Parque Provincial Aconcagua - Mendoza, Argentina

1. Argentine Visa Really difficult  Our Passports Parque Provincial Aconcagua - Mendoza, Argentina

2. But We are here MPA – ICC family group of Chinese Students Yanchuan Cai Qi Guo Liang Gao Cheng Li Jie Wang (UPenn ) (NAOC) (NAOC) (SHAO) (Durham)

3. Happy birthday! Carlos, SimonD. M. (CDM)

4. Happy the 30th/35th birthday in Astronomy! Not sure if you still remember the titles of your first papers? 1980 1975 1975/1980 ~ 2010 ∆t=30/35 years ∆z ~1.e-9 , you are very very young !!

5. Apologize for our absence! We propose to have next party in the ‘Avatar’ world ?

6. Avatar 张家界，China (Jie’s Hometown)

7. Science comes . . .

8. Astrology in Astronomy Andrew, Thanks! : - )

9. Astronomy is sometimes mistaken by the public as Astrology • Now I am taking the mistake a bit further…

10. Question: Who are likely to be great physicists/astronomers? • Astrologers might say: Great Physicists are born to be! Yes/No? --- Let’s do some researches

11. Approach: Statistics on the dates of birth (d.o.b.) of the most influential physicists (including astronomers) in history A full list of 38 physicists from the 100 most influential scientists in history A list of famous 81 astronomers in history Using wikipedia to find out each of their d.o.b.

13. Histogram of the months of birth of all the 38 physical scientists, from ‘100 most Most Influential Scientists’ Great Physicists were more likely to be born in winter time, when the earth is closer to the sun There is a strong peak in December! The ‘Gang of four’ falls close to the peak, they make the distribution to be smoother Marc Davis (Jan) Carlos Frenk (Oct), Simon White (Sep) George Efstathiou(Sep) Newton Kepler Heisenberg Brahe Thomson Born Eddington mean Hawking Galilei Boltzmann Copernicus Herschel Curie Hubble Einstein Laplace Bohr Laue Planck Huygens FaradayFermi Bardeen Dirac Maxwell Bethe Aug Oct Dec Feb Apr Jun Month of Birth Source of the list of scientists: ‘The Scientific 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Scientists, Past and Present’, by John Galbraith Simmons, Citadel Press (2000)

14. list of 81 Astronomers in history Nicolaus Copernicus (German: NikolausKopernikus; Italian: NicolòCopernico; Polish: MikołajKopernik; in his youth, Niclas Koppernigk;[1] 19 February 1473 – 24 May 1543) Tycho Brahe (Danish pronunciation: [tˢyɡoˈbʁɑːɑ]) About this sound listen (help·info) (14 December 1546 – 24 October 1601) Galileo Galilei (Italian pronunciation: [ɡaliˈlɛːoɡaliˈlɛi]; 15 February 1564[4] – 8 January 1642), Johannes Kepler (German pronunciation: [ˈkɛplɐ]; December 27, 1571 – November 15, 1630) John BabtistRiccioli (April 17th in the year 1598, died in the 1671) Giovanni Domenico Cassini (June 8, 1625 – September 14, 1712) Christiaan Huygens, FRS (English pronunciation: /ˈhaɪɡənz/, [ˈɦœyɣə(n)s] ( listen); 14 April 1629 – 8 July 1695) Sir Isaac Newton PRS (25 December 1642 – 20 March 1727) Edmond Halley FRS (/ˈɛdmənd ˈhæli/;[1][2] 8 November 1656 – 14 January 1742) Charles Messier (26 June 1730 – 12 April 1817) Joseph-Louis Lagrange (25 January 1736 – 10 April 1813) Sir Frederick William Herschel,[1] KH, FRS, German: Friedrich Wilhelm Herschel (15 November 1738 – 25 August 1822) Giuseppe Piazzi (July 16, 1746 – July 22, 1826) Johann Elert Bode (January 19, 1747 – November 23, 1826) Heinrich Wilhelm MatthäusOlbers (October 11, 1758 – March 2, 1840) Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel (22 July 1784 – 17 March 1846) Joseph von Fraunhofer (6 March 1787 – 7 June 1826) Johann Franz Encke (23 September 1791 – 26 August 1865) Friedrich Georg Wilhelm von Struve (Russian: VasilyYakovlevich Struve) (April 15, 1793 – November 23, 1864 (Julian calendar: November 11)) Wilhelm Wolff Beer (4 January 1797 – 27 March 1850) Thomas James Alan Henderson (28 December 1798 – 23 November 1844) William Lassell FRS (18 June 1799 – 5 October 1880) Sir George Biddell Airy PRS KCB (27 July 1801 – 2 January 1892) Urbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier (French pronunciation: [yʁbɛ̃ʒɑ̃ʒɔzɛfləvɛʁje]) (11 March 1811 – 23 September 1877) Johann Gottfried Galle (9 June 1812 – 10 July 1910) Anders Jonas Ångström [ˈanˌdəʂˈjuːˌnasˈɔŋˌstrøm] (13 August 1814, Lögdö, – 21 June 1874) Daniel Kirkwood (September 27, 1814 - June 11, 1895) Sir William Huggins, OM, KCB, FRS (7 February 1824 – 12 May 1910) Sir Joseph Norman Lockyer, FRS (17 May 1836 – 16 August 1920), Henry Draper (March 7, 1837 – November 20, 1882) Edward Charles Pickering (July 19, 1846–February 3, 1919) Jacobus Cornelius Kapteyn, (January 19, 1851, Barneveld, Gelderland – June 18, 1922) Edward Emerson Barnard (December 16, 1857 – February 6, 1923) Annie Jump Cannon (December 11, 1863 – April 13, 1941) Maximilian Franz Joseph Cornelius Wolf (June 21, 1863 – October 3, 1932) George Ellery Hale (June 29, 1868 – February 21, 1938) Henrietta Swan Leavitt (July 4, 1868 – December 12, 1921) Willem de Sitter (6 May 1872 – 20 November 1934) EjnarHertzsprung (8 October 1873 – 21 October 1967) Karl Schwarzschild (October 9, 1873 – May 11, 1916) Kiyotsugu Hirayama (平山 清次, Hirayama Kiyotsugu?, October 13, 1874 - April 8, 1943) Vesto Melvin Slipher (November 11, 1875 – November 8, 1969) Walter Sydney Adams (December 20, 1876 – May 11, 1956) Henry Norris Russell (October 25, 1877 – February 18, 1957) Bernhard Woldemar Schmidt (March 30, 1879 – December 1, 1935) Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington, OM, FRS (28 December 1882 – 22 November 1944) Harlow Shapley (November 2, 1885 – October 20, 1972) Edwin Powell Hubble (November 20, 1889 – September 28, 1953) Wilhelm Heinrich Walter Baade (March 24, 1893 – June 25, 1960) Monsignor Georges Henri Joseph ÉdouardLemaître (About this sound lemaitre.ogg (help·info) 17 July 1894 – 20 June 1966) Rudolph Minkowski (born Rudolf Leo Bernhard Minkowski) (May 28, 1895 – January 4, 1976) Bernard Ferdinand Lyot (27 February 1897 in Paris – 2 April 1952 in Cairo) Otto Struve (August 12, 1897, Kharkov, Russian Empire – April 6, 1963, Berkeley, USA[1]) Jan HendrikOort (Franeker, 28 April 1900 – Leiden, 5 November 1992) Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin (May 10, 1900 – December 7, 1979) George Gamow (Russian pronunciation: [ˈɡaməf]; March 4 [O.S. February 20] 1904 – August 19, 1968) Fritz Zwicky (February 14, 1898 – February 8, 1974) Karl GutheJansky (October 22, 1905 – February 14, 1950) Gerard Peter Kuiper (play /ˈkaɪpər/; Dutch pronunciation: [ˈkœypər]; born Gerrit Pieter Kuiper, December 7, 1905, Tuitjenhorn (Harenkarspel), Netherlands – December 24, 1973, Bruno Benedetto Rossi (April 13, 1905 – November 21, 1993) Bart Jan Bok (Hoorn, 28 April 1906 – Tucson, 5 August 1983) Clyde William Tombaugh (February 4, 1906 – January 17, 1997) Fred Lawrence Whipple (November 5, 1906–August 30, 2004) Viktor Hambardzumyan (Armenian: ՎիկտորՀամբարձումյան, 18 September [O.S. 5 September] 1908, Tbilisi – August 12, 1996, Grote Reber (December 22, 1911 – December 20, 2002) Carl Keenan Seyfert (February 11, 1911, Cleveland, Ohio – June 13, 1960, Nashville, Tennessee) John Archibald Wheeler (July 9, 1911 – April 13, 2008) Carl Friedrich Freiherr von Weizsäcker (June 28, 1912 – 28 April 2007) James Alfred Van Allen (September 7, 1914–August 9, 2006) Sir Fred Hoyle FRS (24 June 1915 – 20 August 2001)[1] Robert Henry Dicke (May 6, 1916 – March 4, 1997) Edwin Ernest Salpeter (3 December 1924, Vienna – 26 November 2008,[1][2] Ithaca, New York) Chushiro Hayashi (林 忠四郎, Hayashi Chūshirō?, July 25, 1920 – February 28, 2010) Carl Edward Sagan (English pronunciation: /ˈseɪɡən/) (November 9, 1934 – December 20, 1996) Nobel Prize winners: HannesOlofGöstaAlfvén (born 30 May 1908 in Norrköping, Sweden; died 2 April 1995 in Djursholm, Sweden) Sir ChandrasekharaVenkata Raman, FRS (Tamil: சந்திரசேகரவெங்கடராமன்) (7 November 1888 – 21 November 1970) William Alfred "Willy" Fowler (August 9, 1911 – March 14, 1995) Antony Hewish FRS (born Fowey, Cornwall, 11 May 1924) Arno Allan Penzias (born 26 April 1933) Robert Woodrow Wilson (born January 10, 1936) Joseph Hooton Taylor, Jr. (born March 29, 1941) Russell Alan Hulse (born November 28, 1950)

15. Histogram of the months of birth of 81 influential astronomers in history Copernicus, Galilei, Brahe Kepler, Huygens, Newton Herschel, Eddington,Hubble Greatest astronomers were more likely to be born in winter Not-so-great astronomers were born more randomly through the year Born in summer is not bad, one might be less likely to be the greatest, but still possible to be not-so-great. 9 overlap with previous sample Excluding overlap sample Source of the list of astronomers in history from D. Mark Manley, Kent State University (http://cnr2.kent.edu/~manley/astronomers.html) Aug Oct Dec Feb Apr Jun Month of Birth

16. How about a random sample? Normal people are born randomly through the year Not-so-great astronomers are like normal people Figure credit: Roy Murphy, Data source: 480,040 insurance policy applications made between 1981 through 1994 of a Life Insurance Company (http://www.panix.com/~murphy/bdata.txt)

17. Histogram of the zodiacs of all the 38 physical scientists, from ‘100 most Most Influential Scientists’ Horse Rabbit Cow Monkey Dragon Snake Tiger Sheep Dog Pig Mice Chicken Year of Birth

18. Histogram of the zodiacs of 81 influential astronomers in history Monkey Pig Mice Snake Chicken Horse Dragon Dog Tiger Sheep Rabbit Cow Year of Birth

19. Conclusions • When the earth-sun distance is greater, the greatest physicists and astronomers were more likely to be born • The sample is not large enough from the last 500 years, how long do we need to wait for more data? • Careful error analysis is needed

20. Declaration • This is a preliminary result based on a small sample, done within a short time. It should not bias decisions of parents who want to make child, or directors of physics institutes in hiring new people, based on their date of birth.

21. Thanks! Special thanks to Julio and Andrew