Hi friend,
I have a follow-up to a couple of things in issue #89 of the newsletter
1.
Post #3 of the newsletter mentioned the Haber process which makes fertilizer production more efficient and has resulted in significant improvement in agriculture yield.
A reader, FF, alerted me to the fact that the process is not all good. There’s some pretty bad side-effects of the process.
Part of the problem is that the conventional Haber-Bosch process is bad for the environment because it's highly energy-intensive, consumes a significant amount of global energy, and is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions, including CO2 and N₂O.
You can read more on this at https://youmatter.world/en/definition/what-haber-bosch-process-ecological-impact/
However, there are mitigations.
Also, this experience is similar to a few other scientific discoveries - the initial impact of the solution is lauded as the “best thing ever” but subsequent research shows significant side-effects that were either unknown or ignored during the original research.
A few other examples I can think of are DDT, leaded petrol, asbestos and more.
This is a cautionary tale that any “perfect solution” might have secondary problems that may not be evident initially.
2.
As with previous issues, issue #89 had a pretty fun list of facts about the number 89.
Here’s what it said:
89 is
the atomic number of Actinium, a chemical element, symbol Ac
The actinide series, a set of 15 elements between actinium and lawrencium in the periodic table, are named for actinium.
the introduction of the actinides in 1945 was the most significant change to Dmitri Mendeleev's periodic table since the recognition of the lanthanides
Owing to its strong radioactivity, actinium glows in the dark with a pale blue light, which originates from the surrounding air ionized by the emitted energetic particles
The name actinium originates from the Ancient Greek aktis, aktinos , meaning beam or ray.
the 24th prime number, following 83 and preceding 97.
a Pythagorean prime - a prime number of the form 4 n + 1
Pythagorean primes are exactly the odd prime numbers that are the sum of two squares
In this case: 89 = 52 (25) + 82 (64)
The 11th Fibonacci number and thus a Fibonacci prime as well.
There are exactly 1000 prime numbers between 1 and 892 =7921.
(Harshal: This is such a cool and interesting and kind of pointless fact. I love it! 😀 )
There is no country with 89 as its international calling code
But wait there’s more…
Hellin's law, also called Hellin-Zeleny's law, is an empirical observation in demography (study of human populations) that the approximate rate of multiple births is a power of 89. So, twin births occur about once per 89 singleton births, triplets about once per 892, quadruplets about once per 893, and so on.
And you thought 89 was just another number! 😄
That’s it for this update, folks.
Stay curious! And share this newsletter with friends and family and everyone who would appreciate staying informed and entertained.
Love,
Harshal
