Recently, the BBC reported that “a periodic table found during a laboratory clear-out at the University of St Andrews is believed to be the oldest in the world.” Here it is, together with the link to the original article. There’s loads of interesting and thought-provoking science in this periodic table. Hence this post. It would […]
Category: History of science
How does a phone call work? Part 2
In part 1 of this post, we described the path that a mobile phone call takes across the Atlantic. Here we will describe what is travelling along the ‘through the air’ part of that path. Well, it’s a phone call, right? But in what form? In what follows, some details may be spotted by telecommunications […]
How does a phone call work? Part 1
You should be much more in awe of your mobile phone (cellphone) than you are. In ‘The World’s War’ by David Olusoga, we learn that the first British action of the First World War was “the severing of five underwater telegraph cables that linked Germany to the United States.” The effect of this was that […]
Who first split the atom? And, how to win quizzes…
Growing up I knew that the answer to the quiz question ‘Who first split the atom?’ was ‘Ernest Rutherford’, even if I didn’t necessarily know exactly what the question meant. It still occurs in quiz circles – check out question 20 in the Daily Telegraph’s science and nature quiz from 2010. The answer is Ernest […]