Have a deep view into what people are curious about.

🔗 Novels 🔗 Novels/Science fiction 🔗 Science Fiction 🔗 Novels/Short story

"I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream" is a post-apocalyptic science fiction short story by American writer Harlan Ellison. It was first published in the March 1967 issue of IF: Worlds of Science Fiction.

It won a Hugo Award in 1968. The name was also used for a short story collection of Ellison's work, featuring this story. It was reprinted by the Library of America, collected in volume two (Terror and the Uncanny, from the 1940s to Now) of American Fantastic Tales.

🔗 Books 🔗 Poland

The Scottish Book (Polish: Księga Szkocka) was a thick notebook used by mathematicians of the Lwów School of Mathematics in Poland for jotting down problems meant to be solved. The notebook was named after the "Scottish Café" where it was kept.

Originally, the mathematicians who gathered at the cafe would write down the problems and equations directly on the cafe's marble table tops, but these would be erased at the end of each day, and so the record of the preceding discussions would be lost. The idea for the book was most likely originally suggested by Stefan Banach, or his wife, Łucja, who purchased a large notebook and left it with the proprietor of the cafe.

🔗 Spaceflight

StarTram is a proposed space launch system propelled by maglev. The initial Generation 1 facility would launch cargo only, launching from a mountain peak at an altitude of 3 to 7 kilometres (1.9 to 4.3 mi) with an evacuated tube staying at local surface level; it has been claimed that about 150,000 tons could be lifted to orbit annually. More advanced technology would be required for the Generation 2 system for passengers, with a longer track instead gradually curving up at its end to the thinner air at 22 kilometres (14 mi) altitude, supported by magnetic levitation, reducing g-forces when each capsule transitions from the vacuum tube to the atmosphere. A SPESIF 2010 presentation stated that Generation 1 could be completed by the year 2020 or later if funding began in 2010, and Generation 2 by 2030 or later.

🔗 United States 🔗 Biography 🔗 Medicine 🔗 Biology 🔗 Biography/science and academia 🔗 India 🔗 Molecular and Cell Biology 🔗 Medicine/Medical genetics 🔗 United States/Asian Americans

Har Gobind Khorana (9 January 1922 – 9 November 2011) was an Indian-American biochemist. While on the faculty of the University of Wisconsin–Madison, he shared the 1968 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with Marshall W. Nirenberg and Robert W. Holley for research that showed the order of nucleotides in nucleic acids, which carry the genetic code of the cell and control the cell's synthesis of proteins. Khorana and Nirenberg were also awarded the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize from Columbia University in the same year.

Born in British India, Khorana served on the faculties of three universities in North America. He became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1966, and received the National Medal of Science in 1987.

🔗 Politics

In popular discourse, the horseshoe theory asserts that the far-left and the far-right, rather than being at opposite and opposing ends of a linear continuum of the political spectrum, closely resemble each other, analogous to the way that the opposite ends of a horseshoe are close together. The theory is attributed to the French philosopher and writer of fiction and poetry Jean-Pierre Faye in his 2002 book Le Siècle des idéologies ("The Century of Ideologies").

Several political scientists, psychologists, and sociologists have criticized the horseshoe theory. Proponents point to a number of perceived similarities between extremes and allege that both have a tendency to support authoritarianism or totalitarianism; this does not appear to be supported by scholars in the field of political science, and the few instances of peer-reviewed research on the subject are scarce. Existing studies and comprehensive reviews often find only limited support and only under certain conditions; they generally contradict the theory's central premises.

🔗 Novels 🔗 Comedy 🔗 Middle-earth 🔗 Novels/Fantasy

Bored of the Rings is a parody of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. This short novel was written by Henry Beard and Douglas Kenney, who later founded National Lampoon. It was published in 1969 by Signet for the Harvard Lampoon. In 2013, an audio version was produced by Orion Audiobooks, narrated by Rupert Degas.

🔗 Physics 🔗 Physics/History 🔗 University of Oxford

The Oxford Electric Bell or Clarendon Dry Pile is an experimental electric bell that was set up in 1840 and which has run nearly continuously ever since. It was one of the first pieces purchased for a collection of apparatus by clergyman and physicist Robert Walker. It is located in a corridor adjacent to the foyer of the Clarendon Laboratory at the University of Oxford, England, and is still ringing, though inaudibly due to being behind two layers of glass.

🔗 Physics 🔗 Energy 🔗 Physics/Fluid Dynamics

Salter's duck, also known as the nodding duck or by its official name the Edinburgh duck, is a device that converts wave power into electricity. The wave impact induces rotation of gyroscopes located inside a pear-shaped "duck", and an electrical generator converts this rotation into electricity with an overall efficiency of up to 90%. The Salter's duck was invented by Stephen Salter in response to the oil shortage in the 1970s and was one of the earliest generator designs proposed to the Wave Energy programme in the United Kingdom. The funding for the project was cut off in the early 1980s after oil prices rebounded and the UK government moved away from alternative energy sources. As of May 2018 no wave-power devices have ever gone into large-scale production.