Sci-Facts

55 years ago today, July 29, 1958, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the statute that officially abolished the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics and in its place established the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

" Science and everyday life cannot and should not be separated. "                              ~ Rosalind Franklin; (Born 93 years ago today, July 25, 1920)

44 years ago today, on July 20, 1969, at 20:18 UTC, Apollo 11's Lunar Excursion Module touched down on the surface of the Moon.

60 years ago today, May 29, 1953 at 11:30 a.m., in an expedition led by John Hunt, New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Nepalese Sherpa Tenzing Norgay became the first climbers confirmed as having reached the summit of Mount Everest.

" I can live with doubt, and uncertainty, and not knowing. I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong. I have approximate answers, and possible beliefs, and different degrees of certainty about different things, but I’m not absolutely sure of anything, and then many things I don’t know anything about, such as whether it means anything to ask why we’re here, and what the question might mean. I might think about it a little, but if I can’t figure it out, then I go on to something else. But I don’t have to know an answer. I don’t feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in a mysterious universe without having any purpose, which is the way it really is, as far as I can tell, possibly. It doesn’t frighten me. "                               ~ Richard Feynman; (Born 95 years ago today, May 11, 1918)

" It seems to me that the natural world is the greatest source of excitement; the greatest source of visual beauty; the greatest source of intellectual interest. It is the greatest source of so much in life that makes life worth living. "                             ~ David Attenborough; (Born 87 years ago today, May 8, 1926)

As you read this, you are subtly moving the muscles in your tongue and throat associated with speaking the same words aloud. This is called subvocalization. It is largely undetectable without the aid of machines, even by the subjects themselves, and impossible to fully repress. Subvocalization is thought to occur in order to reduce cognitive load while reading or thinking, and allows the brain to take in and process information more naturally and more effectively. Since it is possible to detect and interpret these signals electronically, projects are currently underway to create silent forms of communication, where participants need only think about speaking to communicate.

It is frequently pointed out that the magnetic north pole lies slightly outside the geographic North Pole. This is not technically correct. In fact, the opposite is true. The Earth’s magnetic south pole lies just outside the geographic North Pole. In geography, North is defined by the direction that attracts the north end of a compass, but in physics, the north end of any magnet will always be pulled toward the southern direction of an external magnetic field. What this means is that the magnetic pole that lies in what we call the Northern Hemisphere is actually a magnetic south pole. In precise scientific terms, the “north magnetic pole” and the “magnetic north pole” are exact opposites. Thankfully, these needlessly confusing semantics are usually ignored in favor of the colloquial understanding.

Three years ago today, March 22, 2010, communications with the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit were lost. Ten months prior, Spirit found itself stuck in soft soil, and after eight months of unsuccessful attempts to free its wheels, it was repurposed as a stationary research platform. But in the midst of a stressful Martian winter with little sun to recharge its batteries and no way to reorient itself in preparation for hibernation, the rover was unable to maintain its minimal power requirement, and on sol 2210 of its 90 sol mission, Spirit died.

" As human beings, our job in life is to help people realize how rare and valuable each one of us really is, that each of us has something that no one else has—or ever will have—something inside that is unique to all time. It's our job to encourage each other to discover that uniqueness and to provide ways of developing its expression. "                                   ~ Fred Rogers; (Born 85 years ago today, March 20, 1928)

On March 15, 2009, a free-tailed bat, injured and unable to fly, clung to the external fuel tank of the Space Shuttle Discovery during liftoff at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. It is unknown how long the bat held on, but NASA photos confirm the stowaway remained in place as Discovery cleared the launch tower. This final flight undoubtedly cost the creature its life as the Shuttle climbed, most likely incinerated in the heat of the boosters. Today, the bat lives on in the collective memory of the Internet, inspiring memorial webpages, video tributes, artwork, songs, and memes. Space Bat, as the animal is now known, joins Laika as one of the unwitting participants in the human endeavor of space flight.

The record for calculating pi currently stands at ten trillion decimal digits. The calculation took 191 days to complete using a custom-built desktop computer attached to 44 terabytes of external storage. The number itself, stored as an uncompressed text file, is over 16.6 terabytes. This calculation was a followup by the same two individuals who, a year prior, set the previous record of five trillion digits.

" Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. The mediocre mind is incapable of understanding the man who refuses to bow blindly to conventional prejudices and chooses instead to express his opinions courageously and honestly. "                              ~ Albert Einstein; (Born 134 years ago today, March 14, 1879)