Six Science Posts - #72

Turning lead to gold, a literal flow chart and more

Six STEM Tweets

Six tweets that celebrate engineering and all things STEM.

I scroll so you don’t have to.

Welcome new friends. If you like this, forward to your friends. If you have any feedback, click ‘reply’

#1 🤯 

I love how individuals can do things that are in wide use decades later.

#2 🤯 

How cool must it be to design parts of robot that’s driving around on another planet? 🤩 

#3 🤯 

We are all using wireless charging now - something that Nikola Tesla had dreamed of and prototyped. Only challenge was he was trying to send much higher power through the air and ended up inventing indoor lightning bolts ⚡️ 

This is less exciting but more practical.

#4 🤯 

😍 

#5 🤯 

The Alchemists were right! You CAN turn lead into gold. 🪙 

But they didn’t have a large hadron collider to prove their hypothesis

More details: https://home.cern/news/news/physics/alice-detects-conversion-lead-gold-lhc

#6 🤯 

I LOVE this flow chart. I mean it literally and figuratively. 😀 

BTW, if you need any help remembering the names of the great lakes, here’s a mnemonic: Lisa Likes Licking Lettuce Lightly

It stands for

Lake Superior

Lake Huron

Lake Michigan

Lake Erie

Lake Ontario

You are welcome! 😀 

About

This newsletter is my way of sharing interesting science-related news with my curious friends. I enjoy finding science and math connections in our world.

Please share this newsletter with others. Let’s encourage curiosity.

- Harshal (@hschhaya on X/Twitter)

This is issue #72. How many ways is 72 interesting? Let’s see:

  • Hafnium is a chemical element with symbol Hf and atomic number 72. Its existence was predicted by Dmitri Mendeleev in 1869, though it was not identified until 1922, by Dirk Coster and George de Hevesy. Hafnium is named after Hafnia, the Latin name for Copenhagen, where it was discovered.

  • There’s no country with 72 as the international calling code. ‘7’ is for Russia and ‘7 2’ is a reserved combination.

  • 72 is a pronic number - a number that is the product of two consecutive integers, 8 and 9. They are also called oblong numbers and heteromecic numbers.

  • 72 the sum of four consecutive primes (13 + 17 + 19 + 23), as well as the sum of six consecutive primes (5 + 7 + 11 + 13 + 17 + 19).

  • 72 is the first number that can be expressed as the difference of the squares of primes in just two distinct ways: 112 − 72 = 192 − 172

  • 72 lies between the 8th pair of twin primes (71, 73)

  • In typography, a point is 1/72 inch

That’s it for this issue.

Hit ‘reply’ to tell me what you think.

And hit ‘forward’ to share with your friends and family.

Let’s all celebrate science and engineering and curiosity.

Best wishes,

Harshal