Category Archives: History

Celebrating the Enabler of Cheap Laser Cooling and Trapping

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Landmarks: Invention of the CD-Player Laser

The invention of the semiconductor laser took lasers from the scientist’s lab and action hero’s arsenal to every living room DVD player and grocery store scanner. It began with the serendipitous discovery in 1962 that gallium arsenide could be made to produce surprisingly intense light. Later that year, the first gallium arsenide laser was reported in Physical Review Letters. The modern descendants of that device are the tiny lasers that abound in countless modern appliances.

… and atomic physics labs throughout the world.

Really, History Channel?

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The plot holes of WWII

Not that the good guys are much better. Their leader, Churchill, appeared in a grand total of one episode before, where he was a bumbling general who suffered an embarrassing defeat to the Ottomans of all people in the Battle of Gallipoli. Now, all of a sudden, he’s not only Prime Minister, he’s not only a brilliant military commander, he’s not only the greatest orator of the twentieth century who can convince the British to keep going against all odds, he’s also a natural wit who is able to pull out hilarious one-liners practically on demand. I know he’s supposed to be the hero, but it’s not realistic unless you keep the guy at least vaguely human.

Rebuffing Romantic Rapscallions

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Close Examination: Fakes, mistakes and discoveries at the National Gallery, review

Scientific evidence can be invaluable but it has to be used with caution and always in tandem with historical research. For example, Corot’s ravishing plein-air sketch The Roman Campagna, with the Claudian Aqueduct has always been dated to about 1826, soon after the artist’s arrival in Rome. However, the green pigment called viridian that Corot used throughout the picture only became available to artists in the 1830s. The landscape wasn’t a fake and for stylistic reasons couldn’t have been painted later than the mid-1820s. All became clear when art historians did further research and discovered that the firm that sold artists’ supplies to Corot in Paris started making the newly developed colour available to selected customers in the 1820s, long before it came into widespread use.

The Pop of Pop

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The Baron of Bubbles
The Sultan of Soda
The Ayatollah of Coca-Cola

Cocktail Party Physics: father of fizz

In honor of ” Pepsipocalypse,” and my own inordinate fondness for Diet Coke (which I share with Bora!, as evidenced by the photo at the end of this post, although he’s partial to the sugared variety), it seems appropriate to pay tribute to the grand-daddy of fizzy drinks: British scientist Joseph Priestley. He didn’t actually invent carbonation, which is a natural process: at high pressures underground, spring water can absorb carbon dioxide and become “effervescent.” “Seltzer” originally referred to the mineral water naturally produced in springs near a German town called Niederseltsers, although today, it’s pretty much just filtered tap water that’s been artificially carbonated. No, Priestley is responsible for the artificial carbonation process, along with “discovering” oxygen (more on that, and the caveats, later) and eight other gases, including carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide (laughing gas).

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What to call it: I have previously linked to a Soda vs Pop map

A-12

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The Secret Film of the CIA Supersonic Spy Plane’s First Flight

After Lockheed Aircraft completed “antiradar studies, aerodynamic structural tests, and engineering designs,” the CIA gave the green light to produce 12 aircraft on January 30th, 1960. It was called the A-11 at the time. Lockheed engineer Clarence L. Johnson was the main designer, who was responsible for the U-2. Despite Johnson’s experience, many were skeptical at first and, after months of drawings and wind-tunnel model testing, they were not convinced this beast could fly.

Appetite Wins

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Daniel Okrent has book out on Prohibition and was on The Daily Show the other night. George will has an op-ed that uses some of the information from the book.

Another round of Prohibition, anyone?

[B]y 1830, adult per capita consumption was the equivalent of 90 bottles of 80-proof liquor annually.

Although whiskey often was a safer drink than water, Americans, particularly men, drank too much. Women’s Prohibition sentiments fueled the movement for women’s rights — rights to hold property independent of drunken husbands; to divorce those husbands; to vote for politicians who would close saloons. So the United States Brewers’ Association officially opposed women’s suffrage.

(George still writes well, as long as the topic isn’t global warming.)

Okrent mentions the parallel to marijuana in the interview, though the op-ed doesn’t go there.

Don't Drop any Mentos in it

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The Strangest Disaster of the 20th Century.

A recounting of the Lake Nyos CO2 eruption in Camaroon.

There is a physical limit to how much CO2 water can absorb, even under the tremendous pressured that exist at the bottom of a 690 foot deep lake. As the bottom layers become saturated, the CO2 is pushed up to where the pressure is low enough for it to start coming out of solution. At this point any little disturbance—a landslide, stormy weather, or even high winds or just a cold snap—can cause the CO2 to begin bubbling to the surface. And when the bubbles start rising, they can cause a siphoning or “chimney” effect, triggering a chain reaction that in one giant upheaval can cause the lake to disgorge CO2 that has been accumulating in the lake for decades.