Project HARP: The Space Cannon
Kaushik Patowary
Dec 16, 2022
When Jules Verne sent three men to the moon in his 1865 novel From the Earth to the Moon , he did so in a projectile fired from a massive gu...
The Curse of King Casimir IV Jagiellonian
Kaushik Patowary
Dec 13, 2022
Casimir IV Andrew Jagiellonian was one of the most successful rulers of Poland, who, having defeated the Teutonic Knights in the Thirteen Ye...
How The Pressure Cooker Inspired The Steam Engine
Kaushik Patowary
Dec 12, 2022
For nearly 200 years, the steam engine powered the world’s machineries, but its origins were very humble. It began with the pressure cooker,...
The Gimli Glider
Kaushik Patowary
Dec 8, 2022
The American system of measurement and its units—feet, miles, pounds, and gallons—are quite bizarre. They are random, unintuitive and have n...
Khian Sea: The Wandering Garbage Barge
Kaushik Patowary
Dec 6, 2022
Every year, millions of tons of garbage are shipped out by wealthy countries to poorer countries in Africa, Asia and South America to be rec...
The Forgeries of Denis Vrain-Lucas
Kaushik Patowary
Dec 2, 2022
One Monday morning in July 1867, eminent French mathematician Michel Chasles stormed into the building of the French Academy of Sciences in ...
Thomas Parr, The Man Who Lived to 152 Years
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 30, 2022
On 15 November 1635, Thomas Parr was laid to rest at a grave in old Westminster Abbey. Tradition insist that this man was born around the ye...
The Mechanical Turk: An 18th Century Chess Playing Robot
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 29, 2022
In the late 18th century, a Hungarian inventor named Wolfgang von Kempelen presented to Empress Maria Theresa of Austria a sensational mecha...
Marie Lafarge: The Arsenic Poisoner
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 26, 2022
In the early 19th century, arsenic was most widely used to kill rats and insufferable husbands alike. The chemical element was odorless and ...
Biertan’s Matrimonial Prison
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 22, 2022
Tucked away in the church grounds of a quiet village in Romania, there is a small cottage known as the ‘matrimonial prison’. It was here tha...
