The Pascaline, an early digital calculator invented by Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascal was the quintessential Renaissance man. After all, how many people have a computer language, a religious argument, a triangle, a mathematical theorem, a law of physics and a unit of pressure named after them? Here was a man who could not only pose a philosophical wager, but also invent the system for calculating its odds and a digital calculator with which to tally the results.
It is unusual for a prodigy to stray so widely and successfully from their first area of excellence, but, as Pascal put it, “The heart has its reasons that reason knows nothing of.”
NASA spin-off technologies find their way into our lives in unexpected ways. Shock-absorbing memory squeezed its way into Tempur-Pedic mattresses, football helmet padding, shoe insoles, hospital beds, prosthetics, cars, amusement parks and modern art, while an invention designed to decrease airplane drag made a huge splash in the competitive swimming arena. Find out how as I answer the question…
Why did NASA invent the ribbed swimsuit?
In 2007, astronaut Lisa Nowak thrust NASA “diapers” into the media spotlight when police in Orlando, Fla., charged her with the attempted kidnapping of U.S. Air Force Capt. Colleen Shipman. Although the space agency’s absorption garments were soon the butt of late night talk show monologues everywhere, they were also an elegant solution to an unpleasant engineering challenge—so elegant, in fact, that the story of the moonstruck astronaut inspired at least one company to ape NASA’s design.
Exoplanet visualization by Supportstorm via Wikimedia Commons
Although astronomers and cosmologists long believed in the existence of planets outside our solar system, such worlds remained purely theoretical until as recently as the early 1990s. Since then, the ever-quickening pace of discovery has filled the roster of possible and confirmed planetary candidates with first tens, then hundreds and now thousands of distant worlds.
In this article, I’ll take you on a tour through the history of planet hunting and into its future. Along the way, we’ll take a look at some of the most significant discoveries, including the candidates most suitable for life as we know it.
American inventor Eli Whitney devised innovations that transformed the antebellum North and South. They also set the young nation on the road to civil war.
