The miracle of your mind isn’t that you can see the world as it is, but that you can see the world as it isn’t. We can remember the past and we can think about the future, and we can imagine what it’s like to be some other person in some other place. And we all do this differently.
The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.
I look up at the night sky, and I know that, yes, we are part of this Universe, we are in this Universe, but perhaps more important than both of those facts is that the Universe is in us. When I reflect on that fact, I look up—many people feel small, because they’re small and the Universe is big, but I feel big, because my atoms came from those stars.
1797
Thomas Jefferson presents a paper on the Megalonyx to the American Philosophical Society. It will be published as “A Memoir on the Discovery of Certain Bones of a Quadruped of the Clawed Kind in the Western Parts of Virginia,” Transactions of American Philosophical Society 4:255-256, along with an account by Caspar Wistar (1761-1818). This is arguably the first American publication in paleontology, but it is certainly the only paleontology paper written by Jefferson. In 1822, this huge extinct sloth will be named “Megalonyx jeffersoni” by a French naturalist. It is a bear-sized ground sloth species, over two meters tall, which was widespread in North America during the last Ice Age. Read more about Jefferson’s Ground Sloth at Yukon Beringia.
1849
Abraham Lincoln becomes the first United States president to apply for a patent. (US No. 6,469) The patent is described as a method of “Buoying vessels over shoals.” Read the patent application at Google Patents Search.
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1497
Nicolaus Copernicus first begins recording his astronomical observations.
1611
Dutch astronomer Johannes Fabricius becomes the first person to observe sunspots as he observes the rising sun through his telescope. Observing the Sun becomes painful, so Fabricius and his father will soon switch to making observations using a camera obscura. Johannes will later become the first to publish information on the phenomena in his book, Narratio de maculis in sole observatis et apparente earum cum sole conversione (“Narration on Spots Observed on the Sun and their Apparent Rotation with the Sun”). The dedication of the book will be dated June 13, 1611.
1932
The Ford Motor Company assembly line produces the first Ford Flathead engine. The Flathead is the first independently designed and built V8 engine to be produced by Ford for mass production.
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1618
Johannes Kepler formulates his Third Law of Planetary Motion. The third law states that, “The squares of the orbital periods of planets are directly proportional to the cubes of the semi-major axis of the orbits.” In other words, the period of a planet’s orbit around the Sun is determined by its distance from the Sun.
1775
Joseph Priestley, having discovered oxygen, experiments with mice in his home laboratory to determine whether or not it is necessary to support life.
1946
In New York City, a helicopter is licensed for commercial use for the first time history.
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