Frank Beacham's Journal

In June, 1947 — 75 years ago — W. W. Brazel, a rancher in New Mexico, spotted what he called a "flying disk." It began the UFO era

U.F.O. sightings have been reported around the world, but arguably none are more famous than one 75 years ago.

In June, 1947, W. W. Brazel, a rancher in New Mexico, came across some odd debris. A few days later, he whispered “kinda confidential-like” to the local sheriff that it might have been remnants of a “flying disk.”

A local military base, the Roswell Army Air Field, issued a news release about the debris, prompting a newspaper article with the headline “RAAF Captures Flying Saucer.”

Officials changed their story the next day, saying the debris came from a weather balloon, but Roswell has since been nearly synonymous with tales of alien visitations.

Almost 20 years ago, the Air Force tried to end the speculation. In “The Roswell Report: Case Closed,” officials wrote that any “aliens” spotted in the desert “were actually anthropomorphic test dummies” carried aloft by high-altitude Air Force balloons.

As for Mr. Brazel, he didn’t believe the debris was a weather balloon, but he regretted setting off the furor. In the future, he said, “If I find anything else besides a bomb, they are going to have a hard time getting me to say anything about it.”

Thanks, New York Times!

It was on this day in 1633 that Galileo Galilei renounced what we now accept as fact: that the Earth orbits the sun, not the other way around. He was nearly burned at the stake for it

A bust of Galileo at a museum dedicated to him in Florence, Italy.

Photo by Kathryn Cook

The story of Galileo Galilei demonstrates many things, not least that science keeps evolving.

It was on this day in 1633 that the Italian scholar renounced what we now accept as fact: that the Earth orbits the sun, not the other way around.

Galileo’s discovery of Jupiter’s larger moons in 1610 made him question the prevailing assumption that the Earth was at the universe’s center. His advocacy of the heliocentric theory earned him mockery, censure and — in 1633 — a trial in Rome, at which he was forced to recant before a jury of cardinals. He vowed that he would “abjure, curse and detest” his findings.

The declaration saved him from being burned at the stake, but led to house arrest for the rest of his life. It took the Roman Catholic Church more than 350 years to acknowledge that Galileo had been wronged — though astronomers now tell us that the sun is not immobile, but orbits within the galaxy, pulling the planets along with it.

Today, Galileo’s discoveries seem obvious. But all things are easy to understand once they have been discovered, he wrote. “The point is in being able to discover them.”

Tell that to the deniers of climate change.

Thanks New York Times!

Laurie Anderson is 75 years old today

Laurie Anderson is 75 years old today.

Anderson is an experimental performance artist, composer and musician who plays violin and keyboards and sings in a variety of experimental music and art rock styles. Initially trained as a sculptor, Anderson did her first performance-art piece in the late 1960s.

Throughout the 1970s, she did a variety of different performance-art activities. She became widely known outside the art world in 1981 when her single "O Superman" reached #2 on the UK pop charts. She also starred in and directed the 1986 concert film, Home of the Brave.

Anderson is a pioneer in electronic music and has invented several devices that she has used in her recordings and performance art shows. In 1977, she created a tape-bow violin that uses recorded magnetic tape on the bow instead of horsehair and a magnetic tape head in the bridge.

In the late 1990s, she developed a talking stick, a six-foot-long baton-like MIDI controller that can access and replicate sounds.

Anderson started dating Lou Reed in 1992, and was married to him from 2008 until his death on October 27, 2013.

Here, Anderson performs “O Superman” from her 1982 album, Big Science

Laurie Anderson lectures on her art in Paris, 2015

Laurie Anderson and Lou Reed at Coney Island, New York, 1995

Photo by Annie Leibovitz

Barry Commoner was born 105 years ago today

Barry Commoner in a classroom at Washington University, St. Louis, 1971

Photo by Jack Fahland

Barry Commoner was born 105 years ago today.

A biologist, college professor and politician, Commoner was a leading ecologist and one of the founders of the modern environmental movement. He ran for president of the United States in the 1980 U.S. presidential election on the Citizens Party ticket. He served as editor of Science Illustrated magazine.

Born in Brooklyn, Commoner received his bachelor's degree in zoology from Columbia University in 1937 and his master's and doctoral degrees from Harvard University in 1938 and 1941, respectively.

In the late 1950s, he became well known for his opposition to nuclear weapons testing, becoming part of the team which conducted the Baby Tooth Survey. It demonstrated the presence of Strontium 90 in children's teeth as a direct result of nuclear fallout.

Commoner went on to write several books about the negative ecological effects of atmospheric (i.e., above-ground) nuclear testing. In 1970, he received the International Humanist Award from the International Humanist and Ethical Union.

In Poverty and Population, he wrote that rapid population growth of the developing world was the result of standards not being met. He argued that it is poverty that “initiates the rise in population” before leveling off — not the other way around.

Developing countries, he wrote, were introduced to the standards, but were never able to fully adopt them, thus not advancing and limiting their population growth. He described the reason why developing countries were still “forgotten” was due to colonialism. Developed countries were, and economically remain, “colonies of more developed countries.”

Because Western Nations introduced innovations such as roads, communications, engineering and agricultural and medical services as a part of using and exploiting the developing nation’s labor force and natural resources, the first step towards a “demographic transition” was met, but other stages were not, he wrote.

This did not happen, Commoner wrote, because the wealth that these developing countries created did not stay. It was “shipped out,” so to speak, and enabled the wealthier nations to achieve the different "levels of demographic transition,” while the colonies continued on without achieving the second stage, which is population balancing.

In his 1971 bestselling book, The Closing Circle, Commoner suggested that the American economy should be restructured to conform to the unbending laws of ecology. For example, he argued that polluting products (like detergents or synthetic textiles) should be replaced with natural products like soap, cotton and wool. This book was one of the first to bring the idea of sustainability to a mass audience.

Commoner suggested a left-wing, eco-socialist response to the limits to growth thesis, postulating that capitalist technologies were chiefly responsible for environmental degradation, as opposed to population pressures.

One of Commoner's lasting legacies is his four laws of ecology, as written in The Closing Circle in 1971. The four laws are:

1. Everything is connected to everything else. There is one ecosphere for all living organisms and what affects one, affects all.

2. Everything must go somewhere. There is no "waste" in nature and there is no "away" to which things can be thrown.

3. Nature knows best. Humankind has fashioned technology to improve upon nature, but such change in a natural system is, wrote Commoner, "likely to be detrimental to that system"

4. There is no such thing as a free lunch. Exploitation of nature will inevitably involve the conversion of resources from useful to useless forms.

Commoner died on September 30, 2012 in New York City.

On this day in 1930 — 92 years ago — “Pluto” was suggested as the name of what was then the newly discovered ninth planet, inspired by a British schoolgirl, Venetia Burney

It doesn’t often happen that what you achieve at the age of 11 makes a lasting impact on the world.

But on this day in 1930 — 92 years ago — “Pluto” was suggested as the name of what was then the newly discovered ninth planet, inspired by a British schoolgirl, Venetia Burney.

Shortly after “Planet X” was discovered in February of that year, Venetia’s grandfather was reading about the news over breakfast. Interested in Greek and Roman mythology, Venetia suggested Pluto, the god of the underworld.

Her grandfather, a retired librarian at Oxford, sent her suggestion to a professor of astronomy at the university, who wrote back: “I think PLUTO excellent!!”

The name worked on a few levels: As the most distant planet, the name of an underworld god was fitting. And the planet’s first two letters matched the initials of Percival Lowell, the astronomer who initiated the search for Pluto.

As a reward, her grandfather gave her a five-pound note, and later an asteroid was named 6235 Burney in her honor in 1987.

But she was modest about her achievement during an interview with NASA in 2006 (the same year that Pluto was demoted to a dwarf planet): “It doesn’t arise in conversation and you don’t just go around telling people that you named Pluto.”

Above, NASA photo of Pluto

The Hubble Space Telescope was launched aboard the shuttle Discovery on this day in 1990 — 32 years ago

The Hubble Space Telescope was launched aboard the shuttle Discovery on this day in 1990 — 32 years ago.

The telescope has sent back images of celestial wonders, captured in stunning detail. The $1.5 billion telescope is the length of a school bus and orbits the Earth at about 17,000 miles an hour. It’s expected to keep working until at least 2020.

Hubble’s first pictures lacked clarity because of problems with the telescope’s mirror, necessitating a repair trip. All in all, Hubble has required five major repairs, replacements or upgrades. The last was completed in 2009.

Its successor, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, is scheduled to launch in 2020. This telescope, equipped with a much bigger mirror, is designed to see deeper into space than Hubble and may solve mysteries about how the first stars and galaxies were created.

Here is a Hubble image of the Pillars of Creation, part of the Eagle Nebula nearly 7,000 light years from Earth.

Thanks New York Times!

John Muir, naturalist and early advocate of preserving wilderness in the United States, was born 184 years ago today

John Muir, naturalist and early advocate of preserving wilderness in the United States, was born 184 years ago today.

A Scottish-born American naturalist, activist and author, Muir’s letters, essays and books telling of his adventures in nature, especially in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, have been read by millions. His activism helped to preserve the Yosemite Valley, Sequoia National Park and other wilderness areas.

The Sierra Club, which he founded, is now a leading conservation organization in the United States. One of the most well-known hiking trails in the U.S., the 211-mile John Muir Trail, was named in his honor. Other places named in his honor are Muir Woods National Monument, Muir Beach, John Muir College, Mount Muir, Camp Muir and Muir Glacier.

In his later life, Muir devoted most of his time to the preservation of the Western forests. He petitioned the U.S. Congress for the National Park bill that was passed in 1890, establishing both Yosemite and Sequoia National Parks. Because of the spiritual quality and enthusiasm toward nature expressed in his writings, he was able to inspire readers, including presidents and congressmen, to take action to help preserve large nature areas.

He is today referred to as the "Father of the National Parks," and the National Park Service produced a short documentary on his life.

Muir's biographer, Steven J. Holmes, states that Muir has become "one of the patron saints of 20th century American environmental activity," both political and recreational. As a result, his writings are commonly discussed in books and journals, and he is often quoted in books by nature photographers such as Ansel Adams.

"Muir has profoundly shaped the very categories through which Americans understand and envision their relationships with the natural world," wrote Holmes.

Muir was noted for being an ecological thinker, political spokesman and religious prophet, whose writings became a personal guide into nature for countless individuals. His name is ubiquitous in the modern environmental consciousness.

According to author William Anderson, Muir exemplified "the archetype of our oneness with the earth," while biographer Donald Worster says he believed his mission was "...saving the American soul from total surrender to materialism."

Thanks History.com

Here is part one of a documentary on John Muir

The hallucinogenic effects of LSD were discovered 79 years ago today

The hallucinogenic effects of LSD were discovered 79 years ago today.

In Basel, Switzerland, Albert Hoffman, a Swiss chemist working at the Sandoz pharmaceutical research laboratory, accidentally consumed LSD-25, a synthetic drug he had created in 1938 as part of his research into the medicinal value of lysergic acid compounds.

After taking the drug, formally known as lysergic acid diethylamide, Dr. Hoffman was disturbed by unusual sensations and hallucinations. In his notes, he related the experience:

"Last Friday, April 16, 1943, I was forced to interrupt my work in the laboratory in the middle of the afternoon and proceed home, being affected by a remarkable restlessness, combined with a slight dizziness. At home I lay down and sank into a not unpleasant, intoxicated-like condition characterized by an extremely stimulated imagination.

In a dreamlike state, with eyes closed (I found the daylight to be unpleasantly glaring), I perceived an uninterrupted stream of fantastic pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic play of colors. After some two hours this condition faded away."

After intentionally taking the drug again to confirm that it had caused this strange physical and mental state, Dr. Hoffman published a report announcing his discovery. LSD made its entry into the world as a hallucinogenic drug.

Widespread use of the "mind-expanding" drug did not begin until the 1960s, when counterculture figures such as Albert M. Hubbard, Timothy Leary and Ken Kesey publicly expounded on the benefits of using LSD as a recreational drug.

The manufacture, sale, possession and use of LSD, known to cause negative reactions in some of those who took it, were made illegal in the United States in 1965.

Image of Hoffman by Alex Gray

Thanks History.com

On March 31, 1889 — 133 years ago today — the Eiffel Tower was dedicated in Paris in a ceremony presided over by Gustave Eiffel, the tower's designer

The Eiffel Tower with the surrounding 1889 Centennial Exposition, Paris

On March 31, 1889 — 133 years ago today — the Eiffel Tower was dedicated in Paris in a ceremony presided over by Gustave Eiffel, the tower's designer, and attended by French Prime Minister Pierre Tirard, a handful of other dignitaries and 200 construction workers.

In 1889, to honor of the centenary of the French Revolution, the French government planned an international exposition and announced a design competition for a monument to be built on the Champ-de-Mars in central Paris.

Out of more than 100 designs submitted, the Centennial Committee chose Eiffel's plan of an open-lattice wrought-iron tower that would reach almost 1,000 feet above Paris and be the world's tallest man-made structure.

Eiffel, a noted bridge builder, was a master of metal construction and designed the framework of the Statue of Liberty that had recently been erected in New York Harbor.

Eiffel's tower was greeted with skepticism from critics who argued that it would be structurally unsound, and indignation from others who thought it would be an eyesore in the heart of Paris.

Unperturbed, Eiffel completed his great tower under budget in just two years. Only one worker lost his life during construction, which at the time was a remarkably low casualty number for a project of that magnitude.

The light, airy structure was by all accounts a technological wonder and within a few decades came to be regarded as an architectural masterpiece.

The Eiffel Tower is 984 feet tall and consists of an iron framework supported on four masonry piers, from which rise four columns that unite to form a single vertical tower. Platforms, each with an observation deck, are at three levels.

Elevators ascend the piers on a curve, and Eiffel contracted the Otis Elevator Company of the United States to design the tower's famous glass-cage elevators.

The elevators were not completed by March 31, 1889, however, so Gustave Eiffel ascended the tower's stairs with a few hardy companions and raised an enormous French tricolor on the structure's flagpole.

Fireworks were then set off from the second platform. Eiffel and his party descended, and the architect addressed the guests and about 200 workers.

In early May, the Paris International Exposition opened, and the tower served as the entrance gateway to the giant fair.

The Eiffel Tower remained the world's tallest man-made structure until the completion of the Chrysler Building in New York in 1930.

Incredibly, the Eiffel Tower was almost demolished when the International Exposition's 20-year lease on the land expired in 1909, but its value as an antenna for radio transmission saved it.

It remains largely unchanged today and is one of the world's premier tourist attractions.

On March 14, 1879 — 143 years ago today — Albert Einstein was born in Ulm, Germany

On March 14, 1879 — 143 years ago today — Albert Einstein was born in Ulm, Germany.

Einstein's theories of special and general relativity drastically altered man's view of the universe, and his work in particle and energy theory helped make possible quantum mechanics and, ultimately, the atomic bomb.

After a childhood in Germany and Italy, Einstein studied physics and mathematics at the Federal Polytechnic Academy in Zurich, Switzerland. He became a Swiss citizen and in 1905 was awarded a Ph.D. from the University of Zurich while working at the Swiss patent office in Bern.

That year, which historians of Einstein's career call the annus mirabilis — the "miracle year" — he published five theoretical papers that were to have a profound effect on the development of modern physics.

In the first of these, titled "On a Heuristic Viewpoint Concerning the Production and Transformation of Light," Einstein theorized that light is made up of individual quanta (photons) that demonstrate particle-like properties while collectively behaving like a wave.

The hypothesis, an important step in the development of quantum theory, was arrived at through Einstein's examination of the photoelectric effect, a phenomenon in which some solids emit electrically charged particles when struck by light. This work would later earn him the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics.

In the second paper, he devised a new method of counting and determining the size of the atoms and molecules in a given space, and in the third he offered a mathematical explanation for the constant erratic movement of particles suspended in a fluid, known as Brownian motion. These two papers provided indisputable evidence of the existence of atoms, which at the time was still disputed by a few scientists.

Einstein's fourth groundbreaking scientific work of 1905 addressed what he termed his special theory of relativity. In special relativity, time and space are not absolute, but relative to the motion of the observer.

Thus, two observers traveling at great speeds in regard to each other would not necessarily observe simultaneous events in time at the same moment, nor necessarily agree in their measurements of space. In Einstein's theory, the speed of light, which is the limiting speed of any body having mass, is constant in all frames of reference.

In the fifth paper that year, an exploration of the mathematics of special relativity, Einstein announced that mass and energy were equivalent and could be calculated with an equation, E=mc2.

Although the public was not quick to embrace his revolutionary science, Einstein was welcomed into the circle of Europe's most eminent physicists and given professorships in Zýrich, Prague and Berlin. In 1916, he published "The Foundation of the General Theory of Relativity," which proposed that gravity, as well as motion, can affect the intervals of time and of space.

According to Einstein, gravitation is not a force, as Isaac Newton had argued, but a curved field in the space-time continuum, created by the presence of mass. An object of very large gravitational mass, such as the sun, would therefore appear to warp space and time around it, which could be demonstrated by observing starlight as it skirted the sun on its way to earth.

In 1919, astronomers studying a solar eclipse verified predictions Einstein made in the general theory of relativity, and he became an overnight celebrity. Later, other predictions of general relativity, such as a shift in the orbit of the planet Mercury and the probable existence of black holes, were confirmed by scientists.

During the next decade, Einstein made continued contributions to quantum theory and began work on a unified field theory, which he hoped would encompass quantum mechanics and his own relativity theory as a grand explanation of the workings of the universe. As a world-renowned public figure, he became increasingly political, taking up the cause of Zionism and speaking out against militarism and rearmament.

In his native Germany, this made him an unpopular figure. After Nazi leader Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany in 1933, Einstein renounced his German citizenship and left the country. He later settled in the United States, where he accepted a post at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey.

He would remain there for the rest of his life, working on his unified field theory and relaxing by sailing on a local lake or playing his violin. He became an American citizen in 1940.

In 1939, despite his lifelong pacifist beliefs, he agreed to write to President Franklin D. Roosevelt on behalf of a group of scientists who were concerned with American inaction in the field of atomic-weapons research. Like the other scientists, he feared sole German possession of such a weapon. He played no role, however, in the subsequent Manhattan Project and later deplored the use of atomic bombs against Japan.

After the war, he called for the establishment of a world government that would control nuclear technology and prevent future armed conflict.

In 1950, he published his unified field theory, which was quietly criticized as a failure. A unified explanation of gravitation, subatomic phenomena and electromagnetism remains elusive today.

Albert Einstein, one of the most creative minds in human history, died in Princeton in 1955.

Thanks History.com