December 13

Better Than News

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  Barbrella is a science fiction romantic musical drama film directed, co-written, co-produced by, and starring American entertainer Barbra Streisand.

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  The Anointed is a 2023 religious foodie film about a citrus farmer who is chosen by God to change water into orange juice.

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  Glyphhanger is a 1993 American action comedy buddy linguistics film about an Army mountain division translator (Stallone) and the last man in the world to speak the oldest known language on Earth (Lithgow) who search for the legendary Lost Glyphs of the Rockies.

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  Titration Zebra is a 1963 thriller novel by Scottish author Alistair MacLean about a reagent, termed the titrant or titrator, which is prepared as a standard solution of known concentration and volume. The titrant reacts with a solution of analyte (which may also be termed the titrand) to determine the analyte's concentration. The volume of titrant that reacted with the analyte is termed the titration volume.

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  Dungeons & Collins is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game set to the music of Phil Collins.

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  The Paine Commandments is an American epic religious drama film about Thomas Paine's commentary on Moses's Laws.

Are You Sure

• ... that physicist, mathematician, statistician, and meteorologist Akiva Yaglom contributed to statistical turbulence theory and random process theory?

• ... that Jonathan Wintersong is a Christmas comedy album by Jonathan Winters and Sarah McLachlan?

• ... that astronomer and philosopher Francesco Bianchini was secretary of the Papal commission for the reform of the calendar, working on the method to calculate the astronomically correct date for Easter in a given year?

On This Day in Fiction and Nonfiction

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  1516: Polymath Johannes Trithemius dies. He is remembered as a lexicographer, chronicler, cryptographer, and occultist.

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  1662: Astronomer and philosopher Francesco Bianchini born. Bianchini will be secretary of the Papal commission for the reform of the calendar, working on the method to calculate the astronomically correct date for Easter in a given year.

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  1887: Mathematician George Pólya born. He will make fundamental contributions to combinatorics, number theory, numerical analysis and probability theory.

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  1907: Mathematician and adacemic Emmy Noether receives her Ph.D. degree, summa cum laude, from the University of Erlangen, for a dissertation on algebraic invariants directed by Paul Gordan.

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  1921: Mathematician Max Noether dies. Noether contributed to algebraic geometry and the theory of algebraic functions. He was the father of mathematician Emmy Noether.

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  2004: Computer scientist and academic David Wheeler dies. He contributed to the development of the Electronic delay storage automatic calculator (EDSAC) and the Burrows–Wheeler transform (BWT); helped develop the subroutine; and gave the first explanation of how to design software libraries.

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  2007: Physicist, mathematician, statistician, and meteorologist Akiva Yaglom dies. He contributed to statistical turbulence theory and random process theory.

Topic of the Day

Bread

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  She Loaves You is a song by the British rock group The Breadles.

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  Bread Zeppelin is a British-American rock band comprising Led Zeppelin and Bread.

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  "Everybody Wants Toast is a song by Van Halen.

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  Pita is a 2018 Greek drama film about pita bread directed by Babis Makridis.

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  Venn diagram shows intersection of "Bread mold flavor", "Best flavor", and "Crazy talk".