Endeavour to launch 11th March 2008

Latest from NASA

NASA’s mission management team decided Friday that March 11 at 2:28 a.m. EDT is the official launch time for space shuttle Endeavour’s STS-123 mission.

That means the launch of the space shuttle Endeavour STS-123 will be 11th February at 07:28 local time in West Europe.

Links:

• NASAs shuttle page with countdown clock
• NASAs Press release announcing launch date

PHOTO CREDIT: NASA or National Aeronautics and Space

21st February 1804 – First steam locomotive demonstrated

Richard Trevithick demonstrated for the public the world’s first railway locomotive on 21st February 1802.

Wikipedia has this to say about the event.

In 1802 Trevithick built one of his high pressure steam engines to drive an automatic hammer at the Penydarren iron works near Merthyr Tydfil in South Wales. With the assistance of Rees Jones, an employee of the iron works and under the supervision of Samuel Homfray, the proprietor, he mounted the engine on wheels and turned it into a locomotive. In 1803 Trevithick sold the patents for his locomotives to Samuel Homfray.
Homfray was so impressed with Trevithick’s locomotive that he made a bet with another ironmaster, Richard Crawshay, for 500 guineas that Trevithick’s steam locomotive could haul 10 tons of iron along the Merthyr Tydfil Tramroad from Penydarren to Abercynon, a distance of 9.75 miles (16 km). Amid great interest from the public, on 21 February 1804 it successfully carried 10 tons of iron, 5 wagons and 70 men the full distance in 4 hours and 5 minutes, an average speed of nearly 5 mph. As well as Homfray, Crawshay and the passengers, other witnesses included Mr. Giddy, a respected patron of Trevithick and an ‘engineer from the Government’. The engineer from the Government was probably a safety inspector and particularly interested in the boiler’s ability to withstand high steam pressures.

12th February 2008 – Darwin Day

The following quote is the famous last paragraph of Charles Robert Darwin’s The Origin of Species.

It is interesting to contemplate an entangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent on each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us. These laws, taken in the largest sense, being Growth with Reproduction; Inheritance which is almost implied by reproduction; Variability from the indirect and direct action of the external conditions of life, and from use and disuse; a Ratio of Increase so high as to lead to a Struggle for Life, and as a consequence to Natural Selection, entailing Divergence of Character and the Extinction of less-improved forms. Thus, 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.

Today is Darwin Day and we celebrate the birth of Charles Robert Darwin on 12th February 1809. This gentleman naturalist is one of the most influential individuals in the history of science. His Theory of Evolution is (though controversial in certain religious circles) almost universally accepted as fact by the scientific community.

6th February 1959 – First patent for an integrated circuit

Jack Kilby working at Texas Instruments invented the integrated circuit. The invention was patented on the 6th February 1959.

Jack Kilby received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2000.

This caught my attention since my chosen profession (Information Technology) is completely dependent on such innovations as this. I literally owe my livelihood to the people making these kinds of inventions.

Books read in 2008 #2

Book: 2
Title: The Winter Knights

Author: Paul Stewart and Chris Riddel
Genre: Pre-teen Fantasy.
Why did you get this book? I found it in a science fiction and fantasy bookshop having heard about it on a podcast.
Did you enjoy the book? Yes.
Was the author new to you? I had previously read the first book in the series.
Would you read something by this author again? Yes.
Are you keeping it or passing it on? I am keeping it.
Anything else? This is the second book in the Edge Chronicles series. I generally like hard science fiction more than fantasy. I was interested to see how the interaction of story with illustration in this case worked out. It worked out fine in this case. On the whole a good read. I had some problems with the continuity of the story towards the end. The authors have created an interesting universe for their tales. This tale has a pleasantly unpleasant villain.
Number of pages: 395
Total pages for the year: 815

Books read in 2008 #1

Book: 1
Title: The God Delusion

Author: Richard Dawkins
Genre: Anti-Religion
Why did you get this book? Out of curiosity.
Did you enjoy the book? It was thought provoking. Which was the point of reading it.
Was the author new to you? No. I had previously read The Blind Watchmaker.
Would you read something by this author again? Yes.
Are you keeping it or passing it on? I am keeping it.
Anything else? I can agree with many of the points Richard Dawkins has about religion. I can also see how many religious people would feel threatened by such books as this. I thought Richard Dawkins must be one of the people who are most polite in there argumentation against religion.
Number of pages: 420 plus appendix, notes and index.
Total pages for the year: 420