Great Chicago Wheel of 1893 | World’s Greatest Ride

World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893

The World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago was the subject of a book my wife, Melanie, and I discussed. The exposition was in celebration of the 400th anniversary of the discovery of the Americas by Columbus. A centerpiece of the exposition was the huge Chicago Wheel 264 feet high, meant to rival the Eiffel Tower. I love science and technology. The idea of this giant wheel being the first Ferris wheel fascinated me.

Rotating wheel rides have been around since the 17th century. They were known as ‘pleasure wheels’. George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr.  secured the patents for the larger metal concept which came to be known as Ferris wheels. Ferris was born in Galesburg, IL, in 1859. That is not far from where I grew up. The family moved to Nevada when he was six. He attended college at California Military Academy in Oakland, CA where he graduated in 1876. He graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY in 1881 with a degree in Civil Engineering. He started work in the railroad and bridge industry. Upon moving to Pittsburgh, he started a company to test metals used in the rail and bridge industries.

SDO | Staring at the Sun

NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) observes and images the sun at ten different wavelengths. On January 22, 2013, this image was released in an article describing those wavelengths and what they tell us about the sun. You can access the article here. This post is about the information provided by each of the specific wavelengths used to observe the sun and how you can easily access it yourself. In addition to the science available, this image is a beautiful and striking quilt of color. It is one of many NASA images that are works of art.

Is That Thing a Mole?

I posed the question to the Google to define mole. Here is some of what I got.

1. A highly spiced Mexican sauce made chiefly from chili peppers and chocolate, served with meat.
2. A small, often slightly raised blemish on the skin made dark by a high concentration of melanin.
3. A large solid structure on a shore serving as a pier, breakwater, or causeway.
4. The SI unit of amount of substance, equal to the quantity containing as many elementary units as there are atoms in 0.012 kg of carbon-12.
5. A small burrowing insectivorous mammal (family Talpidae) with dark velvety fur, a long muzzle, and very small eyes. Several species.

Interesting set of results, don’t you think? This post is about #5.

Don, my next door neighbor, and I live at the edge of a wooded area. There are lots of moles burrowing in the woods. They tend to come into our yards foraging. To stop them, we have discovered a device that seems to keep them at bay. It looks like a cylindrical stake 12″ long and 1.5″ in diameter. It has a yellow top with a small LED. Put 3 D-cells in it and every 30 seconds it emits a high pitched vibration for 2 seconds. We space them about 30′ apart across the back. The moles stay away.

Last fall, we had several killing frosts and hard freezes. The temperatures have gone to 12 degrees a couple of times. We thought the moles would be hibernating, or whatever they do in cold weather. So, we put our mole stakes away. The next warm day they made dash for the space between our houses. That part of the lawn is now laced with burrows. They were quick.

The Mole Cricket…not the subject of this post.

Gnomons and Sundials

Stretching gracefully across the Sacramento River in Redding, CA is this glass bottomed bridge opened in 2004. It is suspended by cables from the white tower structure. The tower is on the north shore of the river and is the gnomon of a sundial. The river is important for salmon spawning and by law is not to be disturbed by the structure. This work of art is by Spanish architect and engineer Santiago Calatrava. Read more about the designer and the bridge at this link. Visit this Google Maps view showing the north-south orientation of the structure.

A gnomon is a shaft that helps indicate time by the shadow it casts. They can be simple such as a stick in the ground, or highly ornate, as the one above. They can stand vertical, horizontal, or in between. They can be made of many different kinds of materials. How they are incorporated into a sundial design by the maker varies in thousands of ways, often very creatively.

A simple and traditional design of a sundial involves a horizontal plate with a gnomon pointing toward the north star. In this version, the gnomon is a triangular shape. That makes no difference. It just needs to cast a shadow.

School children have made sundials for generations. The lessons use a wide variety of materials and styles. They all work. With a little care, tape, staples, scissors, paper, and glue, a functional sundial can be made such as this one. Here are directions if you want to try making one similar to this yourself.

I did some Googling around and collected some other interesting and unique examples of sundials around the world. I learned some local history along the way which I have added to the pictures. Join me below for the tour. It won’t take much of your time.

Recycling Center Tour

If you are like me and millions of other people, this collection of containers probably looks familiar. For many years, our family sorted our recyclables into the appropriate types so they could be deposited in one of these containers. Then, we got curbside pickup. We still needed to sort first. Many communities now allow you to put all recyclables into the same container. It gets sorted at the central location.

Recently, I joined a group of others to tour the recycling center in a neighboring city and see how the sorting process is done. It is an intensive and highly engineered process that ends with six different products that are baled, sold, and shipped to end user companies. They use the raw materials for many consumer products of cardboard, paper, plastic, newsprint, and metal. Below are some photos and description.