The geologic column is the older of the two dating methods employed by scientists to determine the age of the earth. Basically, this is how it works: earth's many rock layers contain billions of fossils. Certain fossils are unique to certain layers of rock. Some of these fossils have been chosen to be what are called "index fossils". Scientists assume the age of an index fossil by the stage of evolutionary history the fossil is assumed to be in. That age is then transferred to the rock layer in which the index fossil was found. Then, to determine the age of all the other fossils in the same rock layer, we look at the age of the rock layer in which they are contained. Thus, we determine the age of the rock by the fossils it contains, and we determine the age of the fossils by the rock in which they are found. Many consider this circular reasoning. To learn more about this circular argument, explore our geologic time scale site.
History Of Guinness Book OF The World Records
On 10 November 1951, Sir Hugh Beaver, then the managing director of the Guinness Brewery, went on a shooting party in North Slob, by the River Slaney in County Wexford, Ireland. He became involved in an argument: which was the fastest game bird in Europe, the golden plover or the grouse? That evening at Castlebridge House, he realized that it was impossible to confirm in reference books whether or not the golden plover was Europe's fastest game bird.[2]
Beaver thought that there must be numerous other questions debated nightly in the 81,400 pubs in Britain and Ireland, but there was no book with which to settle arguments about records. He realized then that a book supplying the answers to this sort of question might prove popular.
Beaver’s idea became reality when Guinness employee Christopher Chataway recommended student twins Norris and Ross McWhirter, who had been running a fact-finding agency in London. The brothers were commissioned to compile what became The Guinness Book of Records in August 1954. One thousand copies were printed and given away.[3]
After founding the Guinness Book of Records at 107 Fleet Street, the first 198-page edition was bound on 27 August 1955 and went to the top of the British best seller lists by Christmas. "It was a marketing give away—it wasn't supposed to be a money maker," said Beaver. The following year it launched in the U.S., and it sold 70,000 copies.
After the book became a surprise hit, many further editions were printed, eventually settling into a pattern of one revision a year, published in October to coincide with Christmas sales. The McWhirters continued to publish it and related books for many years. Ross was assassinated by the Provisional Irish Republican Army in 1975. Both brothers had an encyclopedic memory — on the TV series Record Breakers, based upon the book, they would take questions posed by children in the audience on various world records, and would usually be able to give the correct answer. Following McWhirter's assassination, the feature was called "Norris on the Spot".
Histry Of The Noble Prize
In 1946 the first stamp portraying Alfred Nobel was released. After that a few set of stamps have commemorated institutions and buildings associated with the Nobel Prize. It was not until fifteen years later, however, that Sweden Post Stamps decided to commemorate Nobel Prize winners in a yearly edition of stamps. In 1961 the Nobel annual series was established.
The Nobel Prize is the first international award given yearly since 1901 for achievements in physics, chemistry, medicine, l iterature and peace. The prize consists of a medal, a personal diploma, and a prize amount.In 1968, the Sveriges Riksbank (Bank of Sweden) instituted the Prize in Economic Sciencesin memory of Alfred Nobel, founder of the Nobel Prize. In the beginning, more than three prize winners could share a Nobel Prize, although this was never practiced. Paragraph four of the Statutes of the Nobel Foundation was amended in 1968, restricting the number of prizewinners to only three.
Previously, a person could be awarded a prize posthumously if the nomination was made before February 1 of the same year. Since 1974, the Prize may only go to a deceased person who has been named as prize winner for the year (usually in October) but who dies before the Prize Awarding Ceremony on December 10.
History Of MonaLisa
Mona Lisa, or La Gioconda (La Joconde) is a 16th century portrait painted in oil on a poplar panel by Leonardo Da Vinci during the Renaissance in Italy. It is one of the most famous paintings in the world, and few other works of art have been subject to as much scrutiny, study, mythologizing and parody. It is owned by the French government and hangs in the Musée du Louvre in Paris, France[1] with the title Portrait of Lisa Gherardini, wife of Francesco del Giocondo.[2] The painting, a half-length portrait, depicts a woman whose gaze meets the viewer's with an expression often described as enigmatic.[3][4] It is considered by many to be Leonardo's magnum opusLeonardo da Vinci began painting the Mona Lisa in 1502 (during the Italian Renaissance) and, according to Vasari, "after he had lingered over it four years, left it unfinished...."[5] He is thought to have continued to work on it for three years after he moved to France and to have finished shortly before he died in 1519.[6]
Leonardo took the painting from Italy to France in 1516 when King François I invited the painter to work at the Clos Lucé near the king's castle in Amboise. The King bought the painting for 4,000 écus and kept it at Fontainebleau, where it remained until moved by Louis XIV.
Louis XIV moved the painting to the Palace of Versailles. After the French Revolution, it was moved to the Louvre. Napoleon I had it moved to his bedroom in the Tuileries Palace; later it was returned to the Louvre. During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871, it was moved from the Louvre to a hiding place elsewhere in France.
The painting was not well-known until the mid-19th century, when artists of the emerging Symbolist movement began to appreciate it, and associated it with their ideas about feminine mystique. Critic Walter Pater, in his 1867 essay on Leonardo, expressed this view by describing the figure in the painting as a kind of mythic embodiment of eternal femininity, who is "older than the rocks among which she sits" and who "has been dead many times and learned the secrets of the grave."
History Of AirPlane
The dream of flying is as old as mankind itself. However, the concept of the airplane has only been around for two centuries. Before that time, men and women tried to navigate the air by imitating the birds. They built machines with flapping wings called ornithopters. On the surface, it seemed like a good plan. After all, there are plenty of birds in the air to show that the concept does work. Click on a picture to enlarge it.
An ornithopter -- it's every bit as impractical as it looks. The trouble is, it works better at bird-scale than it does at the much larger scale needed to lift both a man and a machine off the ground. So folks began to look for other ways to fly. Beginning in 1783, a few aeronauts made daring, uncontrolled flights in lighter-than-air balloons, but this was hardly a practical way to fly. There was no way to get from here to there unless the wind was blowing in the desired direction. An early balloon. It wasn’t until the turn of the nineteenth century that an English baronet from the gloomy moors of Yorkshire conceived a flying machine with fixed wings, a propulsion system, and movable control surfaces. This was the fundamental concept of the airplane. Sir George Cayley also built the first true airplane — a kite mounted on a stick with a movable tail. It was crude, but it proved his idea worked, and from that first humble glider evolved the amazing machines that have taken us to the edge of space at speeds faster than sound. This wing of the museum focuses on the history of the airplane, from its conception in 1799 to our hopes for its future. Because we are a museum of early aviation, we don’t spend a great deal of time on those years after Orville Wright closed the doors of the Wright Company in 1916. We concentrate on the development of the airplane before World War I, when flying machines were odd contraptions of stick, cloth, and wire; engines were temperamental and untrustworthy; and pilots were never quite sure whether they’d be able to coax their machine into the air or bring it down in one piece.
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