The International Space Station (ISS), launched in 1998, is the result of collaboration between the five space agencies of the United States, Russia, Japan, Europe and Canada i.e., NASA, Roscosmos, JAXA, ESA and CSA, respectively. The ISS is the most expensive object ever made by humans at a cost of 100 billion dollars. In daily operation since 2000, the facility has been occupied by an international cadre of researchers who have been conducting gravitational and other experiments there. Having just recently experienced a time adjustment in our central time zone, one of many that fall under the standard Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), it was interesting to learn that the ISS uses the one standard global time used by scientists, Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).
Have you ever heard of a “mondegreen?” According to Merriam-Webster a mondegreen phenomenon occurs when one mishears or misinterprets what is has been said or sung as something different than what was intended. Good examples of mondegreens would be the phrase “spitting image” which comes from the two words “spit and image” as “spit” once meant “a perfect likeness” along with image, “ nickname” which comes from mishearing “ekename” which once meant “another name” and instances when children misinterpret as, “I led the pigeons to the flag” the actual intended phrase of “I pledge allegiance to the flag.” With song, mondegreens occur more frequently when one cannot see the singer’s face or when the singer has an accent. In a 1954 Harper’s essay, Sylvia Wright, an American writer, recounted a story of when she was a child and her mother read to her from “Reliques of Ancient English Poetry” the line “And laid him on the green,” which she misheard as “And Lady Mondegreen.”
And speaking of finding words in dictionaries, one of the more complete dictionaries today is the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). In 1857 the Philological Society of London decided that none of the dictionaries of that time were complete so they set about writing a more comprehensive product to be called a “New English Dictionary on Historical Principles.” They estimated that it would take approximately 10 years to complete and expected that over that time they would produce four volumes encompassing about 6,400 pages. The first inkling that the project might be larger than originally thought was five years later when the word “ant” had finally been reached. Seventy years, 10 volumes and 400,000 words and phrases later the first edition of the OED was published in 1928. The second edition followed in 1989 and the third edition is today still a work in progress.
Do you have blue eyes? It is now known that the OCA2 gene, along with the adjacent HERC2 gene located on the long arm of chromosome 15, provide instructions to the body for producing a pigment protein known as melanin which gives color to an individual’s skin, hair, and eyes. Scientists have determined that up until 12,000 years ago, all Homo sapiens had brown eyes, but sometime during the Neolithic age in Europe the HERC2 gene mutated, thus affecting OCA2’s expression in the human iris resulting in an individual being born with blue eyes. It is estimated that approximately 10% of today’s world population has blue eyes and that it is likely that all those with blue eyes are descended from that one, northern European, blue eyed ancestor.
It is always interesting to me to learn the reason behind all sorts of things. For example while it is pretty easy to guess why Chicago is called “The Windy City” and Detroit is called “Motor City,” why is New York known as “The Big Apple” and New Orleans called “The Big Easy?” Some attribute the New York name to a notation in 1909 by journalist Edward Martin in his book, “The Wayfarer in New York” that Midwesterners are likely see New York as a greedy city since “the big apple gets a disproportionate share of the national sap.” However, the prevailing explanation comes from a horse racing publication in which John J. Fitz Gerald, racing journalist, noted about racing that it is “The dream of every lad that ever threw a leg over a thoroughbred and the goal of all horsemen. There’s only one Big Apple. That’s New York.” He had actually overheard two New Orleans stable hands discussing the New York racing being the goal of every aspiring jockey and trainer because it was a supreme opportunity, like an attractive big red apple.
The origin of “The Big Easy” for New Orleans is still a bit obscure but one suggestion is that it is a comparison of the way of life in New Orleans to life in “The Big Apple,”- New York, the “city that never sleeps.” Another theory places the name origin within the city’s well recognized musical heritage with its vast number of performance venues where in the early 20th century struggling musicians could easily find places to make a living while plying their trade. “The Big Easy” is essentially a synonym for the spirit within the city as the people there can do things their way without fear of being judged.
When trying to determine who was actually the first to invent something it can be interesting because through improvements to the original item we finally get to the mechanisms we are familiar with today. One example of this is the invention of the steam engine which according to Britannica it was Thomes Savory, a British engineer who in 1698 patented his invention using pressurized steam. Then in 1712 this device was improved upon by Thomas Newcomen, who with the help of John Calley built his engine on top of a waterfilled mine shaft using atmospheric pressure to remove the water below. Then in 1769 James Watt patented the majorly improved steam engine that helped to bring about the Industrial Revolution.
And then there is the computer for which Charles Babbage, an English engineer, is credited with having the first concept of a computer that could be programmed to carry out many chores then accomplished by humans but that would be able to do the job more efficiently and faster. In 1823 he enlisted engineer John Clement to build what he called his “difference machine,” one that would make complex mathematical calculations by repeated addition without using multiplication or division, but by 1833 the two agreed to disagree and parted company. By then, though, Babbage had a greater idea for a machine that he named the Analytical Engine and recorded his notes and sketches of about 5,000 pages for a device that could do more complex mathematical chores including multiplication and division. Those sketches and notes of the parts resemble those of which today’s computers are comprised. Unfortunately Babbage died before he could get very far into the production of his idea and it wasn’t until 1942 that Dr. John Vincent Atanasoff, along with Clifford Berry, his graduate student, actually created the Atanasoff-Berry electronic computer.
It can be mind-boggling when one thinks about how far back these ideas were being bandied about but even earlier than it has been shown that others had similar ideas but just lacked the wherewithal to be able to build such machines. In fact it was mathematician and engineer Heron of Alexandria who lived during the first century who was first to conceive of an idea for a steam engine he called the Aeolipile and Leonardo Da Vinci during the 15th century drew his designs for a steam powered cannon he called the Architonnerre.
So as far as computers are concerned, in 1901 an ancient Greek device called the Antikythera mechanism, which calculated and displayed astronomical phenomenon, was recovered from a trading ship that had sunk during the first half of the 1st century BC near the island of Antikythera in the Mediterranean Sea. It has been speculated that when the device was whole it would have fit in a shoe box and the faces of the mechanism covered with Greek inscriptions, there was enough to clearly indicate the device’s astronomical, or calendrical purpose. And, thus ends this compilation of informational tidbits, at least for today!
