From the moment the plan for a thousand-foot-high tower was approved, the naysayers began to carp. Forty-seven writers, architects, and artists penned an indignant manifesto condemning the “black and gigantic factory chimney” that would crush beneath it all of the beauty of Paris. The writer Guy de Maupassant called it “an unavoidable and tormenting nightmare.”
Technology
What could have been
Photo by Angelina Litvin on Unsplash
Struggling to cope without computers
My word processing computer is on the fritz, so I am writing this column with a pencil on a pad of paper. It took me a long time to find the pencil. I had to buy the pad of paper.
Castle Bravo nuclear test • United States Department of Energy (Public Domain)
Thinking about the unthinkable
It is often said that nuclear war is “unthinkable.” But it is thinkable. There are hundreds of scientists whose business it is to think about the weapons of nuclear war — how to use them, how not the use them, how to build them, how to get rid of them, and what the consequences of their use might be.
Tobacco plant with firefly gene • National Science Foundation (Public Domain)
A tale of a firefly and a tobacco leaf
By now you may have heard the joke. Question: What do you get when you cross a firefly with a tobacco plant. Answer: A cigarette that lights itself.
The Thinker by Rodin • Photo by Ed Menendez (CC BY-SA 2.0)
The brain machine
It has been less than 50 years since Ernest Lawrence was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics for his invention of the cyclotron. Lawrence’s first particle accelerating machine was four inches in diameter and constructed from window pane, brass plate, and sealing wax. It was the sort of thing any clever fellow could build in his basement.
Artist's concept of a Space Laser Satellite Defense System • U.S.A.F. (Public Domain)
Star Wars — Is it science or fantasy?
The idea that science can confer invincibility is a stock theme of science fiction. It is also the theme of President Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), a space-based anti-missile weapons system often called “Star Wars.” Supporters of SDI are determined to turn science fiction into science fact.
Photo by Anastasia Yılmaz
Snow and poker
Who could have predicted this almost snowless winter? Here it is March and I still haven’t taken my snow shovel out of the basement. I checked the “Old Farmers Almanac.” I checked the newspapers. As far as I can discover, no forecaster anticipated the remarkable deficit of snow in my part of the New England.
The Mérode Altarpiece • Workshop of Robert Campin
Two worlds in perfect balance
I have before me on my desk a reproduction of the Mérode Altarpiece, a painting on three panels by a 15th century Flemish master believed by many scholars to be Robert Campin. The triptych depicts the moment of the Annunciation, when the angel Gabriel announces to the Virgin that she is to become the mother of Christ. It is a warm, marvelous work, rich with both cultural and religious meaning.
In the space age, string still snarls
In one of H. G. Wells’ books a character asks for “a ball of string that won’t dissolve into a tangle.” Almost a century later, we have tamed the atom and sent a man to the moon, but balls of string still end up in jumbled knots.
Buzz Aldrin on the moon • NASA / Neil A. Armstrong
A mixed legacy
Where were you at 4:17 p.m., on Sunday, July 20, 1969?