Browsing: Science & Technology

A Brief History On March 30, 1939, the Heinkel 100 single engine piston powered fighter prototype set a new World Speed Record at 463 mph (745 kph). Incredibly, although then the fastest plane in the world, the He 100 was not put into production! Reasons given for not producing this potential super-fighter plane vary with the source, but the bottom line is that the fortunate Allies did not have to face a German fighter 4 years ahead of other fighter types. Digging Deeper German planners knew that war would be starting soon, and in an effort to streamline wartime weapons…

A Brief History On March 27, 1794, the United States Congress authorized the building and purchase of a fleet of 6 frigates, ships that would become the core of what became a standing US Navy, a naval fighting force that would eventually rule the oceans for many decades, ruling the waves from World War II to the present. Digging Deeper After fighting and winning the American Revolutionary War against the greatest military power in the world, Great Britain, the US fought valiantly at sea with a tiny Navy against the greatest naval power in the world, albeit with the help…

A Brief History On March 24, 2015, we more or less found out the answer to the question, “What if your pilot (or co-pilot) hijacks your airliner?” In this case, he dies, along with all 150 people on board the airliner! In this terrifying scenario come to life, co-pilot Andreas Lubitz flew Germanwings Flight 9525 into the French Alps, the first fatal plane crash in the airline’s 18 year history to that point. Digging Deeper The Airbus 320-211 had taken off from Barcelona, Spain, headed for Dusseldorf, Germany, an economical air trip on an airline owned by Lufthansa as a…

A Brief History On March 23, 1857, Elisha Otis installed the first of his elevators at 488 Broadway in New York City. Otis did not invent the elevator, but he did invent a device to keep an elevator from free falling in the event of a broken cable. His Otis Elevator Company dominated the elevator business for many years afterwards. (Other than Westinghouse, can you even think of a name of another elevator company without looking it up?) Today we list 10 products that have dominated their market so thoroughly that the brand or company name has more or less…

A Brief History On March 22, 1960, Scientists Arthur Schawlow and Charles Townes of Bell Labs in New Jersey patented their invention of the LASER, a device that concentrates and focuses visible light that today we find useful in a myriad of applications. Without the laser, we would not have CD’s and DVD’s, BluRay’s and the like. Digging Deeper The theoretical possibility of creating a laser or laser like device was proposed by Albert Einstein in 1917 and other theoretical scientific work contributing to the development of the laser (and its predecessor, the maser) continued throughout the 20th Century. In…