Six STEM Tweets #54 - Dec 8 2024

Cray-2, Magnus postage stamp, Mercury flyby and more

Author

Harshal Chhaya
December 08, 2024

Six STEM Tweets

Six tweets that celebrate engineering and all things STEM.

I scroll so you don’t have to.

Hi friends! I got a wonderful and fun correction to one post from last week’s issue.

Another reader also added more context to the special Fibonacci issue. I love this kind of feedback! Thank you FF and RS!

I have put both of these below the 6 posts.

Thank you all for writing and sharing this with your circle.

(Also, today’s date: Dec 8 24 is all multiples of 4. And the multiples have a relationship too. Hit reply to tell me what the relation is! 😃 )

Let’s cultivate curiosity!

#1 🤯 

The seating around the obelisks is an odd touch.

But the Cray-2 (the model featured here) was the pinnacle of super-computing at the time.

And to be pedantic, the kinds of problems it was used for don’t really apply to our smartphones.

More details on the Cray-2 wikipedia page

#2 🤯 

I am a huge fan of Michael Collins. Can you imagine being in his position? Staying in the command module pilot for Apollo 11, and being the only astronaut who remained in orbit while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon.

What a professional! 🫡 

I have his signed photo in my work area to remind myself of his awesomeness.

#3 🤯 

So cool!

I love postage stamps and coins as a way to honor folks who have made a difference.

This stamp is part of a 4 Stamp Sheet that also has stamps featuring his opponents Gary Kasparov and Levon Aronian.

It’s available on Ebay and other places if you want it for your home.

#4 🤯 

Yup! The math checks out.

#5 🤯 

This was the 5th flyby. The spacecraft reached 37628 km from Mercury's surface at closest approach and observed the planet in mid-infrared light, making BepiColombo the first spacecraft ever to do so.

I will share photos and more details when they are published

#6 🤯 

Semiconductor manufacturing is an engineering marvel! We went from room-sized computers to pocket-sized ones in a few decades.

Fellow curious person RS added some context to the special issue on Fibonacci numbers published on 11/23. He wrote:

Fibonacci series? You mean the "Pingala Series"? :) Learnt about it while reading Amish Tripathi's book on Sita (Book 2 of the Ram Chandra Series)

Last week’s issue #53 had a post about how “water is one molecule away from hydrogen peroxide”. Science teacher FF had a correction:

I take issue with "one molecule" away. In #4. It should be one atom away.

HOH -> HOOH and NaCl -> NaClO.

Amazing never the less.

I used to tell my students, "Eat Na and you will explode. Breath Cl and you will drown in your own blood. Eliminate NaCl from you diet and you will have a heart attack!"

I love when you reply and share more information. Thanks!

This is issue #54. Here’s some fun facts about 54:

  • 54 is the atomic number of xenon - a dense, colorless, odorless noble gas

  • The code for international direct dial phone calls to Argentina

  • The number of cards in a deck of playing cards, if two jokers are included

  • The number of countries in Africa

  • It also has some interesting properties:

    • the smallest number that can be written as the sum of three positive squares in more than two different ways: 72 + 22 + 12 = 62 + 32 + 32 = 52 + 52 + 22 = 54.

    • It’s a Harshad number. Because it is divisible by the sum of its digits. Remember those? We talked about Harshad numbers (numbers that bring joy) in issue #41

    • And because it’s 33 + 33 , it’s a Leyland number which is a number of the form

      x y + yx

      where x and y are integers greater than 1

  • And this one is just an interesting oddity: The sine of an angle of 54 degrees is half the golden ratio.

    • The golden ratio ((1+sqrt(5))/2) is 1.61803 and sin(54) is 0.809017

  • A Rubik's Cube has 54 colored squares.

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 and on Bluesky)

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