Are You Sure? (nonfiction)
Are You Sure? is a feature of the Gnomon Chronicles.
See also Are You Sure? (archive) (nonfiction)
Work in progress
May 3
GNOMON CHRONICLES
Are You Sure ... (May 3, 2020)
• ... that mathematician and theologian Isaac Barrow (1630–1677) was known for his courage, and that he once saved the ship he was on from capture by pirates?
• ... that neutonianismo is a group of various folk dances characterized by a fast upbeat tempo, usually in 6/8 time (sometimes 12/8 or 4/4), accompanied by tambourines, related to the better known tarantella; and that tarantella's supposed association with dancing mania caused by spider bites is similar to neutonianismo's popular association with dancing mania caused by the physics of Sir Isaac Newton?
• ... that mathematician Jacques-Louis Lions (1928–2001) championed the application of mathematics in industry, with a particular involvement in the French space program, as well as in domains such as energy and the environment, and that he was the director of the Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES) from 1984 to 1992?
• ... that wealthy Venetian polymath Francesco Algarotti (1712–1764) was made a fellow of the Royal Society in 1736, and that while in London he became embroiled in a lively bisexual love-triangle with the politician John Hervey and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu; and that Algarotti left England for Italy, where he finished Neutonianismo per le dame ("Newtonism for Ladies", 1737), a book written for women about Isaac Newton's work on optics, dedicated to Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle?
May 2
GNOMON CHRONICLES
Are You Sure ... (May 2, 2020)
• ... that biologist, mathematician, and classics scholar Sir D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson (1860–1948) was a pioneer of mathematical biology; and that his book On Growth and Form (1917) led the way for the scientific explanation of morphogenesis, the process by which patterns are formed in plants and animals; and that Thompson's lyrical explication of the mathematical beauty of nature has charmed countless scientists and artists, including Alan Turing, Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, Salvador Dalí, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Jackson Pollock, and Richard Hamilton?
• ... that polymath Athanasius Kircher (1602–1680) was one of the first people to observe microorganisms through a microscope, and that Kircher was ahead of his time in proposing that the plague was caused by an infectious microorganism and in suggesting effective measures to prevent the spread of the disease?
• ... that the deep scattering layer is a layer in the ocean consisting of millions of marine organisms was discovered through sonar, as ships found a layer that scattered the sound and was thus sometimes mistaken for the seabed, and that the layer includes larger numbers of small mesopelagic fish with swimbladders that reflect sonar, and that the layer is deeper when the moon is out, and can become shallower when clouds pass over the moon?
• ... that mathematician, physicist, astronomer, and academic John Winthrop (1714–1779) attempted to explain the great Lisbon earthquake of 1755 as a scientific (rather than religious) phenomenon, and that Winthrop was a pioneer of seismology, applying mathematical computation to earthquake activity?
• ... that Mesopelagium is an oceanographer-run restaurant specializing in seafood from the mesopelagic zone, including bristlemouths, blobfish, bioluminescent jellyfish, giant squid, and a myriad of other unique organisms adapted to live in a low-light environment; and that all of the seafood served in Mesopelagium is raised responsibly in cruelty-free underground aquaculture tanks which provide the high-pressure, low-light environment necessary to culture mesopelagic organisms?
On This Day
GNOMON CHRONICLES
On This Day in History and Fiction: April 18
1796: Physicist Johan Carl Wilcke dies. Wilcke invented the electrophorus, and calculated the latent heat of ice.
1873: Chemist and academic Justus von Liebig dies. Von Liebeg made pioneering contributions to organic chemistry, especially agricultural and biological chemistry; he is known as the "Father of the fertilizer industry".
1907: Jazz drummer and theoretical physicist Albert Einstein hosts an all-star benefit concert to raise money for the rebuilding of San Francisco.
1955: Physicist, engineer, and academic Albert Einstein dies. Einstein developed the theory of relativity, one of the two pillars of modern physics (alongside quantum mechanics).
2011: Mathematician Curt Meyer dies. Meyer made notable contributions to number theory, including an alternative solution to the class number 1 problem, building on the original Stark–Heegner theorem.
