John Naylor

Rainbows have fascinated people since time immemorial. They have been the subject of myth, an inspiration to poets, a challenge to painters and the object of intense scientific interest. Read all about it! tinyurl.com/2wmwr5vb

@AkiyoshiKitaoka Spokes are due to shadows cast by clouds

暗いスポークが見えると言うべきか、スポークは明るい側なのか。

@AkiyoshiKitaoka That is because depth of rain shower is shallow where the house is

写真の一番下の家の前にも虹がかかっているが、遠景を背景とした虹の部分よりは色が薄い。

@torni_alan @PhysInHistory Descartes wrote in French, ditto Huygens. Galileo in Italian

@PhysInHistory Interesting he wrote in English opposite to the scientists located on the continent who wrote in Latin

Sir Isaac Newton’s handwritten notes on optics, ca. 1665.

@rmathematicus @HistoryToday Thanks for putting me right

@johncnaylor @HistoryToday into the Principia so you post os total rubbish! P.S. he went on doing alchemical research up to 1696 when he moved to London and religious exegesis until his death so he didn't turn away from them. Newton could and did multitask

#EdmondHalley first observed the comet that bears his name #OnThisDay in 1682. More than a stargazer, his adventures aboard HMS Paramour were one of the earliest voyages of purely scientific discovery. 🔓 This archive article is free for 7 days buff.ly/QJ6j85Z

@JuliaDavisNews This is neither trump’s culpable gullibility, ignorance of the facts or stupidity, Vance is being malicious. And he claims to be a Christian! If so, he has reserved a place in the netherworld.

Sure, why focus on "the nitpicky details" of who invaded whom? Makes it harder to justify pressuring the victim, not the aggressor. x.com/atrupar/status…

@rmathematicus Looks like a classic example of CP Snow’s two cultures. I’d add Thomas Young to the science list

Eudoxus, Ptolemaeus, Philiponus, Peuerbach, Al-Khwarizmi, Ibn al-Haytham, Grosseteste, Roger Baco, Regiomontanus, Copernicus, Galileo, Beeckman, Descartes, Mersenne, Huygens, Boyle, Newton, Leibniz…

@Kasparov63 @JuliaDavisNews Had the Uk & France opposed, with force, Germany’s 1936 reoccupation of the Rhineland, the events of 1938 might not have been necessary

Chamberlain acted naively, but with best intentions for his nation to avoid war. Trump is doing it intentionally, at the expense of US allies and interests, with his only concerns for himself, rewarding the dictator who started a war that is already raging.

@01_megamind @PhysInHistory @grok Grok is wrong about Romer: it was Huygens, not Romer who calculated speed of light based on R’s timing of Io’s eclipse. R’s only comment was that the speed of light is very great

@PhysInHistory @grok Explain Ole Romer's observations

Before the 17th century, many scientists, including René Descartes, believed that light's speed was infinite. It wasn't until Ole Rømer's astronomical observations in 1676 that the finite speed of light was demonstrated.

@DrDavidBoyce The first correct insight into this issue was by Edgar Allen Poe in his prose poem Eureka 1848

I found Olbers! He was in the park!

@EJPointer @highbrow_nobrow @atrupar I think it’s more likely due to his limited vocabulary.

@highbrow_nobrow @atrupar You almost get the impression "deal" is a word he likes.

Trump: "I'll set my own deals because I set the deal. They don't set the deal. I set the deal. They've been ripping us off for years. I set the deal ... we don't have to sign them. I'm going to be setting the deal.” @atrupar

@AaronParnas @Acyn Two weeks is the Trumpian event horizon

Everything is two weeks away and never actually happens

@j_amesmarriott Thoma Young, who established that light is a wave, was an archetypal child prodigy, an awesome autodidact for whom no subject was off limits. He learned to read before he was two. His formal education stopped when he was 13.

Always find something awe-inspiring and admirable about the earnest Victorian cult of self-education: "by the age of seven Alfred could recite Horace's Odes by heart and use a telescope to study the moon"

@jimstewartson "Vowel movement" How very apt. Love it!

Asked why he is sending troops into LA, the actual president issued the following vowel movement: “They'd be there a little bit, but it seems to be getting less and less because they're going there and they met with a very heavy force. And if they weren't, you would have that city right now would be on fire. It would be burning down the rest of it once left over because the other fire was started because they wouldn't allow water into LA. They wouldn't allow water into California because they had it all shifted out to the Pacific Ocean. And I turned it around and I told them to do it at my first term and they didn't do it. We had COVID and they didn't do it. And I told them to do it. We did it in the second. Now we have billions of gallons of water flowing down, but do some should have done this. He's an incompetent man and an incompetent governor. Okay, any other questions?” Where are the adults to provide an alternate to this alternate reality?

@WLH1972 Skypools!

Water

@simongerman600 Though I like both, tea is much more refreshing than coffee.

Would you like coffee or tea my dear?

@PaulWal69544239 @simongerman600 Mine too

@johncnaylor @simongerman600 Bit before my time..

The towns of Europe, North Africa and West Asia with over 40,000 residents as per 1050. A thousand years ago we needed to live on farms to ensure everyone was fed. Map explains why towns on the map still think so highly of themselves too. Source: buff.ly/3oRjNHa

@PaulWal69544239 @simongerman600 Venerable Bede & Alcuin 8th C., for example, hardly fit your description

@simongerman600 Mainly the Euro mercantile centres, trading with the great Muslim centres of that era. An era when our folk were illiterate, grotty and perpetually scratching at fleas.

@thinkingwest Lucretius de rerum natura an astonishingly modern account of natural phenomena. Unfortunately lost and unknown until (I believe) 15th century.

I barely scratched the surface here. Let me know, what are some great pieces of Roman literature that I missed? I’m counting on all you Romanophiles to help me out.

Rome is usually remembered for its monuments, emperors, and epic battles. But it was a haven for learning and literature as well. Some of the greatest written works were penned during Rome’s rule. Here are 12 of the best🧵

@HistoricEngland @concreteear The mirrors at Denge were experimental. Never actively used and decommissioned before WW2. Ministry of Defence ordered their destruction.

These 'sound mirrors' near Lydd in Kent were built in the late 1920s as part of Britain’s early air defence system. 🛩️ Designed to detect enemy aircraft by capturing sound waves, they provided an early warning before an attack.