A MOTHER LODE OF NUGGETS
CALIFORNIA’S FORTY-NINER Gold Rush owes its origin to a construction fault at Colonel John Augustus Sutter’s mill. What’s more, Sutter wasn’t really a colonel. He didn’t actually discover the gold. … Continue reading
CHURCHILL’S FLIGHTS, PART 2
WINSTON CHURCHILL had aviation adventures galore, including those occurring not long after the dawn of flight. Here, we pick up his air travels during World War II in 1942. Playing … Continue reading
CHURCHILL’S FLIGHTS, PART 1
WINSTON CHURCHILL was successful at a great many things, wartime leader, historian, Nobel Laureate in literature, artist in oils, raconteur, bon mot specialist. However, despite having an enthusiasm for aviation, … Continue reading
ARTIFICIAL NEURAL NETWORKS GET EVEN SMARTER
ROBOTS ARE getting closer to achieving human-like dexterity. Computers are improving in recognition of speech and writing. Many of these advances are attributable to artificial neural networks, ANN, for short. … Continue reading
COMMUNICATING SCIENCE
TODAY, ENGLISH is the language of science for much of the world. Why is that? Lynn K. Nyhart offers insights on this in “Speaking of science,” in the April 10, … Continue reading
LILLIBULERO’S HISTORICAL NICHES
LILY IS my granddaughter, though I call her Lillibulero, after a traditional English ballad with a 350-year heritage. Lillibulero is said to have sung a king out of three kingdoms. … Continue reading
ALLARD TALES
SYDNEY ALLARD wasn’t your typical Englishman. For one thing, he got the point of drag racing. For another, years before Carroll Shelby stuffed American V-8s into British sports cars, Sydney … Continue reading
WRITING, METAPHORICALLY
THERE’S A recently published book that threatens to tell me more about metaphors than I really want to know. Its review by Colin Burrow in the London Review of Books, … Continue reading
CLARA ADAMS—PERSISTENT FIRST FLIGHTER
IN 1914, CLARA Adams née Grabau first flew in an airplane, a Thomas flying boat on Lake Eustis, Florida. In 1917, she followed this with a Wright Flyer piloted by … Continue reading
SIKORSKY’S FLYING CLIPPERS
IGOR SIKORSKY thought big. His 1914 Bolshoi Baltisky was the world’s first four-engine airplane, with a huge wingspan for its time, 88 ft. 7 in. (a modern Boeing 737’s is … Continue reading
Simanaitis Says 