Albert Einstein and Arthur Eddington, Cambridge, 1930
February 12, 1809: Charles Darwin is born.
…from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.
Happy Birthday Stephen Hawking!
Stephen William Hawking was born on 8 January 1942 (300 years after the death of Galileo) in Oxford, England.
(see the original post for a biography)
Painting of Ada Lovelace at a piano in 1852
(She is born the 10 December 1815 and died in 1852.)
Happy Ada Lovelace Day!
(source: harkavagrant.com)
Q in You Only Live Twice (1967), Moonraker (1979), Licence to Kill (1989) and GoldenEye (1995). Desmond Llewelyn (1914-99) played the role 17 times.
A new version of Q is introduced in Skyfall. I’m curious to see what will be his place in the rebooted world of Bond, more serious. In our era of intelligent phones and GPS, spy gadgets are less impressive than before. And too futuristic technology (like the invisible car of Die Another Day) doesn’t fit well with James Bond.
The World is Not Enough (1999)
Denise Richards as Dr. Christmas Jones, nuclear physicist.
Dr. Christmas Jones: Wait a minute. Are you going to do what I think you’re going to do?
James Bond: What do I need to defuse a nuclear bomb?
Dr. Christmas Jones: Me.
Tarantula (1955)
Dr. Matt Hastings (John Hagar) and Stephanie Clayton (Mara Corday), the new assistant of a scientist working on a special nutrient which causes animal to grow to many times their normal size.
L'Aquila quake: Italy scientists guilty of manslaughter
Wait, so by issuing a “a falsely reassuring statement before the quake”, they are responsible for the resulting damage and death?
This case is surreal, like a Kafka novel or a dystopian story. What’s next ? To prosecute meteorologists and economists who made wrong predictions ? There will be an appeal, I hope that the next judge will have some common sense.
