Archive for October, 2022

Dollhouse 2022

An early dollhouse, a Tudor detailed by my creative niece, and donated to a school auction.

I’m not sure when the tradition started, but about 20 years ago is a good guess. A friend had a daughter in a local school and solicited donations for their holiday auction.

I volunteered to donate a dollhouse, and promptly enlisted my creative niece MES to help me fulfill the promise. Over the years I’ve enlisted other help, claiming it’s more fun than working alone. (Never mind that my friends and relatives are much more creative than I am. I do supply the furnishings, however!)

Here’s the “before” for this year’s house. It’s small enough that I can lift the job by myself! Maybe next year, it will be safe to have a full team working on a mansion!

2022 “before” photo. Some week in the near future, I should have the “after” to share.

The elephant in the room

This came up in a classroom discussion this week. It’s old, Hindu? But doesn’t it apply now?

https://allpoetry.com/The-Blind-Man-And-The-Elephant

What’s in a name?

Shakespeare asked the question in “Romeo and Juliet.” You remember: that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

So, names don’t matter?

They do if they live on as units.

Of course I’ve skipped ahead a few centuries, but I’ve always been fascinated by the names of units. In science, there are many that are named after key figures. We have the newton (unit of force); the ohm (unit of electrical resistance); watts (unit of power); the Tesla (yes, that one, unit of magnetic flux density); and dozens more here, including my favorite, the curie (radioactivity).

One that may also be familiar is the Mach, named after Ernst Mach whose work in aerodynamics led to the understanding of supersonic speeds. The Mach number is the ratio of the speed of an object to the speed of sound in the surrounding medium.

Image by Defence-Imagery from Pixabay

Why do I think of Mach today? Because this week marks the 75th anniversary of the breaking of the sound barrier. On October 14, 1947, pilot Chuck Yeager flew faster than Mach 1, the speed of sound. Details of the flight are here.

What’s your favorite unit?

Giveaway

oops

Overstock: 2 copies of this book, featuring 22 short stories (one of them mine) with voting as a theme.

Let me if you’re interested, before going to the polls! US addresses only please.