mental_floss Blog » History of the U.S.: A Ridiculously Long and Incomplete List of Things Ben Franklin Invented We all remember Ben Franklin as a pretty bright guy who discovered some pretty important stuff. The real question is, what didn’t this polymath genius invent? 1742: Observing the wasteful use of firewood in inefficient colonial fireplaces, he designed the Franklin Stove, which used its iron body to diffuse a much larger proportion of the heat. The stove enabled poor families to save money and be warmer in the winter.1749: Noticing that lightning was attracted to metal and tall objects, Franklin hit on the idea of attaching vertical metal rods to the tops of tall buildings to attract the lightning, thus sparing the roof a direct hit.1752: To prove that lightning was static electricity, Franklin carried out his famous kite experiment with the help of his young son William (nobody ever said he was a responsible parent). He conducted an electrical charge from a key along a wire into a primitive battery. Looking for more fabulous content like this?
25 Awesome Virtual Learning Experiences Online - Virtual Education Websites Just because you’re online doesn’t mean that you can’t experience the world first-hand — or as close to first-hand as possible. Here are websites that feature virtual learning experiences, exposing online visitors to everything from history to geography, astronomy to anatomy, literature to government. 7 Wonders Panoramas – 360-degree views of the Seven Wonders of the World. Arounder Virtual Tour of the Moon – 360-degree panoramic views of the moon, courtesy of the Apollo 11, 12 and 17 missions. (Many other Earth locations also available on arounder.com.) Frissiras Museum – A virtual art gallery from Athens, Greece that allows you to explore paintings by clicking through their entire collection. Google Earth – Explore the geography of both land and sea (free download). Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Vital Signs: Understanding Cardiovascular Diseases – A virtual gallery teaching about heart disease. Louvre Virtual Tour – Virtual tour of the world-famous Louvre museum in Paris. Mount St.
College Paper How to write a paper in college/university: 1. Sit in a straight, comfortable chair in a well lit place in front of your computer. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. course, the college, the world at large. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 5am - start hacking on the paper without stopping. 6am -paper is finished. 38. 39.
bcalc: online graphing calculator Hidden musical code found written into Plato's texts "Plato’s books played a major role in founding Western culture, but they are mysterious and end in riddles," said Dr. Jay Kennedy of University of Manchester's Faculty of Life Sciences. Those riddles are finally being unwound, thanks to Kennedy's thorough five-year study of Plato's best-known work, "The Republic". "It is a long and exciting story, but basically I cracked the code. So what great wisdom does the secret message reveal? Plato was influenced by Pythagoras, another ancient Greek philosopher and mathematician who is perhaps best known for discovering the Pythagorean Theorem. Kennedy discovered that Plato had placed clusters of words related to music in his master work, which can be broken into 12 equal sections — a pattern he suspected was related to the twelve notes of the Greek musical scale. Thus, it's possible that Plato's books attempt to mimic the Pythagorean view of nature by doubling as a musical score.
How To Turn A Laser Into A Tractor Beam A photon has a small momentum which it can impart to anything it hits, as Arthur Compton and Peter Lebedev discovered at the beginning of the last century. We now know that photons can be used to push anything from electrons to solar sails. Today, Jun Chen from Fudan University in China and a few pals demonstrate the counterintuitive result that photons can pull things too. Chen and buddies say this is possible when the system meets two conditions. If the scattering angle is just right, the total momentum in the direction of propagation can be negative, meaning the particle is pulled back towards the source and the light becomes a tractor beam. This must not be confused with various “optical tweezer” type mechanisms in which particles trapped in a beam follow the intensity gradient of the light. Chen and co’s new force works when there is no gradient. That’s a handy additional tool in the nanomanipulator’s box of tricks.
HOW TO WRITE GOOD Caveat emptor. Carpe diem. O si villi, si ergo, fortibus es in ero. Et tu, brute. by Frank L. My several years in the word game have learnt me several rules: Avoid alliteration. Brief Answers to Cosmic Questions Structure of the Universe Does the Universe have an edge, beyond which there is nothing? Are the galaxies arranged on the surface of a sphere? Why can't we see the whole universe? Does the term "universe" refer to space, or to the matter in it, or to both? Evolution of the Universe Did the Universe expand from a point? If so, doesn't the universe have to have an edge? More about the Big Bang When they say "the universe is expanding," what exactly is expanding? Structure of the Universe Does the Universe have an edge, beyond which there is nothing? Are the galaxies arranged on the surface of a sphere? Why can't we see the whole universe? If you could suddenly freeze time everywhere in the universe, and magically survey all of creation, you would find galaxies extending out far beyond what we can see today. Does the term "universe" refer to space, or to the matter in it, or to both? Today, the situation is reversed. Evolution of the Universe Did the Universe expand from a point?
Advanced Imaging Reveals a Computer 1,500 Years Ahead of Its Time @Im_your_Huckleberry: In a different sense, I blame the people who started those wars, the church, and anti-intellectuals in general, for holding the advance of the human race hostage for two thousand years. The depth of reason and creativity at the inception of the scienctific method in Ancient Greece is astounding; such great promise, I shutter to think what time has been lost, and where we'd be now if, say, the Library of Alexandria hadn't been burned to the ground. @hilikusopus: Ironically, armed conflict has also provided the impetus for many technological advancements that later found peaceful uses. The library was finally destroyed for good because "They will either contradict the Koran, in which case they are heresy, or they will agree with it, in which case they are superfluous". Not to single out Islam, Christians had destroyed much of it several hundred years earlier. Say what you will about warfare, it is only a mechanism.
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