Emperors’ talisman
QUESTION Napoleon is said to have possessed the Talisman of Charlemagne. What was it and where is it now?
Charlemagne (or Carl the great) was crowned holy emperor in aD800. also King of the Franks, he created an empire by conquering and Christianising the Saxons, lombards and avars, and restoring areas of Italy to Pope leo III.
In gold filigree and epousse, his talisman is 7cm high and adorned with precious stones. On its front a glass cabochon magnifies a cross made of two fragments purported to be from the True Cross and on the back is a translucent sapphire.
One year after his coronation, as a reward from the Pope for chasing the lombards out of Italy, it was either Caliph harun al-rashid or empress Irene of athens who sent the talisman to Charlemagne. he is said to have worn it in battle and had it around his neck when he was buried in the Palatine Chapel in aachen Cathedral, germany.
The burial vault was opened numerous times over the years and each time bits of Charlemagne’s remains and relics were stolen, some taken to be put into beautiful reliquaries in the city of aachen.
It was there in the summer of 1804, when the first wife of napoleon Bonaparte, Josephine de Beauharnais, had gone to take the waters at aachen that she was given the talisman (which is itself a reliquary) by a monsignor appointed by napoleon.
Josephine kept the talisman for the rest of her life and left it to her daughter, hortense de Beauharnais, in 1814.
hortense treasured talismans and liked to give them to those she loved. So upon her death in 1837, she bequeathed it to her son, louis-napoleon Bonaparte (napoleon III), who himself passed it on to his wife, empress eugenie.
eugenie held on to it until her old age and originally intended to give the talisman back to aachen, feeling it belonged there. But after World War I and upset with the germans for the shelling of the Cathedral of reims in France — seen as a deliberate act of vandalism and attack on French culture — she instead donated it to the cathedral in 1919. The talisman of Charlemagne became one of the treasures of the Tau Palace in reims, where it stays today.
Emilie Lamplough, Trowbridge, Wiltshire.
QUESTION In 1970, British Rail took out a patent for a ‘flying saucer’. What was the purpose of this device?
BrITISh rail did indeed take out a patent for a flying saucer, UK patent number 1310990, in December 1970, full specification published in march 1973.
The inventor was Charles Osmond Frederick, a nuclear engineer who had previously worked for the UK atomic energy authority. It was to be powered by nuclear fusion.
a small amount of liquid fuel — the type was not specified in the patent, but was possibly a mixture of the hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium — was to be injected into the area underneath the saucer. nuclear fusion would then be initiated by high-powered lasers.
This had not been achieved at the time the patent was applied for, but was expected to be possible in the near future. The resulting ‘small’ nuclear explosion underneath the saucer was to be confined and directed downwards by powerful magnetic fields so as to maximise thrust. a nuclear explosion generates lots of charged particles, and some of these were to be collected by electrodes on the underside of the saucer to provide the necessary power for the lasers and electromagnets. Varying the magnetic field or the voltage on other electrodes on the underside of the saucer was intended to control the direction of thrust so the saucer could be manoeuvred. The explosions were to be repeated at a rate of more than a 1,000 per second to minimise vibration damage to the structure. no mention is made about the noise that would be produced. It is believed the proposed design was intended to be more than a 100ft in diameter and capable of carrying passengers. These were shielded from the nuclear radiation by the magnetic fields and ‘heavy material’. With such a propulsion system only a small amount of fuel is required to leave earth and travel to the planets in the solar system. Unfortunately, no one has succeeded in starting a nuclear reaction with lasers. however, the patent was allowed to lapse in 1976, so if anyone wants to build this saucer to see if it works, they can now do so without having to pay royalties. Denis Sharp, Hailsham, East Sussex.
QUESTION Which occupations other than maths teachers use algebra in their work?
FUrTher to earlier answers, algebra is used extensively in a number of technical activities. In particular, boolean algebra is used in digital electronics to describe how elements of a digital circuit function and interact.
It describes how the circuit configuration reacts to given inputs and allows you to determine what the output(s) would be as a result of the inputs.
The design of all digital circuitry relies on boolean algebra, so all our microprocessors, computers, smart phones, internet devices and other digital electronic device would not be possible to design without its use. Daily life would not be the same without algebra.
Michael Perry BSc. London.