Boffin got to new heights!
QUESTION Was scientist Niels Bohr once arrested for climbing the walls of a bank?
NIELS BOHR was a Danish physicist who made a key contribution to understanding atomic structure and quantum theory, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922.
Bohr founded the Niels Bohr institute (NBI) in Copenhagen to gather the world’s most innovative minds to conduct scientific research. he based it on ernest rutherford’s Cavendish laboratory in Britain, admiring its energy, enthusiasm and thirst for knowledge.
in the furtherance of science, Bohr was happy to try anything. George Gamow, in Thirty Years That shook Physics: The story of Quantum Theory, recalled how he was returning from a dinner given by swedish physicist oskar Klein, on the occasion of his election as a university professor in his native sweden, in the company of Bohr, his wife Margrethe and Dutch physicist hendrik Casimir.
At that late hour, the streets were empty and they passed a bank building with a wall of large cement blocks: ‘At the corner of the building the crevices between the courses of blocks were deep enough to give a toehold to a good alpinist.’
Casimir, an expert climber, scrambled up to the third floor.
Bohr, not an experienced climber, wished to share the experience. ‘When hanging precariously on the second-floor level, and Frau Bohr, Casimir, and i were anxiously watching, two Copenhagen policemen approached from behind with their hands on their gun holsters.
‘one of them looked up and told the other: “oh, this is only Professor Bohr!” and they went quietly off to hunt for more dangerous bank robbers.’
QUESTION Did someone invent square watermelons?
YES. in 1978, graphic designer Tomoyuki ono presented the watermelons in a gallery in Ginza, Tokyo, and applied for, and received, a patent US4187639A for: ‘The moulding process for a natural fruit of a fruit-tree or vegetable.’
square watermelons are easier to handle, store and ship; they will not roll and they take up less room in the fridge.
however the cost was prohibitive. The cube shape could be achieved only at the expense of the fruit. They had to be harvested unripe, rendering them practically inedible. They did briefly become popular as artworks, selling for $100 a fruit.
Catherine Taylor, Stevenage, Herts.
QUESTION Did any British soldiers survive both the Battle Of New Orleans and The Battle of Waterloo?
FURTHER to the earlier answer, the town of harrismith, in the (orange) Free state Province in south Africa, was also named after harry smith. it is on the main Johannesburg to Durban road, via ladysmith (named after his spanish wife). i passed through there many times when in the army in Bloemfontein.
S. James-Davis, London SE3.
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