The Pythagoras Cup
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History
American Stonehenge: The Newark Octagon
American Stonehenge: The Newark Octagon In entering the ancient avenue for the first time, the visitor does not fail to experience a sensation of awe, such as he might feel in passing the portals of an Egyptian temple, or in gazing upon the silent ruins of Petra of the desert. –Ephraim George Squier and Edwin
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Danish Protest Pigs
Danish Protest Pigs It’s no revelation that the history of Europe is complex. The countries we see today are just the latest configuration of a jigsaw puzzle that has altered shapes and piece totals over thousands of years. If anything, today’s map is relatively uncomplicated compared to centuries past, before nation-states existed and tiny kingdoms,
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The Fastest Human-Made Object
The Fastest Human-Made Object “Many years later, when I was in Baikonur, the subject of Russia being the first to launch something into space came up. I did not raise my hand to add to the discussion, though I thought about doing so.” — Robert Brownlee What is the fastest object ever crafted by humans? If
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Sin City
Sin City You pulled off something unthinkable. You robbed a casino in Las Vegas and made it out the door. The heat hits you in the face. It’s a dry heat, sure, but it’s still 110 degrees Fahrenheit. As you ponder the getaway plan, which involves walking nonchalantly down the Strip, trying to blend in like a
Fighter Planes Shooting Themselves Down
Fighter Planes Shooting Themselves Down Son, I’m sorry, they got us. — Henry Jones, Sr. If Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade can serve as a real-world guide, the perils of a dogfighter circa World War II stretched beyond incoming fire from the enemy. Gunners had to make sure they didn’t imperil their own craft, too. More modern (and
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The Bone Wars
The Bone Wars Many progenitors of scientific fields garner reverent reputations as time passes, perhaps titans of inquiry, research, and genius who placed pure scholarship above all else. We tend to view Newton and Einstein as ascetic paragons, infallibly probing the fabric of the universe for nothing more than the good of humanity. Of course,
The Ship of Theseus
The Ship of Theseus Now this body of mine consists completely of the flesh of another person. Do I truly have a body now? Or do I have no body? If I think I have a body, what I have is completely a body of another; if I think I have no body, now I actually do
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The Irish Calendar
The Irish Calendar And then the moon, like to a silver bow New-bent in heaven, shall behold the night of our solemnities. — Willam Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream We recently explored the differences between the typical, astronomical reckoning of seasons and the meteorological method. The former employs celestial geometry cues, while the latter depends on average
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Leap Day
Leap Day The rarest date on the calendar is February 29. If we assume all days of the year are just as likely birthdates, a human has a 1 in 4,161 chance to enter Earth on leap day. That’s about 0.07% of the population, which would mean approximately 232,000 Americans were born on 29 February. Why