May 8

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Better Than News

Beyond Plausible

In Other Words

Are You Sure

• ... that Antoine Lavoisier played a key role in changing chemistry from a qualitative science to a quantitative science, discovered the role oxygen plays in combustion, helped construct the metric system, wrote the first extensive list of elements, and was executed as a traitor during the French Revolution?

• ... that mathematician John Henry Constantine "Henry" Whitehead (1904–1960) was one of the founders of homotopy theory, which originated in algebraic topology as a systematic study of situations in which maps come with homotopies between them; and that J.J. Rotman, in his book on algebraic topology, as a tribute to Whitehead's intellect, stated: "There is a canard that every textbook of algebraic topology either ends with the definition of the Klein bottle or is a personal communication to J. H. C. Whitehead."?

• ... that the book Polenta and You: The Untold Story of the Niger Polenta Forgeries describes the differences between harmless polenta and radioactive yellowcake?

Selected Anniversaries

Topic of the Day

Titanic