TRINOMIAL CUBE
I FIRST encountered a Trinomial Cube—as opposed to its purely algebraic and possibly intimidating namesake, (A+B+C)3—when I lived in the Caribbean in the 1970s and daughters Suz and Beth went … Continue reading
THE COMPUTER: A PHOTO ESSAY
UBIQUITOUS THOUGH it is, the digital computer is a relatively recent thing. Plenty of us remember our first significant encounter with its wonders—mine, an IBM 1620 at Worcester Polytechnic Institute … Continue reading
WHAT’S A SLIDE RULE, GRANDPA?
THERE ARE blessedly few of us these days who remember the slide rule, and fewer still who understand its workings. So why not join this hardy band and learn some … Continue reading
GOT THE BLUES?
THERE HAS been a lot in the news these days about the color blue: a new African monkey, the male of whom has an astonishingly blue butt; a berry reported … Continue reading
THE SCIENCE OF ARMED FORCES SONGS
I ENJOY Sirius XM satellite radio, everything from Radio Classics (channel 82) through Met Opera Radio (channel 74) to ’40s on 4 (you guessed it, channel 4). Likely because of … Continue reading
INTEROP
WHEN I send an e-mail from my PC to someone using an iMac, or when the Union Pacific and Central Pacific Railroads met at Promontory Summit, Utah, we both counted on … Continue reading
HYDROGEN I.C., PART 2: MAZDA
MY FIRST hydrogen internal-combustion drive came in 1994 when Mazda invited me to Vancouver, B.C., to experience a special Miata. This one had an RX-7 rotary engine fueled by H2. … Continue reading
HYDROGEN I.C., PART 1: BILLINGS
HYDROGEN IS extremely flammable (“Oh, the humanity!”). However, this is one reason why it’s a much better energy carrier than, say, potatoes, which are not flammable. And while hydrogen fuel … Continue reading
THE DIFFERENCE ENGINE—FACT AND FICTION
CHARLES BABBAGE was a nineteenth century mathematician who recognized the computational drudgery of assembling tables of logarithms, trigonometric and other mathematical functions. This was the Industrial Age, after all. Why … Continue reading
W. EDWARDS DEMING—A MAN OF HIGH QUALITY
IT’S RARE that one person can be credited with transforming an industry—not to say a country. However, there’s a good argument that W. Edwards Deming did just that. It was … Continue reading
