Cool Fact of the Day [May 2nd]
Concrete Canoes
Why do students build canoes out of concrete?
Once a year, teams of college students compete in the Concrete Canoe Competition.
Sponsored by the American Society of Civil Engineers, the races celebrate ever-improving
concrete technology and student innovation.
The kind of concrete used for buildings and bridges would quickly break apart if formed into
a boat. But ingenious engineering students have developed special recipes to make concrete
that is both light and flexible. Their mixtures include ingredients like fiberglass and tiny plastic
spheres, but by the rules of the competition they must be based on cement and water.
After months of planning, construction, testing, and training, the teams meet for the finals on
Vermont's Lake Champlain. Each team must also present a technical paper on their entry.
There are sprints and slaloms for both men and women, and an unofficial faculty race.
Weather conditions made the 1998 competition especially challenging:
web.mit.edu
Several canoes sank or broke in the 1995 competition:
engr.ukans.edu
More about the races, from University of Connecticut:
news.uconn.edu
Russian concrete submarines:
features.learningkingdom.com
Cool Word of the Day
scot-free [adj. skot-free]
Scot-free means free from payment or punishment. Example: "A legal technicality meant that
the court had to let her off scot-free despite the overwhelming evidence against her."
Scot-free contains the word scot, meaning tax, fee, or fine, from the Middle English scot (tax).
(So originally, scot-free meant not having to pay a tax assessment.) More distant ancestors of
the word include the Old Norse skot and the Old French escot.
Person of the Day
Ray McIntire, 1919?-77
Inventor of Styrofoam
Those ubiquitous packing material "peanuts," lightweight coffee cups, and disposable dinner
plates that might last a millennium are the result of a serendipitous discovery by Ray McIntire,
a scientist at the Dow Chemical Company in Midland, Michigan.
McIntire was experimenting with plastics in an attempt to design a flexible electrical insulating
material around the time of World War II when he accidentally created foamed polystyrene --
the material Dow Chemical later trademarked Styrofoam. In 1954, Dow introduced
McIntire's material to the world. A multitude of uses, from flotation devices to acoustical
panels, have been developed since.
Today, McIntire's plastic foam is not used in the manufacture of cups, peanuts, and
dinnerware, which are usually made from generic polystyrene. Instead, it is used in genuine
Styrofoam-brand insulation made by McIntire's former employer -- the Dow Chemical
Company.
More about Ray McIntire:
detnews.com
More about Styrofoam and other plastics:
dow.com
inventors.about.com
Quotes of the Day
Wit; Some thoughts on wit:
"The well of true wit is truth itself."
-- George Meredith, English novelist and poet
"Wit is so shining a quality that everybody admires it: most people aim at it, all people fear it,
and few love it unless in themselves."
-- Lord Chesterfield, English writer and statesman
"Wit is the salt of conversation, not the food."
-- William Hazlitt, English essayist and critic
"True wit is nature to advantage dressed,
What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed."
-- Alexander Pope, English poet
Gizmo of the Week
Atomic Clock
What is the most accurate time-keeping gizmo?
The world's most accurate, long-term timekeeper is the atomic clock. The first of these to be
developed was the "ammonia clock".
The ammonia molecule is in the shape of a pyramid, with three hydrogen atoms forming the
corners of the base, and a nitrogen atom at the apex.
The nitrogen atom vibrates, of its own accord, backwards and forwards through the base, at
a rock-steady 23,870 times per second. By electronic counting of these to-and-fro motions of
the nitrogen atom, extremely accurate long-term timekeeping is possible.
Details of atomic clock operation:
iao.com
Today in History
May 2nd
1519: Da Vinci Died
Leonardo da Vinci died near Amboise, France. An Italian painter, sculptor, architect, and
engineer, his genius epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal. His "Mona Lisa" stands out as
an extremely popular and influential painting. His personal notebooks reveal a spirit of
scientific inquiry and mechanical inventiveness that were centuries ahead of their time.
More about Leonardo da Vinci:
mos.org
1808: Residents of Madrid Revolted Against the French
Residents of Madrid revolted against the French occupation of Spain. This culminated in a
fierce battle at the Puerta del Sol, Madrid's central square. The Spanish rebels were defeated,
and during the night hundreds of Spaniards were executed in retaliation. The French were
eventually driven out of the Iberian Peninsula in 1813.
This incident led artist Francisco de Goya to paint "The 2nd of May, 1808" and "The 3rd of
May, 1808":
imageone.com
1885: Congo Free State Established
King Leopold II of Belgium established the Congo Free State. Considered the king's personal
territory, it occupied most of the Congo River basin. In 1908, the Congo Free State was
abolished and became the Belgian Congo, a colony controlled by the Belgian parliament. In
1966, the country was named Zaire, but was renamed the Democratic Republic of Congo in
1997.
Maps of the Democratic Republic of Congo:
theodora.com
1938: Ella Fitzgerald Recorded "A-Tisket, A-Tasket"
Pioneer jazz vocalist Ella Fitzgerald recorded one of her biggest hits, "A-Tisket, A-Tasket,"
which was a swing version of a popular nursery rhyme. That song ignited a musical career that
spanned six decades. Fitzgerald's mastery of scat singing became her trademark, and her
improvisations and interpretations of famous songs are legendary.
1953: King Hussein Began Reign in Jordan
King Abdullah, of the Hashemite Dynasty, was the ruler of Jordan from its inception in 1920.
Although struggling against the partition of Palestine and the establishment of a Jewish state, he
came to realize that military resistance would not succeed. He therefore reached a secret
peace agreement with the newly created state of Israel, whereby Jordan absorbed the West
Bank territory. On July 20, 1951 a Palestinian extremist, who felt that the king had betrayed
the Palestinian cause, gunned down King Abdullah. The assassination took place as King
Abdullah entered Jerusalem's famous Al Aqsa mosque for Friday prayers with his
15-year-old grandson, Prince Hussein ibn Talal. Not only did the young prince see his
grandfather's murder, he pursued the gunman, who then shot him in the chest. Hussein's life
was saved when the bullet was deflected by a medal on his uniform that had been given to him
by his grandfather.
At the time, Crown Prince Talal, Hussein's father, was undergoing treatment for schizophrenia
in a Swiss mental hospital. Although he returned to Jordan and was crowned king, the
Jordanian parliament forced his abdication a year later because of his mental instability. The
17-year-old Hussein was named king, although a Regency Council ruled for him while he
completed his education in Britain. On May 2, 1953, when he turned 18 by the Islamic
calendar, King Hussein assumed full constitutional powers as ruler of Jordan.
The young king was the target of numerous attempted coups and assassinations. Later, two
Arab-Israeli wars and a civil war threatened the existence of his throne and the state itself.
Throughout his reign he was under threat not just from a militarily superior Israel, but also
from political enemies among his Arab neighbors, and the Palestinians over whom he had
assumed authority, but among whom he commanded uncertain loyalty. Yet he managed to
overcome the humiliating loss of the West Bank and east Jerusalem to Israel in the 1967
Six-Day War, to stay in power, and to hold the country together. At the time of his death in
1999, he was not just the Middle-East's longest-serving ruler, but also a respected
international statesman.
Major events in the reign of King Hussein:
readingeagle.com
1960: Caryl Chessman Executed
Controversy over the issue of capital punishment in the U.S. was greatly intensified by the
case of Caryl Chessman. Chessman was a 27-year-old parolee from Folsom Prison in
January, 1948 when he was arrested in Los Angeles. He was charged with a series of crimes
in which a man had approached people parked in their cars and robbed them, sometimes
taking female victims elsewhere and molesting them. He signed a confession, but later claimed
innocence, and that the confession had been beaten out of him by police.
The jury found Chessman guilty as charged, and he was sentenced to death in the gas
chamber. For the next 12 years Chessman attempted to escape the death penalty, writing four
books in his own defense from death row. Many influential people wrote pleas on Chessman's
behalf, including Eleanor Roosevelt, Aldous Huxley, Ray Bradbury, Norman Mailer, Billy
Graham, Robert Frost, Marlon Brando, and Shirley MacLaine. Opponents of capital
punishment decried the harshness of a death sentence for a criminal who had neither killed nor
seriously injured anyone. But to no avail: after eight stays of execution, the sentence was finally
carried out. On May 2, 1960 Caryl Chessman died in San Quentin's gas chamber. More than
any other single case, that of Caryl Chessman focused the debate over capital punishment in
the United States.
Holidays & Events
May 2
Festival of Saint Efisio, Royal Greenhouses Public Opening
ITALY: FESTIVAL OF SAINT EFISIO
Since the 17th century, it has been a tradition in Sardinia, Italy, to celebrate Saint Efisio and
his legendary intervention to rescue the citizens from plague in 1652; this is one of the biggest
and most colorful processions in the country. Thousands of pilgrims carry a statue of the saint
through the streets. People participate on foot, carts, and horseback, and are dressed in
historical costumes. They are accompanied by musicians playing wind instruments.
More about the procession:
sarnow.com
A history of Sardinia:
crs4.it
BELGIUM: ROYAL GREENHOUSES PUBLIC OPENING
The greenhouses at the Royal Palace in Laeken, Belgium are open to the public for only 10
days each year. This six acres of neoclassical rotundas, domes, and galleries are currently
open for visitors until May 6. Giant ferns, banana trees, grottoes, glades, and grassy vistas are
tended by 20 full-time gardeners. Guests can also enjoy climbing geraniums and fuchsias, a
colony of birds, orange trees, and the Azalea House.
An introduction to Belgium:
visitbelgium.com
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