Farcical Facts
About Famous Scientists and Inventors
by
Barry G. Gale
Did You Know That…?
Albert Einstein, 1879-1955, had a trampoline in the parlor of his home in Princeton, New Jersey where he and his Abyssinian cat, Meticulous, would do triple somersaults together between efforts to find a theory that would unify and simplify the fundamental laws of physics, particularly gravitation and electromagnetism, into what he hoped would some day become a Unified Field Theory?
Archimedes of Syracuse, circa 287 BC - 212 BC, the Greek mathematician, astronomer, philosopher, physicist and engineer, besides discovering the pulley, the lever, and the mathematical constant pi, also discovered the culinary constant cake, which scientists now believe was critically important in the development of radar, industrial adhesives, catalysts for fuel cells, the cathode ray tube, the three fingered bowling ball and extremely sheer, skin-colored pantyhose?
Niels Bohr, 1885-1962, the Nobel Prize winning Danish physicist who was the first to apply quantum theory to the problem of atomic and molecular structure, was actually bit on the behind by the British Mosquito bomber that was sent to Sweden to whisk him away to England and thence to Los Alamos, New Mexico for work on the U.S. atomic bomb Manhattan Project?
Nicholas Copernicus, 1473-1543, the Polish astronomer who was the first to propose that the earth and not the sun was the center of the universe and that the earth rotates daily on its own axis, was also in his time known as an outstanding astrologer and once predicted that a person by the name of Nostradamus, who was recently born in France, would some day prophesize the coming of World War I, World War II, and the dominance of Elvis Presley in the age of Rock and Roll in a country recently discovered called America?
Marie Curie, 1867-1934, the Polish-born French physicist famous for her work on radioactivity and twice a winner of the Nobel Prize (once in physics, and once in chemistry), was also known throughout Europe for her prodigious memory and is credited with being able to recall the names of all the French kings in recorded history, the names and birthplaces of their mistresses, the exact weight of each of these mistresses, and the names of the mistresses’ tallest second cousins?
Charles Darwin, 1809-1882, the famed naturalist, even though his 1859 opus on the subject of evolution, On the Origin of Species, sold out immediately and created vast interest and controversy throughout Europe, adamantly refused an offer from Dunstan Lloyd Webber, the great, great grandfather of Andrew Lloyd Webber, to turn Darwin’s revolutionary work into a light opera for the London stage?
Thomas Alva Edison, 1847-1931, the American inventor who, singly or jointly, held a world record 1,093 patents, including ones for the incandescent light bulb, the phonograph, the telephone speaker and microphone, a revolutionary electric generator of unprecedented efficiency, the first commercial electric light and power system, an experimental electric railroad, and key elements of motion-picture technology, was also the first person to invent the concept of the patent, which concept he then patented immediately?
Galileo Galilei, 1564-1642, the Italian natural philosopher, astronomer, and mathematician who made fundamental contributions to the sciences of motion and astronomy, used the recently invented telescope to discover not only the four moons of Jupiter, as is well known, but also discovered, being quite farsighted himself, the six moons of Saturn, the three of Mars, the 12 of Uranus, the 14 of Neptune, the five of Pluto, the 65 of Mercury and the three and one-half circling around the leaning tower of Pisa, the place of Galileo’s birth?
Sir Isaac Newton, 1642-1727, the English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, and natural philosopher, who in his seminal work Principia Mathematica described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion thus laying the groundwork for classical mechanics, was not as highly esteemed as an alchemist, a field in which he often dabbled, having transmuted gold into base metal, to the everlasting chagrin of the Royal Society, of which, at the time, he was President?
Max Planck, 1858-1947, the German physicist and discoverer of quantum mechanics, was also an accomplished pianist and was known to have the gift of absolute pitch, which enabled him to identify German versus Swiss yodeling as he hiked amid the majestic peaks of the Alps, which was his favorite holiday pastime?
Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen, 1845-1923, the German physicist who was the recipient of the first Nobel Prize for physics in 1901 for his discovery of x-rays, which heralded the age of modern physics and revolutionized diagnostic medicine, discovered when he x-rayed the hand of his wife that she had been cheating him at stud poker for more years than he wanted to admit?
Nikola Tesla, 1856-1943, the Serbian physicist, inventor, and electrical engineer of unusual intellectual brilliance and practical achievement, famous for inventing AC or alternating current which made long-distance electrical transmission systems possible, also invented spark plugs, the electrical ignition system for cars, the Death Ray, loud speakers, fluorescent lighting and the format for the TV game show, Jeopardy?
Barry G. Gale's poems and short stories have been rejected by some of the best and some of the worst literary journals in America and abroad. And on countless occasions. The New Yorker has not only rejected numerous poems and short stories by Mr. Gale, but has never even had the courtesy to say they were in fact rejected. Barry Gale lives and works in Arlington, Virginia.
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