Page 113 - BBC History The Story of Science & Technology - 2017 UK

US soldiers in the
Vietnam War were the
A Bell Curve can depict first patients whose
cumulative random values wounds were sealed
with cyanoacrylates

Who really
described…

the Bell
Curve? Who really
invented…
Named for its central peak
and gracefully sloping sides, the periodic
the Bell Curve is one of the
best-known, most-important What connects…
graph types in maths and table?
science. In mathematical gun sights with
terms, it depicts the normal On the wall of every school chemistry
distribution – the spread of laboratory is a poster of the periodic table wound sutures?
values of anything affected of elements – the go-to reference tool for
by the cumulative effects of chemical elements for almost 150 years.
randomness, where the mean The Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev In 1942, during the Second World War,
(‘average’) value is the peak, (pictured above) is often credited with American chemist Dr Harry Coover was
with other, less-common formulating the rules that define the researching clear plastics that could be
values to either side. From block-like patterns of elements, even used in the manufacture of lightweight
stock market jitters to though others had established those gun sights. One of the chemical groups
human heights and IQ, many rules some years earlier, albeit without he tested was the cyanoacrylates.
phenomena follow at least recognition for their work.
a rough approximation of the One of those scientists was John Coover discarded cyanoacrylates as
Bell Curve. Newlands, an English chemist who in the a suitable material for gun sights
Many textbooks refer to mid-1860s pointed out that, when because they bond instantly to almost
normal distribution (the Bell arranged according to their atomic anything. But in 1958 the company
Curve) as the Gaussian mass, elements with similar properties where he worked, Eastman Kodak, took
Curve, honouring the brilliant lie close together. However, in describing advantage of this property to market a
19th-century German his findings to fellow scientists he drew cyanoacrylate as an adhesive, selling it
mathematician Karl Friedrich parallels with musical octaves, prompt- as Eastman #910, later renamed
Gauss, who deduced its ing howls of derision. In fact, Newlands’ Super Glue.
shape while studying how discovery had been presaged by the
data are affected by random work of another English chemist, William Cyanoacrylates are liquids at room
errors. However, a French Odling – though he, too, failed to garner temperature, but the presence of even
maths teacher named much interest. a tiny amount of moisture causes
Abraham de Moivre had Mendeleev’s claim to fame lies in the cyanoacrylate molecules to link rapidly
arrived at the same shape fact that he realised that the patterns into a long, sticky chain.
decades earlier, while were more complex than others had
tackling a problem that had realised. Some columns in his table, first In 1966, field medics in the Vietnam War
baffled mathematicians for published in 1869, were longer than used a cyanoacrylate spray to temporarily
years: how to calculate the others. He also suspected that gaps seal wounds. Today, medical-grade
frequency of heads or tails within the resulting blocks implied the superglue is used to repair small cuts.
resulting from a large number existence of as-yet undiscovered
of coin-tosses. elements, and bravely attempted to
Historians often use the predict their properties. His confidence
term ‘Gaussian Curve’ as an was vindicated with the discovery of
example of Stigler’s law of gallium, germanium and scandium,
eponymy, which states that securing his place among the great DISCOVER MORE
names of 19th-century science.
no scientific discovery is
DREAMSTIME/GETTY named after the person who MAGAZINE
actually discovered it.
These answers originally appeared in
BBC Focus Magazine. Read more
fascinating Q&As in each issue or online:

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