Six STEM Tweets #60

Enigma, EAST sun, 3rd derivative and more

Author

Harshal Chhaya
February 02, 2025

Six STEM Tweets

Six tweets that celebrate engineering and all things STEM.

I scroll so you don’t have to.

Share this with a friend and stay curious!

#1 🤯 

#2 🤯 

That’s the Intel 8080 chip - first produced in 1975. 50 years back.

Doesn’t it look like a city?

#3 🤯 

Math is all around us

#4 🤯 

The patience, the expertise, the skill - all much higher than anyone has today

#5 🤯 

The experiment itself is very impressive but to be honest, I truly appreciate the time they took to design the EAST acronym for this “artificial sun”

#6 🤯 

Everything old is new again

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 #60. 60 is an interesting number because:

  • It is the smallest number divisible by the numbers 1 to 6.

  • The first fullerene to be discovered was buckminsterfullerene C60, an allotrope of carbon with 60 atoms in each molecule, arranged in a truncated icosahedron. This ball is known as a buckyball, and looks like a soccer ball.

  • The Babylonian number system had a base of 60, possibly motivated by the large number of divisors of 60. The sexagesimal (base 60) measurement of time and of geometric angles is a legacy of the Babylonian system.

  • The atomic number of neodymium is 60 - Neodymium magnets (an alloy, Nd2Fe14B) are the strongest permanent magnets known.

  • International calling code for Malaysia

  • The electrical utility frequency in western Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, the United States, and several other countries in the Americas is 60 Hz.

  • The number of miles per hour an automobile accelerates to from rest (0-60) as one of the standard measurements of performance

In issue #59, I shared the story of reader KH and his students forging new paths. But the image he had shared didn’t make it to the newsletter. Here it is:

Reader KH recalled a real-life incident where the students used their math knowledge to create their own path 😄 

> Re: Pythagoras' path
>
> True story: In the late 90s, the school district where I was working built
> a new HS to house mostly 11th & 12th grades to minimize foot traffic
> between the old and new building.  For those who did have to walk, walkways
> were clearly laid out (yellow lines). Students nevertheless decided to
> always take the shortest possible path across the lawn until the school
> finally decided to just pave those paths (red lines). Clearly, the students
> had paid attention in maths classes and knew that the hypotenuse is always
> shorter than the sum of the two legs......... that, or they were just
> lazy. 
> [image: SR_HS_Pyth.walks.jpg]
>
> Life imitating cartoons. Or is it the other way around??

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