Somewhere round or about the late 1850s, John Tyndall FRS [* see note below] was developing and perfecting his experiments with “Sensitive Flames”. He describes one such experiment in his book ‘Sounds’ (p. 238). In which he reads a passage of poetry from Edmund Spenser’s ‘Belphœbe the Huntress’ to the flame (which he calls The Vowel-flame) […]
Tag: history
The Kidney Stone of Alderman Adams
The History of Parliament blog detects a connection between Ig Nobel Prize-winning roller-coaster/kidney stone research and, yes, the history of Britain’s parliament: The Kidney Stone of Alderman Adams The link between the Ig Nobel Prize for improbable research and the 1640-1660 Section of the History of Parliament Trust is not immediately obvious; but the Ig Nobel […]
‘Sort of’ – academic study
When did English-speaking people start saying “sort of”? The phrase can be found at least as far back as 1788 – as is explained in this paper ‘History of the sort of construction family’ (presented at ICCG2: Second International Conference on Construction Grammar, Helsinki.) by David Denison FBA, Professor Emeritus of English Linguistics at the University […]
Alternate histories of the universe
There are many alternate histories of the universe. Here are two. A Briefer History of the Universe Eric Schulman’s 60-second-long History of the Universe began as a print piece (“A History of the Universe in 200 Words or Less,” in the Jan/Feb 1997 issue of the Annals of Improbable Research), had its first public performance as […]