Today in History: Oct. 30

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

Boom! and Boo! …

* * * *
From 100 miles away, the crew of the Tu-95V plane found themselves looking up at the bottom of the mushroom cloud created by the bomb they had dropped several minutes before. After the crew dropped the bomb, the pilot flew the plane as fast as possible from the impending explosion: when the plane was twenty-eight miles away, the device detonated, and the shock wave traversed that distance almost instantaneously and knocked the plane a mile-and-a-half down and away. The crew safely landed the plane, but not before they took photos of Tsar Bomba’s mushroom cloud (above), the largest thermonuclear weapon—thus, the largest weapon—yet detonated on the planet.

The Soviet Union exploded Tsar Bomba 55 years ago on this date.
Read More

Today in History: Oct. 29

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

Gimbels department store in Manhattan started to sell ballpoint pens on this date in 1945. Thus, today is sort-of the 71st birthday of the ballpoint pen.

Now, the first patent for a pen utilizing the ballpoint design was granted in 1888, and newer patents that both refined the ballpoint pen design and the ink formula were awarded to various inventors through the years.
Read More

Four Is the Loneliest Number

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

The Wikipedia disambiguation page for the commonplace partial phrase “rule of three” lists nine items. Actually it lists 10, the tenth not being an example of the concept of the rule of three in day-to-day life but the title of a play; it may have been added by an editor simply to amuse himself or herself. (It was not me.)

It would be amusing if there were nine, because it would be a perfect example of the “rule of three” to have three sets of three things in a list of the possible definitions of that very phrase; it is comic to have 10 instead. (Nerds Unite!)
Read More