October 2

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Better Than News

Beyond Plausible

In Other Words

Are You Sure

The first known photograph of a television system (John Logie Baird's "televisor"), as reported in The Times, 28 January 1926. (The subject is Baird's business partner Oliver Hutchinson.)

• ... that engineer and inventor John Logie Baird (14 August 1888 – 14 June 1946) pioneered mechanical television, demonstrating the first working television system on 26 January 1926; and that Baird invented both the first publicly demonstrated color television system, and the first purely electronic color television picture tube; and that in 1928 the Baird Television Development Company achieved the first transatlantic television transmission?

• ... that mathematical physicist John Crank (6 February 1916 – 3 October 2006) worked on the numerical solution of partial differential equations, and, in particular, the solution of heat-conduction problems; and that he is best known for his work with Phyllis Nicolson on the heat equation, which resulted in the Crank–Nicolson method?

• ... that philosopher and scientist Bernardino Telesio (7 November 1509 – 2 October 1588) expressed anti-Aristotelian views which angered Church authorities; and that while Telesio's theories were later disproven, his emphasis on observation made him the "first of the moderns" who eventually developed the scientific method?

• ... that mathematician Édouard Lucas (4 April 1842 – 3 October 1891) studied the Fibonacci sequence, and that the related Lucas sequences and Lucas numbers are named after him?

• ... that the notorious criminal mathematical function Killer Poke is allergic to the Fibonacci sequence, and that alleged time-traveller Niles Cartouchian defeated Poke in single combat after luring Poke into a field of blooming sunflowers?

Selected Anniversaries

Topic of the Day

Home repair