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 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 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 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 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 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 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
❤️ Is there a more ubiquitous symbol on Earth than the heart? The character spans all countries, religions, and philosophies. It can represent love, courage, conscience, emotion, the seat of life, or the seat of the soul. And, of course, the 20th century brought us the commercialized popularity of Valentine’s Day. Valentine’s Day Card circa
Snowshoes Central Ohio, where I grew up, traditionally received a good amount of snow each year. The area did not garner as much as zones on the Great Lakes or farther north, but it snowed much more than locations just a few hours south. In Cincinnati, an inch of snow might shut down the city
Atlantropa The Strait of Gibraltar is a location of extremes. On a worldwide scale, the stretch that separates the Atlantic Ocean from the Mediterranean Sea is tiny, just eight miles. One might suspect that something of this size might easily fit into the schemes of modern engineering. The world’s longest bridge is over 100 miles long. The Chunnel, connecting