Template:Are You Sure/February 18

• ... that polymath Thābit ibn Qurra rejected the Peripatetic and Aristotelian notions of a "natural place" for each element, and that Thābit instead proposed a theory of motion in which both the upward and downward motions are caused by weight, with the order of the universe a result of two competing attractions (jadhb): one of these being "between the sublunar and celestial elements", and the other being "between all parts of each element separately"?

• ... that mathematician Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi was the first Jewish mathematician to be appointed professor at a German university?

• ... that singer-physicist J. R. Oppenheimer performed his hit song "Destroyer of Worlds" at the Grand Ole Opry, leading to his being summoned before the House Un-American Activities Committee?