Six STEM Tweets

Six tweets that celebrate engineering and all things STEM.

I scroll so you don’t have to.

All previous issues are online at https://sixstemtweets.beehiiv.com/

Feel free to share with anyone who is curious and interested to learn.

#1 🤯 

Sep 27th was the anniversary of the publication. Definitely an equation that changed our understanding of nature.

#2 🤯 

Slowly at first, then all of a sudden. Stem cells are amazing in their potential.

The full Nature article has the details.

#3 🤯 

I remember this! 😧 

I was a young engineer when this happened and couldn’t believe it. Mismatch in units?!? For a spacecraft? What!

Since then I have worked on enough projects though of a much smaller consequence) and seen enough design failures due to miscommunication that I can understand this.

Still one of the more impactful outcomes of a mismatch in units. 🤦‍♂️ 

The Mars Climate Orbiter wikipedia article has the details.

#4 🤯 

When we got our first TV, I was the remote - but only for the volume. Because we only had one channel. 😀 

#5 🤯 

🤩 

Y’all think one of them has a telescope pointing at us? Make sure to wave when you are walking around at night. 😄 

#6 🤯 

And they can be randomly accessed, just like our IRL memories!

Fellow knowledge seeker and subscriber, KH was fascinated by the cynometer in the previous issue asked about the possibility of building a digital sensor using the idea.

I love getting your replies and ideas and questions. Thanks!

This is issue #42 of the newsletter.

42 has a very special place in the universe.

If you have read, heard or seen any adaptation of Douglas Adams’ influential “Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy”, you know that 42 is the “the answer to life the universe and everything”.

Google has a fun Easter Egg about this:

Some other fun facts about 42

• It is the atomic number of molybdenum.

• The angle rounded to whole degrees at which light refracts inside a water droplet for a rainbow to appear (the critical angle)

• The hypothetical efficiency of converting mass to energy, as per E = m*c² , by having a given mass orbit a rotating black hole, is 42%, the highest efficiency yet known to modern physics

  • (I love the juxtaposition of this number with the fact that this issue celebrates the publication of the equation.)

• The ASCII code 42 is for the asterisk symbol, being a wildcard for everything.

  • (Did Douglas Adams use 42 because he knew this? 🤨 )

• There are 42 US gallons in a barrel of oil.

• 42 was the international country code for Czechoslovakia - no longer active since its breakup

  • The Czech republic now uses 420 and Slovakia uses 421. More of that in when we get to issues #420 and #421 😀 

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