The atom bomb memo
In March 1940 two physicists wrote a top secret memo describing, for the first time, just how to make an atom bomb.
Category: Sciences
First piggy bank
The origins of the modern piggy bank are lost to history, but the oldest extant piggy bank comes from 12th century CE Java.
Original sin immunity
The first time you get sick with a virus can affect how your body responds to that virus for the rest of your life.
Nuclear icebreakers
Arktika, the second nuclear-powered icebreaker made by the Soviet Union, was the first surface ship to reach the North Pole.
Don’t trust the small numbers
In mathematics, the Pólya conjecture is true for every natural number up to 906,150,256… and then it’s not.
Pig toilet
The pig toilet was once a key sanitation building in rural China, Korea, and India. It was ruthlessly efficient, combining a toilet for people with a sty for pigs.
Don’t forget to breathe
People with central hypoventilation syndrome, also known as Ondine’s curse, can forget to breathe.
Arrow stork
In 1822 a white stork landed in Klütz, then a town of the German Confederation, and finally unlocked the secret of where the birds go in winter.
Abnormal normal dice
A pair of Sicherman dice have numbers ranging from 1 to 8 on their faces, but roll two of them together and they produce the same totals as a pair of normal dice.
Temporary island
Pobeda Ice Island was first discovered in 1840. It was seen again in the 1910s, but was gone by the late 1920s. By the 1960s it was back, only to disappear again in the 1970s.
Yule animals
Going from house to house singing Christmas carols is a long-held tradition. But what if the wassailers turn up with a goat or a horse’s head? And what if they take you with them?
Unique bacteria
One variety of bacteria has only ever been isolated from the wreck of the RMS Titanic; another type of bacteria has only ever been found inside clean rooms used to assemble spacecraft.
The magician’s toilet
John Nevil Maskelyne was a turn of the century stage magician who created the first levitation trick, built an automaton that could play whist, revealed the secrets of card sharks, and invented the pay toilet.
Experimental pi
If you have a piece of striped paper and some sticks, you can estimate the value of pi through a simple experiment.
Human blood type systems
Your blood type is most commonly defined by two systems: ABO (blood types A, B, AB, and O) and Rh (+ or -). But these aren’t the only systems; there are more than thirty others.
Sky tubes
A Bangladeshi engineer named Fazlur Rahman Khan revolutionised the design of skyscrapers by modelling them on bamboo tubes.