The Samsung Omnia smartphone uses a touch screen

As we see the use of touch screens everyday in our lives it is hard to believe that they were originally developed in the late 1960s. But it wasn't until 1972 that we saw the first touch screen launched in a computer assisted learning terminal. Today we see them used in kiosk systems, point-of-sale systems, on ATMs, PDAs, smart phones and game consoles to name a few.

The technology for touch screens comes in a variety of different forms. There is resistive, surface acoustic wave, capacitive which includes surface capacitance and projected capacitance touch (PCT), infrared, strain gauge, optical imaging, dispersive signal technology, and acoustic pulse recognition. PCT touchscreen technology is used in a wide range of applications including smart phones, kiosk, and point-of-sale systems.

Most touch screens are typically operated by using the finger to interact with the images on the screen. However in some situations touch screens can suffer from the problem of fingerprints on the display. Also the images all buttons that need to be selected on the touch screen can be very small, such as in smart phones, making it difficult to use the finger. In that situation a stylus is quite often use. Even the fingernail can be used as a stylus if it is long enough.

Touch screens combined with haptics provides the user feedback when certain keys are pressed on the screen. For example the Samsung Omnia smart phone can make a slight vibration and buzzing sound to let the user know that a key has been selected. Study shows that is this reduces input errors and increases input speed.

Some people do find touch screens a little bit difficult to use with their fingers where the display is small. However when ergonomically designed, touchscreens make it easier for the user to interact with the device or gadget while saving space which would otherwise be used with a keyboard or mouse. Touch screens are definitely here to stay.

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Toshiba 200GB Portable HDD

Toshiba is going to start selling portable hard drives in addition to laptops and DVD players. The USB 2.0 external hard disk will be available in capacities ranging from 100 GB to 200 GB - the largest capacity yet available in a portable, compact form factor.

The device itself is less than 2.5 cm thick and smaller than a 10×15cm photo. It is designed to be used as a back up for computer documents, photos, videos, and music files. With its size, it is also rugged enough to be able to carry on business or leisure trips.

The price is thought to be around $130 for the 100 GB up to $230 for the 200 GB model. The previous top capacity for a portable hard disk was 160 GB.

Toshiba is already the 5th leading manufacturer of hard drives, and while the 200 GB disk makes it have the largest portable, it certainly won’t be long before capacities reach and surpass it.

Portable hard disks are a growing specialized market niche - 3.8 million units were sold in 2006, with over 6 million predicted to be sold in 2009.

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Mayan numbers and math

The Mayan civilization’s mathematics were one of the most advanced of the ancient Americas. Rather than using a base 10 system as we use (1, 10, 100, 1,000, etc.) they used a base 20 system (1, 20, 400, 8,000, etc.) One of the most fascinating facts about their mathematical system was that their counting system used only 3 symbols - a “shell”, dot, and line. The shell represented 0, the dot represented 1, and the line represented 5.

Also of note is that they were one of the earliest civilizations anywhere in the world to have the concept of zero. While other civilizations had this concept, since none of them interacted with the Mayans it can be said that they Mayans came up with this idea independently (as did the other societies).


The numbers themselves were written vertically - the number 17 would be written with 2 dots side by side and 3 lines arranged vertically underneath. Addition and subtraction was done by writing similar symbols next to one another and then “condensing” them into a new number. This let uneducated tradesmen easily add and subtract.

Certain numbers were considered to be special, or sacred. 20 (the number of human digits), 5 (digits on a hand/foot), 13 (original number of Mayan Gods), and 52 (a concept similar to what we call a century).

Mathematics is also thought to have been an important discipline amongst the ancient society. It appears in Maya art such as wall paintings where mathematic scribes and scholars are recognized by the number scrolls that trail from their arms.

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Albert Einstein "So have you worked it out yet? Who owns ze fish, ja!"

How is this answer derived? Logically, the problem can be broken down as such:

There are 5 houses lined up - so the easiest way to represent this is as 5 boxes, each with 5 traits - nationality, color, beverage, cigar, and pet. I used a spreadsheet for this and made 5 seperate sheets - one representing each house. Each sheet had the following:

Now, its process of elimination. This is where things can get tricky if you don’t have things written out. As soon as you figure out a trait for one of the houses, eliminate that trait from all other houses.

First, we know that the norwegian lives in the first house, so he cant live in the others. We also know that the center house drinks milk, so we can eliminate that, and also that the norwegian lives next to the blue house - house 2 is therefore blue.

The green house is on the LEFT of the white house, meaning the norwegian cannot live in a green or white house since it is on the end (ruling out white - no houses are to the left of it) and since the house next to it is already established as blue (ruling out green). This also means that the middle house cannot be white, since the house to the left of it is blue.

At this point, house 1 can be yellow or red - except that a brit lives in a red house, and house 1 is owned by a norwegian. So, house 1 is yellow, eliminating yellow from the other houses. We also know that the man living in the yellow house smokes dunhill - so we can mark that as house 1 too.

The man who keeps horses lives next to the man who smokes dunhill, so house 2 keeps horses. We also know the swede keeps dogs, so house 1 cannot keep dogs.

The Dane drinks tea, the green house drinks coffee, and the man who smokes blue master drinks beer - eliminating all of these from house 1. House 1 drinks water - the man who smokes blends lives next to the man who drinks water, so house 2 smokes blends.

House 5 cannot be green either, since the green house is to the left of the white house, and there is no house to the left of house 5.

House 2 is not a brit (house not red) or a swede (doesnt keep dogs). He also does not drink coffee (not in a green house), or drink beer (does not smoke blue master). He therefore drinks tea, which makes him a Dane.

House 3 cannot be green (drinks milk), which makes it red, and therefor owned by the brit.

This means house 5 is white, and house 4 is green. For house 3, we can also eliminate dogs (swede keeps dogs), blue master cigars (bluemaster smoker drinks beer), and prince (german smokes prince).

The green house drinks coffee - house 4 is green, so beer is eliminted from that. This means that the owner cannot smoke blue master, and therefore must smoke prince - making the owner german, and eliminating dogs as a possible pet. Thus, house 5 is a beer drinking swede who likes dogs.

We also know house 3 smokes pall mall, and therefore rears birds.

We now have our choices of who has fish narrowed to down to house 1 (norwegian) and house 4 (german). The final clue is that the man who smokes blends lives next to the man who keeps cats - house 2 smokes blends, so either house 3 or 1 rears cats. Since house 3 is already established as a bird lover, house 1 must rear cats - this eliminates cats from the German, and leaves only the fish. Therefore, the German owns fish.

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Albert Einstein has a riddle to share

According to Einstein, roughly 98% of the world’s population cannot solve this riddle. It is one that uses pure logic - no fancy math is required.

1. In a street there are five houses, painted five different colours.
2. In each house lives a person of different nationality
3. These five homeowners each drink a different kind of beverage, smoke different brand of cigar and keep a different pet.

The Question: Who owns the fish?



Hints:

1. The Brit lives in a red house.
2. The Swede keeps dogs as pets.
3. The Dane drinks tea.
4. The Green house is next to, and on the left of the White house.
5. The owner of the Green house drinks coffee.
6. The person who smokes Pall Mall rears birds.
7. The owner of the Yellow house smokes Dunhill.
8. The man living in the centre house drinks milk.
9. The Norwegian lives in the first house.
10. The man who smokes Blends lives next to the one who keeps cats.
11. The man who keeps horses lives next to the man who smokes Dunhill.
12. The man who smokes Blue Master drinks beer.
13. The German smokes Prince.
14. The Norwegian lives next to the blue house.
15. The man who smokes Blends has a neighbour who drinks water.

If you are able to solve this, consider yourself in the top 2% of the World’s population.

You can find the solution, along with an explanation here.

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Albert Einstein is not famous just for riding his bike

Albert Einstein is famous for a number of reasons (two theories of relativity, nobel prize), but perhaps his most well known accomplishment is a very simple mathematical equation: e=mc^2. This is probably the most famous math equation ever written (except maybe 2+2=4); it is extremely simple to understand, yet the implications of it led directly to the atomic bomb and nuclear power.

The equation is actually energy = mass times the speed of light (c) squared. Since the speed of light is constant, and an extremely large number, this implies that a *vast* amount of energy can be created from very very little matter. In other words, you could power New York City for months from a gallon of water.

In addition to this equation, Albert Einstein also has a few well known quotes attributed to him.

“Things should be made as simple as possible, but not any simpler.”
“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidty, and I’m not sure about the universe.”
“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”
“The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.”

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Palintonon stone throwing Greek catapult

The Greek catapult was developed by Dionysius the Elder of Syracuse around 350 BC.  Dionysius actually called the machine Katapaltai, and they are mentioned in the Siegecraft (Poliorkētika) treatise of Aeneas Tacticus.  Originally, because of their large bulk and problems with portability, they were used mainly in seige warfare.  Alexander the Great is thought to be the first to use them for cover fire for ground troops in addition to seige warfare, essentially introducing artillary to the military world.

While Rome is also known to have use artillary (the ballista and onegar mainly), their standard use in battle dates from the time of Julius Ceasar.


Catapults soon went out of use with the introduction of the trebuchet in Medieval times, and went out permanently with the widespread use of gunpowder shortly thereafter.  At this time, cannons became the weapon of choice in seige situations.

The catapults themselves were generally constructed of wood and were assembled on site by engineers.  There was usually not much in the way of materials transported, as most time wood could be chopped down from nearby trees for use in construction.

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Penicillin was actually discovered a bit by accident. It is credited to scientist Alexander Fleming in 1928. He noticed that certain mold could kill bacteria, which proved that there was an antibacterial agent in the mold.

Fleming did not actually invent penicillin though - he merely made popular the knowledge that there was an anti-bacterial agent in the mold Penicillium notatum. It was originally noticed by French medical student Ernest Duchesne in 1896. Fleming, however, saw the potential importance of what he named penicillen. In a 1929 paper, he noted that the results he observed could have medical implications if the anti-bacterial agent could be isolated and produced in quantity.

Dr. Howard Florey and Andrey J. Moyer later perfected mass producing penillin at around the time of World War II. Moyer obtained a patent for the process of it’s mass production.

As you can see, not all inventions are by design. Fleming merely noticed something that was interesting - he didn’t set out to find what many would consider a “miracle drug.” But once he made an observation, he made theorized what the implications of this discovery would be.

Further reading: Wikipedia

Electricity

While not a singular inventions like others, electricty is arguably the most important innovation ever. It was first noticed by ancient Greeks, who saw the static charge when you rubbed an object against fur. It was not used in the modern sense until quite a few year later, starting in the 18th and 19th centuries.

While most people generally attribute Benjamin Franklin as electricities discoverer, it isn’t entirely accurate. He did, however, lay the ground work for future scientists to make world changing breakthroughs, so there is some degree of accuracy in calling him the father of electricity.

The list of scientists who did groundbreaking work with electricity reads like a who’s who list of famous inventors - Thomas Edison, Allessandro Volta (volt), Andre-Marie Ampere (amp), Georg Simon Ohm (ohms), Nikola Tesla, Samuel Morse, and Alexander Graham Bell, among others. Each of them contributed to our modern electircal technology.

The key each of them exhibits is they don’t try and do all the research themselves - they take an already existing and known principle and extend and apply those theories in new and revolutionary ways.

Further reading: Wikipedia

Light Bulb

Most people believe that the light bulb was invented by Thomas Edison. In fact, it was invented in 1809 by Humphry Davy, an English chemist. Unfortunately, it was not very useful, and wasn’t like our modern version of a light bulb.

What Edison did do was invent a carbon filiment that burned for up to 40 hours - a good bit longer than the one invented a year earlier that burned for around 13.5 (and the one before that was even less!). It is said that Edison tried and failed over 2000 times before finally perfecting the filiment.

Edison shows two things in his carbon filiment invention: first, he improved on an existing technology that had the potential to change the world, but lacked a certain aspect. The idea of an electric light was there - the practicality was not. He also showed what seperates your amateur inventer/scientist from your world class one - persistance. He didn’s succeed on his first, second, third, or 1999th try. But when he did, look at what happened.

Cotton Gin

The cotton gin (short for engine) was invented in 1792 by Eli Whitney. It is actually a rather simple device - it pulls the seeds out of the cotton fibers quickly and easily, and when it was introduced to the southern cotton farms, it increased the amount of cotton production 50 times. While Whitney filed the patent and hence has the credit, there is evidence that a cotton gin may have been built by a man named Noah Homes two years prior.

It was said that Whitney saw a cat clawing at a chicken through a coop and coming away with a paw of feathers, which then led to his idea. Few inventions have been so seemingly simple, and yet have had such economical and even social impacts for years after. The invention of this propelled southern cotton farms to the top of the American economy at the time, and made cotton a major cash crop.

It also can be argued that the invention led indirectly to the Civil War. Because of the increased production of cotton, slave labor was an increasingly valuable commodity. As more and more slaves were brought into the south, tension mounted, eventually resulting in the war. While it is very probably that a Civil War would have happened eventually, it is entirely possible that it would have taken years longer, during which more powerful weapons would have developed, and could have set the entire Nation back years.

The Telephone

Where would we be without the telephone. While the credit for the invention can be disputed, Alexander Graham Bell is generally given credit for it. Oddly, the device that allows us to communicate with anyone in the world met with some resistance from major corporations, who still preferred press releases.

While Bell may not have been the first to invent it, he was one of the men responsible for thrusting it into the public eye. Unlike many other inventions, he had to fight tooth and nail to get credit for it’s use. The moral of this is to never give up when you believe in your invention - even if it is a difficult road, it’s worth it in the end.


Printing press

In the 1440s, Johann Gutenberg came out with an invention called the printing press. Previously, books were copied down mainly by monks in monastaries, which made them quite rare. Gutenberg’s invention in effect brought the written word to the masses.

In many ways, this brought on a complete revolution. A lasting effect was on the scientific community. Suddenly, scientists working in different locations could popularize their findings with their peers, opening the doors to the scientific revolution. No longer would each scientist have to reinvent the wheel, but instead could build on the research of his peers and predecessors.

It also gave a greater degree of accountability to authors. Since previously each individual page was copied by hand, a text written by one author could vary from book to book. You could never be sure that you were reading the same version as someone else. It also led to greater education for the masses, since now books were more widely available.

Gutenberg may not have set out to revolutionize the way that language was used, but ended up doing just that.

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2012 Doomsday, coming soon.

There is a somewhat wideheld belief that the end of the Mayan Calendar - December 21, 2012 - will be the end of the world as well. Sure, it could be just another “doomsday” prophesy tossed out there, but there are quite a few interesting coincidences.

First, December 21, 2012 is the winter solstice. It is well known that the Mayans were advanced mathematicians and astronmers, so this might not be quite so coincidental. It should also be noted that there is an eclipse of the sun scheduled for November of 2012 - while not matching up exactly, the timing of celestial events with the ending of the calendar can be considered interesting.

So, if the world is going to end, how will it happen? The prevailing theory seems to have to do with the Earth’s magnetic fields. This basically states that either the Earth’s magnetic field will reverse all at once, or that the Earth will slowly stop spinning, sit “still” for a few days, then begin spinning the opposite direction. The result of reversing magnetic fields are very very bad - mass flooding and earthquakes kind of bad. This theory is supported by the sunspot cycles of the sun which seems to be heading for a climax around 2012.

It has been proposed that the Earth occassionally reverses magnetic fields - the last of which theorized as having occrred around 780,000 years ago. It’s a bit difficult to say this with any degree of accuracy however, and until we actually witness (if?) this, it is just a theory.

Perhaps more interesting is the apparent dates of other “doomsday” prophecies - most notably Revelations. The 7-year Apocalypse is apparently scheduled to happen starting December 21, 2008, and run to 2015. So you’ll want to clear your calendars for that. While the exact date of the Apocalypse is never explicitly given, this site/book is interesting in that it takes a scientific approach moreso than a strictly religious one. Naturally, Nostradamus weighs in, but he’s been predicting disaster for how many years now - and considering his predictions run until around A.D. 3797, I think it’s safe to say that he’s not banking on the world ending.

Yet another popular argument to support this end of the world scenario is to look at past advanced civilizations. The Mayans essentially disappeared, the Romans and Egyptians eventually fell, and did Atlantis really exist? We can certainly consider our current state of advancement to be at least on par with what our ancestors were, so are we due for a regression as they were?

In the end, there’s really no way to know about this until it happens - sure, you can build that bunker and stockpile it with canned goods, but you’ll probably just end up wasting a bunch of time and money. As a final note, you should take everything above with a boulder of salt.

NOTE - This site details quite of bit of the 2012 doomsday predictions - assuming your eyes don’t burst from it, if you’re interested in this it’s a great resource.

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To further understand why this group of symmetries is so revolutionary, you have to look at nature. Interestingly, at the heart of E8, are different bits of physics. Of all the symmetries that mathematicians have discovered, it is still unclear why Nature chose this exceedingly complicated object to the basis.

For more on this, check out this article.

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