The Ancient World’s Longest Underground Aqueduct
It turns out the aqueduct is of Roman origin. It begins in an ancient swamp in Syria, which has long since dried out, and extends for 64 kilometers on the surface before it disappears into three tunnels, with lengths of 1, 11 and 94 kilometers. The longest previously known underground water channel of the antique world — in Bologna — is only 19 kilometers long.
The Makers of Things at Rands in Repose.
Building the Brooklyn Bridge.
With the caisson on the riverbed, it’s time to push it another 45 feet into the riverbed in search of bedrock. Workers did this through the continued application of stone to the top while workers in the caisson dug out the riverbed with shovels, buckets, and, when necessary, dynamite. There was nothing resembling an electrical grid, so there was nothing resembling modern lighting in this watertight pine-tarred box, which was slowly descending through the floor of the East River. There were no jack hammers, so when they hit rock, they used small amounts of dynamite to crack these rocks. In a pine-tarred box, at the bottom of a river, mostly in a very wet dark.
Interesting comment:
When Brooklyn and New York’s population was booming at the end of the 19th century, the best way to get to and from Brooklyn was via ferries. As solutions were considered, I’m sure there were those who simply thought, “More boats!” These ardent defenders of the status quo were not engineers — they were the business. Their goal was not to build something great, but to make a profit.
It should be obvious, but when you ask people with a stake in it, you are going to get a biased answer. The application of this nugget to today’s economic situation is left as an exercise for the diligent student.
Google Earth reveals fish trap made from rocks 1,000 years ago off British coast
[M]odern technology has revealed this ancient fish trap, used at the time of the Norman Conquest.
They didn’t actually find it on Google Earth, but the image was there
Although it was only recently spotted on aerial photographs, an armchair archaeologist could have discovered the trap on Google Earth.
Google said the V-shaped structure has been visible on its collection of satellite and aerial photos since at least December 2006.
Sure enough, if you point Google Earth to the right spot, you can see it. Use these coordinates:
N 52° 06.550 W 004° 42.450
Works in Google Maps, too
Michael Faraday, grand unified theorist? (1851)
The common thread of many of [Faraday’s] discoveries is their goal: demonstrating that all the physical forces of nature are but different manifestations of a single, ‘universal’ force. This idea was a surprisingly modern one for Faraday’s time, and is known today as a unified field theory. Such research was likely on the minds of many researchers of that era, however: once Ørsted discovered that a magnetic compass needle could be deflected by an electric current, the notion that all forces might be related was a tantalizing dream. Faraday went further than any of his contemporaries in realizing that dream, and experimentally cemented the link between electricity and magnetism and light. Faraday was by no means done, however, and in 1851 he published the results of his attempts to demonstrate that electricity and gravity are related!
Faraday brings light and magnetism together (1845)
Faraday was not alone in envisioning a single theory encompassing all physical phenomena. Indeed, once Ørsted discovered that a magnetic compass needle could be deflected by an electric current, the relationship of electricity and magnetism, as well as other forces, was very much on the minds of physicists. Faraday, however, led the charge in actually demonstrating these relations.
Just got my copy of Physics Today, and noticed that the cover looked familiar. It’s a drawing from a photo, depicting Simon Newcomb at the USNO’s 26″ telescope, and the article inside, Simon Newcomb, America’s first great astronomer, was co-written by a colleague. And it’s one of the free stories.
A complete account of Newcomb’s many achievements in astronomy, mathematics, physics, and economics is beyond the scope of this article. Indeed, the collection of his works held in the Library of Congress contains more than 46 000 items. We focus on Newcomb’s contributions to one of the central astronomical issues of his time: accurately determining the astronomical unit, the distance from Earth to the Sun. Newcomb did everything he could to ensure the success of massive American campaigns to better determine the astronomical unit by observing the transits of Venus in 1874 and 1882. Yet he also set out independently on a different path to reach the same goal. Ultimately, he succeeded in deriving a more accurate value sooner, at a tiny fraction of the cost, and without leaving Washington.
(I got to see the transit of Venus in 2004, with one of the views being through one of the telescopes that has been used to observe these 19th century transits)
Zapperz has stumbled across the ideal gift for that geek who loves to play prime-number-card stud, or superconducting supercollider hold ’em, or even CP-symmetry-not-conserved (e.g. deuces wild) games.
Physicist playing cards at the AIP store. “Historic” deck and “modern” deck.
I already have the Periodic Table playing card decks.
Calculus and “The Method”
Two of the texts hiding in the prayer book have not appeared in any other copy of Archimedes’s work, so no one but Heiberg had studied them until now. One of them, titled The Method, has special historical significance. It could be considered the earliest known work on calculus.
Archimedes wrote The Method almost two thousand years before Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz developed calculus in the 1700s.
Mongo, in this case, is a trebuchet. Mongo flings fireballs.
I haven’t named mine.
9 Life-Changing Inventions the Experts Said Would Never Work
I still believe the part about not being able to fax a cat.