News/Blogs

When someone uses a GPS receiver, the device finds the four nearest satellites in the GPS constellation and asks each one a pair of simple questions: Where are you? And: What time is it? The receiver uses that information to calculate its own position with a high degree of accuracy. In a mathematics textbook, just three satellites would be sufficient to get a reading, but in a real world filled with imprecision, the fourth satellite is used to increase accuracy.

In a recent issue, we ran an article about the Orukter Amphibolos, a purported land/water vehicle built 200 years ago. While researching that piece in John F. Watson’s Annals of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania , we came upon the following: “About sixty-five years ago [i.e., around 1777, when you’d think Philadelphians would have had other things to worry about], many hundred persons went out to the Schuylkill to see a man cross that river in a boat carried in his pocket! He went over safe, near High street. B.

Charles A. Levine, born in Brooklyn in 1897, went to work in his father’s scrapyard after completing elementary school. Later he was an apprentice aviation mechanic and a used-car dealer. After World War I he formed a company to process war-surplus shell casings for sale in South America. This return to his junkyard roots made him a millionaire.