The Highest point above the sea level in the world is named after HIM!!!

Colonel Sir George Everest (July 4, 1790 — December 1, 1866) was a Welsh surveyor and geographer, and the Surveyor General of India from 1830 through 1843. Everest was largely responsible for completing the section of the Great Trigonometric Survey of India along the meridian arc from southern India extending north to Nepal, a distance of about 2,400 kilometres (1,500 mi). This survey was started by William Lambtonin 1806 and it lasted for several decades. In 1865, Mount Everest was named in his honour despite his objections by the Royal Geographical Society. This enormous peak was surveyed by Everest's successor, Andrew Scott Waugh, in his role as the Surveyor-General of India.

Everest was born in Gwernvale Manor, just west of Crickhowell in Powys, Wales, in 1790, and he was baptised in Greenwich. Commissioned into the Royal Artillery, in 1818, Lt. Everest was appointed as assistant to Colonel William Lambton, who had started the Great Trigonometrical Survey of the subcontinent in 1806. On Lambton's death in 1823, Everest succeeded to the post of superintendent of the survey, and in 1830 he was appointed as the Surveyor-General of India.

Everest retired in 1843 and he returned to live in the United Kingdom, where he became a Fellow of the Royal Society. He was dubbed a knight in 1861, and in 1862 he was elected as the vice-president of the Royal Geographical Society. Everest died in London in 1866 and is buried in St Andrew's Church, Hove, near Brighton. His niece, Mary Everest, married mathematician George Boole.

He owned a house in Mussoorie, Uttarakhand, India, for some years. Although almost derelict, it still has its roof, and there are plans to make it into a museum at some point in time. Sir George Everest's House and Laboratory, also known as the Park Estate, is situated about 6 kilometres (4 mi) from Gandhi Chowk / Library Bazaar, (West end of the Mall Road, in Mussoorie). Built in 1832 it was the home and laboratory of Sir George Everest. The house is situated in a place from where one can catch the panoramic view of Doon Valley on one side and a panoramic view of the Aglar Rivervalley and the snowbound Himalayan ranges on the other.

Mount Everest (also known in Nepal as Sagarmatha and in Tibet as Qomolangma) is the Earth's highest mountain. It is located in the Mahalangur section of the Himalayas. Its peak is 8,848 metres (29,029 ft) above sea level and is the 5th furthest point from the center of the Earth. The international border between China and Nepal runs across the precise summit point. Its massif includes neighboring peaks Lhotse, 8,516 m (27,940 ft); Nuptse, 7,855 m (25,771 ft) and Changtse, 7,580 m (24,870 ft).

In 1856, the Great Trigonometric Survey of India established the first published height of Everest, then known as Peak XV, at 29,002 ft (8,840 m). The current official height of 8,848 m (29,029 ft) as recognized by Nepal and China was established by a 1955 Indian survey and subsequently confirmed by a Chinese survey in 1975. In 1865, Everest was given its official English name by the Royal Geographical Society upon a recommendation by Andrew Waugh, the British Surveyor General of India. Waugh named the mountain after his predecessor in the post, Sir George Everest. Although Tibetans had called Everest "Chomolungma" for centuries, Waugh was unaware of this because Tibet and Nepal were closed to foreigners at the time thus preventing any attempts to obtain local names.

The first recorded efforts to reach Everest's summit were made by British mountaineers. With Nepal not allowing foreigners into the country at the time, the British made several attempts on the north ridge route from the Tibetan side. After the first reconnaissance expedition by the British in 1921 reached 7,000 m (22,970 ft) on the North Col, the 1922 expedition pushed the North ridge route up to 8,320 m (27,300 ft) marking the first time a human had climbed above 8,000 m (26,247 ft). Tragedy struck on the descent from the North col when seven porters were killed in an avalanche. 

The 1924 expedition resulted in the greatest mystery on Everest to this day: George Mallory and Andrew Irvine made a final summit attempt on June 8 but never returned, sparking debate as to whether they were the first to reach the top. They had been spotted high on the mountain that day but disappeared in the clouds, never to be seen again until Mallory's body was found in 1999 at 8,155 m (26,755 ft) on the North face. Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary made the first official ascent of Everest in 1953 using the southeast ridge route. Tenzing had reached 8,595 m (28,199 ft) the previous year as a member of the 1952 Swiss expedition.

This self-taught mathematician taught in coffee houses for free, yet made his mark with the LIFE OF HIS PI !!!!

William Jones, (1675 – 3 July 1749) was a Welsh mathematician, most noted for his proposal for the use of the symbol π (the Greek letter pi) to represent the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. He was a close friend of Sir Isaac Newton and SirEdmund Halley. In November, 1711 he became a Fellow of the Royal Society, and was later its Vice-President.

William Jones was born the son of Siôn Siôr (John George Jones) and Elizabeth Rowland in the parish of Llanfihangel Tre'r Beirdd, about 4 miles west of Benllech on the Isle of Anglesey. He attended a charity school at Llanfechell, also on the Isle of Anglesey, where his mathematical talents were spotted by the local landowner who arranged for him to be given a job in London working in a merchant's counting-house. He owed his successful career partly to the patronage of the distinguished Bulkeley family of northWales, and later to the Earl of Macclesfield.

Jones initially served at sea, teaching mathematics on board Navy ships between 1695 and 1702, where he became very interested in navigation and published A New Compendium of the Whole Art of Navigation in 1702, dedicated to a benefactor John Harris. In this work he applied mathematics to navigation, studying methods of calculating position at sea. After his voyages were over he became a mathematics teacher in London, both in coffee houses and as a private tutor to the son of the future Earl of Macclesfield and also the future Baron Hardwicke. He also held a number of undemanding posts in government offices with the help of his former pupils.

Jones published Synopsis Palmariorum Matheseos in 1706, a work which was intended for beginners and which included theorems on differential calculus and infinite series. This used π as an abbreviation for perimeter. His 1711 work Analysis per quantitatum series, fluxiones ac differentias introduced the dot notation for differentiation in calculus. In 1731 he published Discourses of the Natural Philosophy of the Elements.

Before being ascribed a modern name, pi existed under the guise of a bulkier, more antiquated phrase: quantitas in quam cum multiflicetur diameter, proveniet circumferencia—Latin for “the quantity which, when the diameter is multiplied by it, yields the circumference.” While descriptive, the collection of words required to denote pi before “pi” did not lend itself to clear or efficient discussion of the concept. Prior to Jones publishing his bold decision, fractions like 22/7 or 355/113 often served to fill in for the mysterious constant, but gave the erroneous impression that the number was a rational one, which can be fully expressed by one whole number divided into another—an assumption that had not yet been disproved, but with which Jones firmly disagreed. For this reason, only an idealized symbol would suffice to represent the concept, and so the Welshman turned to the Greek alphabet.

π, written in Roman letters as “pi,” is the Greek equivalent to our letter ‘p’. For this reason, 17th-century mathematician William Oughtred used π to denote the “periphery,” or the circumference of any given circle—a value that changed as the circle changed. Jones borrowed this earlier logic and applied it to his theory of an irrational, but universal constant value for the circle’s circumference-to-diameter ratio. Johann Lambert’s definitive proof in 1761 that π was an irrational number justified Jones’s earlier instinct, and once Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler began to use and widely disseminate the symbol π in correspondence with his contemporaries, π was here to stay.

He married twice, firstly the widow of his counting-house employer, whose property he inherited on her death, and secondly, in 1731, Mary, the 22-year-old daughter of cabinet-maker George Nix, with whom he had two surviving children. His son, also named William Jones and born in 1746, was a renowned philologist who first recognised the existence of the Indo-European language group.

The symbol π had been used in the previous century in a significantly different way by the rector and mathematician, William Oughtred (c. 1575-1 660), in his book Clavis Mathematicae (first published in 1631). Oughtred used π to represent the circumference of a given circle, so that his π varied according to the circle's diameter, rather than representing the constant we know today. The circumference of a circle was known in those days as the 'periphery', hence the Greek equivalent 'π' of our letter 'π'. Jones's use of π was an important philosophical step which Oughtred had failed to make even though he had introduced other mathematical symbols, such as :: for proportion and 'x' as the symbol for multiplication.

On Oughtred's death in 1660 some books and papers from his fine mathematical library were acquired by the mathematician John Collins (1625-83), from whom they would eventually pass to Jones. The irrationality of π was not proved until 1761 by Johann Lambert (172877), then in 1882 Ferdinand Lindemann (1852-1939) proved that π was a nonalgebraic irrational number, a transcendental number (one which is not a solution of an algebraic equation, of any degree, with rational coefficients). The discovery that there are two types of irrational numbers, however, does not detract from Jones's achievement in recognising that the ratio of the circumference to the diameter could not be expressed as a rational number.

Beyond his first use of the symbol p Jones is of interest because of his connection to a number of key mathematicial, scientific and political characters of the 18th century. He was also responsible for developing one of the greatest scientific libraries and mathematical archives in the country which remained in the hands of the Macclesfield family, his patrons, for nearly 300 years.

Link: http://www.historytoday.com/patricia-rothman/william-jones-and-his-circle-man-who-invented-pi

SOS....SOS...SOS was implemented today in 1908!!!

SOS is the commonly used description for the international Morse code distress signal (· · · – – – · · ·). This distress signal was first adopted by the German government in radio regulations effective April 1, 1905, and became the worldwide standard under the second International Radiotelegraphic Convention, which was signed on November 3, 1906 and became effective on July 1, 1908. SOS remained the maritime radio distress signal until 1999, when it was replaced by the Global Maritime Distress Safety System. SOS is still recognized as a visual distress signal.

The SOS distress signal is a continuous sequence of three dits, three dahs, and three dits, all run together without letter spacing. In International Morse Code, three dits form the letter S, and three dahs make the letter O, so "SOS" became an easy way to remember the order of the dits and dahs. In modern terminology, SOS is a Morse "procedural signal" or "prosign", and the formal way to write it is with a bar above the letters: SOS.

In popular usage, SOS became associated with such phrases as "save our ship", "save our souls" and "send out succour". These may be regarded as mnemonics, but SOS does not actually stand for anything and is not an abbreviation, acronym or initialism. In fact, SOS is only one of several ways that the combination could have been written; VTB, for example, would produce exactly the same sound, but SOS was chosen to describe this combination. SOS is the only 9-element signal in Morse code, making it more easily recognizable, as no other symbol uses more than 8 elements.

A distress signal is an internationally recognized means for obtaining help. Distress signals take the form of or are commonly made by using radio signals, displaying a visually detected item or illumination, or making an audible sound, from a distance. A distress signal indicates that a person or group of people, ship, aircraft, or other vehicle is threatened by grave and imminent danger and requests immediate assistance. Use of distress signals in other circumstances may be against local or international law.

In order for distress signalling to be the most effective, two parameters must be communicated:

• Alert or notification of a distress in progress
• Position or location (or localization or pinpointing) of the party in distress.

For example, a single aerial flare alerts observers to the existence of a vessel in distress somewhere in the general direction of the flare sighting on the horizon but extinguishes within one minute or less. A hand held flare burns for 3 minutes and can be used to localize or pinpoint more precisely the exact location or position of the party in trouble. An EPIRB both notifies or alerts authorities and at the same time provides position indication information.

Father of the modern day hot air balloon!!!

Paul Edward Yost (June 30, 1919 – May 27, 2007) was the American inventor of the modern hot air balloon and is referred to as the "Father of the Modern Day Hot-Air Balloon." He worked for a high altitude research division of General Mills when he helped establish Raven Industries in 1956.

Born on a farm 7 miles south of Bristow, Iowa, Yost first became involved in lighter-than-air ballooning when he leased his single-engine plane to General Mills to track their gas balloons. He became a senior engineer in the development of high-altitude research balloons. In the 1950s, Yost's own interests turned toward reviving the lost practice of manned hot-air ballooning. 

This technology had first been invented in France by in the late 18th century by pioneers led by the Montgolfier brothers, but under the Montgolfier system the balloon's air was heated by a ground fire prior to the balloon being released. The inherent danger of this type of balloon flight led to the system being abandoned when hydrogen and later helium became available.

One of Yost's key engineering insights was that a hot-air balloon could be made to carry its own fuel. The invention of relatively light burners fueled by bottled propane made it possible for the balloonist to re-heat the air inside the balloon for a longer flight. Yost’s invention improved modern hot-air balloons into semi-maneuverable aircraft. 

Yost's other hot-air balloon patents included nonporous synthetic fabrics, maneuvering vents, and deflation systems for landing. Yost also designed the distinctive “teardrop” shape of the hot air balloon envelope itself. This hot-air balloon image has become an icon, used for example on the standard license plate of motor vehicles registered in New Mexico.

In October 1955, Yost developed and flew the first prototype of the modern hot air balloon in a tethered flight. The envelope was plastic film, and heat was provided by burning kerosene. This prototype flight uncovered conceptual flaws that Yost worked to overcome.

On October 22, 1960, Yost made the first-ever free flight of a modern hot air balloon from Bruning, Nebraska. His balloon flew untethered for 1 hour and 35 minutes (1:35) with the aid of heat generated by a propane burner. The balloon's 40-foot (12 m) envelope was sewn from heat-resistant fabric especially selected by Yost for this purpose. After further refining and improving on this designs and materials, in 1963 Yost piloted the first modern balloon flight across the English Channel with crew member Don Piccard in a balloon later named the “Channel Champ.”

In 1976, Yost set 13 aviation world’s records for distance traveled and amount of time aloft in his attempt to cross the Atlantic Ocean —solo— by balloon. He designed and built his balloon, the “Silver Fox," himself, partly in his home garage. It featured a gondola that was shaped like a boat in the event that he would be forced down at sea — which is precisely what occurred. Although he had traveled far in excess of the distance needed to reach Europe from his launch point off the coast of Maine — his flight path began to point South rather than the hoped-for East direction due to inaccurate weather forecasting. The dream was achieved two years later with Yost’s assistance in a Yost-built balloon,Double Eagle II.

Yost also contributed to the advancement of the sport of ballooning and lighter-than-air flight. He helped to found the Balloon Federation of America (BFA) and assisted in the organization of the first U.S. National Ballooning Championship at Indianola, Iowa. Yost founded the Balloon Historical Society (BHS) in 2002, which dedicated four monuments on the rim of the Stratobowl on July 28, 2004 to memorialize the Stratobowl projects in the 1930s as well as the second flight of a modern hot air balloon. On May 27, 2007, Yost died of a heart attack at the age of 87 at his home in Vadito, near Taos, New Mexico. He was buried in the Allison cemetery in Allison, Iowa.

The hot air balloon is the oldest successful human-carrying flight technology. It is part of a class of aircraft known as balloon aircraft. On November 21, 1783, in Paris, France, the first untethered manned flight was performed by Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and François Laurent d'Arlandes in a hot air balloon created on December 14, 1782 by the Montgolfier brothers. Hot air balloons that can be propelled through the air rather than just being pushed along by the wind are known as airships or, more specifically, thermal airships.

Had trouble reading till he was 12, ended up with 128 patents to his name!!!

Alan Dower Blumlein (29 June 1903 – 7 June 1942) was an English electronics engineer, notable for his many inventions in telecommunications, sound recording, stereo, television and radar. He received 128 patents and was considered as one of the most significant engineers and inventors of his time. He died during World War II on 7 June 1942, aged 38, during the secret trial of an H2S airborne radar system then under development, when all on board the Halifax bomber he was flying in were killed when it crashed at Welsh Bicknor in Herefordshire.

Alan Dower Blumlein was born on 29 June 1903 in Hampstead, London to Semmy Blumlein, a German-born naturalised British subject. His future career seems to have been determined by the age of seven, when he presented his father with an invoice for repairing the doorbell, signed "Alan Blumlein, Electrical Engineer" (with "paid" scrawled in pencil). His sister claimed that he could not read proficiently until he was 12. He replied "no, but I knew a lot of quadratic equations!"

After matriculating at Highgate School in 1921, he studied at City and Guilds College (part of Imperial College). He won a Governor's scholarship and joined the second year of the course. He graduated with a First-Class Honours BSc two years later. In mid-1930, Blumlein met Doreen Lane, a Preparatory school teacher five years his junior. After two-and-a-half years of courtship the two were married in 1933.

In 1924 Blumlein started his first job at International Western Electric, a division of the Western Electric Company. The company subsequently became International Standard Electric Corporation and then, later on, Standard Telephones and Cables (STC). During his time there, he measured the amplitude/frequency response of human ears, and used the results to design the first weighting networks. In 1924 he published (with Professor Edward Mallett) the first of his only two IEE papers, on high-frequency resistance measurement. This won him the IEE's Premium award for innovation. 

The following year he wrote (with Norman Kipping) a series of seven articles for Wireless World. In 1925 and 1926, Blumlein and John Percy Johns designed an improved form of loading coil which reduced loss and crosstalk in long-distance telephone lines. These were used until the end of the analogue telephony era. The same duo also invented an improved form of AC measurement bridge which became known as the Blumlein Bridge. These two inventions were the basis for Blumlein's first two patents. His inventions while working at STC resulted in another five patents, which were not awarded until after he left the company in 1929.

In 1929 Blumlein handed in his notice at STC and joined the Columbia Graphophone Company, where he reported directly to general manager Isaac Shoenberg. His first project was to find a method of disc cutting that circumvented a Bell patent in the Western Electric moving-iron cutting head then used, and on which substantial royalties had to be paid. He invented the moving-coil disc cutting head, which not only got around the patent but offered greatly improved sound quality.

He led a small team which developed the concept into a practical cutter. The other principal team members were Herbert Holman and Henry "Ham" Clark. Their work resulted in several patents. Early in 1931, the Columbia Graphophone Company and the Gramophone Company merged and became EMI. New joint research laboratories were set up at Hayes and Blumlein was officially transferred there on 1 November the same year. During the early 1930s Blumlein and Herbert Holman developed a series of moving-coil microphones, which were used in EMI recording studios and by the BBC at Alexandra Palace.

In June 1937, Blumlein patented one of his most important audio inventions, the Ultra-Linear amplifier (Patent 496,883, dated 5 June 1937). A deceptively simple design, the circuit provided a tap on the primary winding of the output transformer to provide feedback to the second grid, which improved the amplifier's linearity. With the tap placed at the anode end of the primary winding, the tube (valve) could be connected as a triode, and if the tap was at the supply end, it could be connected as a pure pentode. Blumlein discovered that if the tap was placed at a distance 15–20% down from the supply end of the output transformer, the tube or valve would combine the positive features of both the triode and the pentode design.


In 1931, Blumlein developed what he called "binaural sound", now known as stereophonic sound (stereo). In early 1931, Blumlein and his wife were at a local cinema. The sound reproduction systems of the early "talkies" invariably only had a single set of speakers – which could lead to the somewhat disconcerting effect of the actor being on one side of the screen whilst his voice appeared to come from the other. Blumlein declared to his wife that he had found a way to make the sound follow the actor across the screen.

The genesis of these ideas is uncertain, but he explained them to Isaac Shoenberg in the late summer of 1931. His earliest notes on the subject are dated 25 September 1931, and his patent had the title "Improvements in and relating to Sound-transmission, Sound-recording and Sound-reproducing Systems". The application was dated 14 December 1931, and was accepted on 14 June 1933 as UK patent number 394,325.

Binaural experiments began in early 1933, and the first stereo discs were cut later the same year. Much of the development work on this system for cinematic use did not reach completion until 1935. In a few short test films (most notably, "Trains at Hayes Station" and, "The Walking & Talking Film"), Blumlein's original intent of having the sound follow the actor was fully realised.

Television was developed by many individuals and companies throughout the 1920s and 1930s. Blumlein's contributions, as a member of the EMI team, started in earnest in 1933 when his boss, Isaac Shoenberg, assigned him full-time to TV research.

Blumlein was also largely responsible for the development of the waveform structure used in the 405-line Marconi-EMI system – developed for the UK's BBC Television Service at Alexandra Palace, the world's first scheduled "high definition" (240 lines or better) television service – which was later adopted as the CCIR System A.

Blumlein was so central to the development of the H2S airborne radar system (to aid bomb targeting), that after his death in June 1942, many believed that the project would fail. However it survived and was a factor in shortening the Second World War. Blumlein's role in the project was a closely guarded secret at the time and consequently only a brief announcement of his death was made some two years later, to avoid providing solace to Hitler. His invention of the line type pulse modulator, (ref vol 5 of MIT Radiation Laboratory series) was a major contribution to high powered pulse radars, not just the H2S's system, and continues to be used today.

Blumlein was killed in the crash of a Handley Page Halifax bomber while making a test flight for the Telecommunications Research Establishment (TRE) on 7 June 1942. During the flight from RAF Defford, whilst at an altitude of 500 ft the Halifax developed an engine fire which rapidly grew out of control. The aircraft was seen to lose altitude, then rolled inverted and struck the ground. The crash occurred near the village of Welsh Bicknor in Herefordshire. In the interests of wartime secrecy, the announcement of Blumlein's death was not made for another three years.

This surgeon paved the way for transplanting the organs!!!

Alexis Carrel (28 June 1873 – 5 November 1944) was a French surgeon and biologist who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1912 for pioneering vascular suturing techniques. He invented the first perfusion pump with Charles A. Lindbergh opening the way to organ transplantation. He faced constant media attacks towards the end of his life over his alleged involvement with the Nazis.

A prominent Nobel Prize laureate in 1912, Alexis Carrel was also elected twice, in 1924 and 1927, as an honorary member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.

Born in Sainte-Foy-lès-Lyon, Rhône, Carrel was raised in a devout Catholic family and was educated by Jesuits, though he had become an agnostic by the time he became a university student. He was a pioneer in transplantology and thoracic surgery. Alexis Carrel was also a member of learned societies in the U.S., Spain, Russia, Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Vatican City, Germany, Italy and Greece and received honorary doctorates from Queen's University of Belfast, Princeton University, California, New York, Brown University and Columbia University.

In 1902 he witnessed the miraculous cure of Marie Bailly at Lourdes, made famous in part because she named Carrel as a witness of her cure. After the fame surrounding the event, Carrel could not obtain a hospital appointment because of the pervasive anticlericalism in the French university system at the time. 

In 1903 he emigrated to Montreal, Canada, but soon relocated to Chicago, Illinois to work for Hull Laboratory. While there he collaborated with American physician Charles Claude Guthrie in work on vascular suture and the transplantation of blood vessels and organs as well as the head, and Carrel was awarded the 1912 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for these efforts.

In 1906 he joined the newly formed Rockefeller Institute of Medical Research in New York where he spent the rest of his career. In the 1930s, Carrel and Charles Lindbergh became close friends not only because of the years they worked together but also because they shared personal, political, and social views. Lindbergh initially sought out Carrel to see if his sister-in-law's heart, damaged by rheumatic fever, could be repaired. 

When Lindbergh saw the crudeness of Carrel's machinery, he offered to build new equipment for the scientist. Eventually they built the first perfusion pump, an invention instrumental to the development of organ transplantation and open heart surgery. Lindbergh considered Carrel his closest friend, and said he would preserve and promote Carrel's ideals after his death.

Carrel was a young surgeon in 1894 when the French president Sadi Carnot was assassinated with a knife. His large abdominal veins had been severed, and surgeons who treated the president felt that such veins were too large to be successfully reconnected. This left a deep impression on Carrel, and he set about developing new techniques for suturing blood vessels. 

The technique of "triangulation", which was inspired by sewing lessons he took from an embroideress, is still used today. Julius Comroe wrote: "Between 1901 and 1910, Alexis Carrel, using experimental animals, performed every feat and developed every technique known to vascular surgery today." He had great success in reconnecting arteries and veins, and performing surgical grafts, and this led to his Nobel Prize in 1912.

During World War I (1914–1918), Carrel and the English chemist Henry Drysdale Dakin developed the Carrel–Dakin method of treating wounds based on chlorine (Dakin's solution) which, preceding the development of antibiotics, was a major medical advance in the care of traumatic wounds. For this, Carrel was awarded the Légion d'honneur.

Carrel co-authored a book with famed pilot Charles A. Lindbergh, The Culture of Organs, and worked with Lindbergh in the mid-1930s to create the "perfusion pump," which allowed living organs to exist outside the body during surgery. The advance is said to have been a crucial step in the development of open-heart surgery and organ transplants, and to have laid the groundwork for the artificial heart, which became a reality decades later. 

Some critics of Lindbergh claimed that Carrel overstated Lindbergh's role to gain media attention, but other sources say Lindbergh played an important role in developing the device. Both Lindbergh and Carrel appeared on the cover of Time magazine on June 13, 1938.

Carrel was also interested in the phenomenon of senescence, or aging. He claimed incorrectly that all cells continued to grow indefinitely, and this became a dominant view in the early 20th century. Carrel started an experiment on January 17, 1912 where he placed tissue cultured from an embryonic chicken heart in a stoppered Pyrex flask of his own design. 

He maintained the living culture for over 20 years with regular supplies of nutrient. This was longer than a chicken's normal lifespan. The experiment, which was conducted at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, attracted considerable popular and scientific attention. Carrel's experiment was never successfully replicated, and in the 1960s Leonard Hayflick and Paul Moorhead proposed that differentiated cells can undergo only a limited number of divisions before dying. This is known as the Hayflick limit, and is now a pillar of biology.

It is not certain how Carrel obtained his anomalous results. Leonard Hayflick suggests that the daily feeding of nutrient was continually introducing new living cells to the alleged immortal culture. J. A. Witkowski has argued that, while "immortal" strains of visibly mutated cells have been obtained by other experimenters, a more likely explanation is deliberate introduction of new cells into the culture, possibly without Carrel's knowledge.