I just got back from a week in sunny Southern California (although it did rain for a day). I was catching up reading my National Geographic magazines (they’re a good size for airplane trips) and I ran across this in the July 2015 issue — A 2014 study led by University of Melbourne ecologists showed
Al Roth is a professor of economics at Stanford, and he was co-winner (with Lloyd Shapley) of the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2012. An engineer by training, he became an expert on designing markets because in certain situations, money alone can’t solve some problems. For example, Stanford University doesn’t use supply and demand to
I was out shopping Saturday night and I heard a cashier marvel about receiving a $100 bill. Is that the largest bill in circulation? That piqued my curiosity, and I got on my smart phone. According to the official website of the U.S. Department of the Treasury (http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/faqs/Currency/Pages/denominations.aspx), the denominations of currency now in production are
I wrote this a long time ago. It was published on the Dayton Daily News editorial page in about 1990, although I’d have to dig out the date. I’m reprinting it here because it seems even more relevant today. My brother came home safely. I think about this every time there is another senseless
Mention the steam engine, and most people think of James Watt. Actually, the steam engine goes back to the 1st century AD — the earliest known design, the aeolipile, was described by the Greek mathematician and engineer Hero of Alexandria, as recorded in his manuscript Spiritalia seu Pneumatica. On July 2, 1698, British engineer Thomas Savery was
Today I’ve been going through my mother’s papers (you may recall she died in April) and I found an interesting poem, the kind she liked to tape to the refrigerator door: Handwriting on the Wall A weary mother returned from the store, Lugging groceries through the kitchen door. Awaiting her arrival was her 8-year-old
I have some of my best ideas while running. (Something to do with more oxygen to the brain, I suppose.) This weekend I remembered a story from one of my first marathons, although this time it was in the aftermath of a race. I was in the 1984 Honolulu Marathon. Two nights before, there was
If you really want to learn about the 4th of July, I would recommend “Fun Facts for July 4” at the Washington Post website. http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/07/03/fun-facts-for-july-4/ For example, three of the first five U.S. presidents died on July 4. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson died in 1826, the 50th anniversary of the country’s birth. (Adams’ last words were
This is an essay I wrote several years ago, and now is as good a time as any to drag it out. Have you ever heard of me? No? Actually, that shouldn’t surprise anyone. I’m not very famous and few people do know who I am. So far in my life I just haven’t
Yesterday I received an email from The Planetary Society about Asteroid Day. Beginning at the beginning, The Planetary Society is an organization for people interested in anything involving space — “We create. We educate. We advocate.” One of their latest activities has been to support the LightSail experiment — using the solar wind for
