Uncategorized
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From the June 25, 1932, issue
ARTIFICIAL LIGHTNING FLASHED AT 10 MILLION VOLTS The most powerful manmade lightning is flashing across the cover of this week’s Science News Letter from new equipment in the Pittsfield laboratories of the General Electric Co., which has twice the capacity of any preceding apparatus of its kind. This is a discharge through a 15-foot space […]
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19083
That six college students in London should require more brain activity than Italian students in decoding words is consistent with the use of whole-language methods favored in London classrooms when these respondents were young. For people not trained in phonics, word decoding is more difficult. A more complete study would include students from Scotland, where […]
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19082
I thought this article was quite interesting, but I would derive a different conclusion than did the scientists featured. I would not presume that Easterners have less capacity to make logical inferences than Westerners, but that they give logical inferences less import. The primary religions in the East–Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism–stress the importance of harmony […]
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19081
This article seems to ignore the fatal flaw in the search for the virtual person: While such a model is designed to represent all people, it in reality represents no individual. The ergonometric model says that a man is 5 feet, 9 inches tall and weighs 160 pounds. I can tell you–as a man 6 […]
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19080
This article fails to point out interesting aspects of the land and ocean temperature data shown in the article. During the period from about 1918 until 1943, land and ocean temperatures rose at a rate of about 18C per millennium. From 1943 until about 1975, the temperature was constant or declined slightly. A period of […]
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19079
It’s always risky to assert that a particular study has never been conducted. The research may have been done and, worse, the researcher may come across the assertion. This article claims, “Long-term studies of tough boys have yet to be conducted.” In 1987, we reported a 9-year follow-up of 25 boys (Contributions to Human Development […]
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From the January 18, 1930, issue
HUGE SHOVEL CAN LIFT CAR OF COAL The largest shovel in the world, with a scoop big enough to pick up an automobile, is the subject of our cover illustration. It is in use at the Fidelity mine of the United Electric Coal Co., near DuQuon, Ill., the greatest coal-stripping enterprise in the world. Electrically […]
- Computing
Scouring the Web
Looking for the perfect Web search engine? It probably doesn’t exist, but you can find out the strengths, weaknesses, and quirks of various Net-scouring tools at the “Search Engine Showdown” Web site, maintained by Montana State University librarian Greg R. Notess. Check out the inconsistencies report and sample tips for efficient searching. Go to: http://www.notess.com/search/
- Math
Turn of the Screw
“What we are told about Archimedes is a mix of a few hard facts and many legends,” Sherman Stein of the University of California, Davis notes in his book Archimedes: What Did He Do Besides Cry Eureka? A three-bladed Archimedes screw. Courtesy of Chris Rorres. I was reminded of that statement when my son Kenneth […]
- Math
Conquering Catalan’s Conjecture
Innocent-looking problems involving whole numbers can stymie even the most astute mathematicians. As in the case of Fermats last theorem, centuries of effort may go into proving such tantalizing, deceptively simple conjectures in number theory. Now, Preda Mihailescu of the University of Paderborn in Germany finally may have the key to a venerable problem known […]
- Animals
Oops. Woodpecker raps were actually gunshots
The knock-knock noises recorded last winter that raised hopes for rediscovering the long-lost ivory-billed woodpecker in Louisiana turn out to have been gunshots instead of bird noises.
- Math
Algebra, Philosophy, and Fun
I don’t often encounter the words “philosophy” and “fun” right next to the term “algebra.” Nowadays, these words don’t seem to fit together comfortably. However, the three terms do appear in the title of an engaging little book called Philosophy and Fun of Algebra, written by Mary Everest Boole (1832–1916) and published in 1909. I […]
