of Oxygen (1774)
August 6 First website goes online at CERN (1991)
August 4 John Venn born (1834)

September 10 Large Hadron Collider fired its first protons (2008)
September 28 mold that became penicillin discovered (1928)

October 9 Check the time/ date at 6:07am and 8 seconds...
October 21 Edison tests incandescent electric light bulb (1879)

November 4 First edition of Nature published (1869)
November 24 Publication of Origin of the Species (1859)
November 27 Signing of will of Alfred Nobel (1895)

December 9 Smallpox eradication (1977)
December 24 Newton's birthday (1642)

January 4 Newton's birthday (1642, it depends on what calendar you use...)
January 26 first demonstration of television (1926)

... and if it was a date with a geek you were after, last week's Times Eureka magazine had a few tips. They suggested you take geeky-dates to the Science Museum, but note that trips to the Jenner statue in Kensington Gardens tend to be less successful. We're not sure how you can get the geek to go on a date with you in the first place though. This video might provide some hints: