Batman to the rescue
QUESTION Is a Bat-Signal spotlight possible?
WHEN under threat, Gotham City’s police summon Batman with a spotlight projecting the symbol into the sky.
Under the right conditions the Bat-Signal will work, but it has a significant flaw: it needs something to reflect off, such as clouds or a tall building.
The technology for such a device was created by an eccentric British inventor called Harry Grindell Matthews (1880-1941).
Matthews famously invented the electric ‘death ray’, which he claimed could shoot down aeroplanes, explode gunpowder, stop ships and even incapacitate infantry soldiers from a distance of four miles (6.4km).
On Christmas Eve, 1930, Matthews unveiled his Sky Projector, which projected pictures onto clouds. His projector was made from a powerful arc lamp, focusing lens and a plane mirror.
Matthews demonstrated the Sky Projector in London by projecting an angel, the message ‘Happy Christmas’ and an ‘accurate’ clock face. In 1931, he demonstrated it in New York City and his Sky Projector caused a sensation.
A New York Herald article praising it suggested that aside from advertising it had many further uses, including ‘aiding the police to locate wanted persons’.
It seems possible that Batman creators Bob Kane and Bill Finger, both New York citizens, were inspired by his display, Batman being launched in 1939.
Unfortunately for Grindell, his apparatus was far too expensive and at the mercy of the environmental conditions.
His oversized projector had to be transported on the back of a truck and required a large injection of electricity.
Critics of the Bat-Signal have commented that it could only work if the environmental conditions were perfect.
Frank Miller must have realised this problem; in his graphic novel, The Dark Knight Returns, he had the Bat-Signal reflected off a skyscraper adjacent to the police headquarters.
However, this meant that Bruce Wayne always had to be at the correct angle to see it. Of course, the Bat-Signal isn’t necessary to contact Batman: when unavailable, the Bat Phone was used.
Andy Tomlinson, Watford, Hertfordshire.
QUESTION Is the presence of the chemical phosphine evidence of life on Venus?
IN 2020, a team of astronomers looking at the clouds surrounding Venus announced a remarkable discovery. The team, led by Jane Greaves of Cardiff University, detected, in Venus’s clouds, a spectral fingerprint or light-based signature, of the molecule phosphine.
On Earth, phosphine (PH3) is associated with biological production in anaerobic environments, thus suggesting the presence of life. Phosphine is a colourless and extremely toxic gas, which either smells like rotting fish or powerful garlic, depending on your sense of smell.
The researchers made the detection using the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope in Hawaii, and the Atacama Large Millimetre Array observatory in Chile.
This discovery has been contested; a reanalysis of the data by a team led by IAG Snellen, professor of observational astrophysics at the University of Leiden, suggests that the data was misinterpreted.
Venus is referred to as our ‘sister’ planet for its proximity to Earth and similar size. But Venus is inhospitable. Its surface averages a scorching 450C and is covered in thick clouds of sulphuric acid.
These temperatures were caused by a runaway greenhouse effect that began billions of years ago.
Astronomers have focused their attention on Mars and Jupiter’s icy moons.
D.L.K Oliver, Birmingham.
QUESTION Who was the first person to put a model ship in a bottle?
THE earliest known example of a ship in a bottle was built in Venice by Giovanni Biondo.
The 1784 bottle depicts a three-masted first-rate ship of the line; this was a ship carrying over 64 guns in the Venetian navy. ‘Gionni Biondi, fecit 1784’ is carved on to the prow.
The ship was enclosed in an eggshaped bottle 20 inches high and placed upside down over a wooden stand. It is located in a museum in Lubeck, Germany.
The model was presented to the museum around 1880 as a gift from a Captain Kruger.
These first ships in bottles appear to have been created for captains in the Venetian navy.
They are detailed models with designs for Venetian first class and second-rate line of battle ships.
As such, these were not the works of hobbyists but of a master builder. The egg-shaped bottles would have been expensive to produce, blown by skilled artisans.
Two more Biondo bottles survive: a 1786 model of a second-rate ship is now in a private collection in Milan, and a 1792 bottle, identified as the Fama, is now in the Maritime Museum in Lisbon, Portugal. Inside the Fama, the artist included the statement ‘Captain Giovanni Biondo Veneto’, though there are no records or logs to verify this rank.
A fourth bottle was made in 1806, by Francesco Biondo, who is assumed to be Giovanni’s son.
This is in the collection of the Glass Museum in Murano, Italy. While the ship in the bottle has become the archetype, the skill of putting objects in bottles dates from the early 18th century. The extraordinary German artist and magician Matthias Buchinger (1674-1739), born with stunted arms and legs and just 29in tall, pioneered these objects.
One of his bottles, dated to 1719 and depicting a mining scene, was discovered in Snowshill Manor in the Cotswolds.
From the mid-18th century, religious symbols featured in bottles which were ornately decorated with Jesus on the cross and instruments of the passion such as the grail, lantern, veil and spear.
The ship in the bottle became very popular in the age of fast sailing ships such as the Clipper. Consequently, most of antique varieties date from 1840.
Gerald D. Wilson, Grays, Essex.
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