Some pictures from Numberphile fans who received our "89" postcard.
It's a limited edition of 89, but there are still a few left.
They deliberately come through the normal post without an envelope, so get all sorts of nice stamps and cancellation marks!
@dan_lapsley was happy to get 55 - a palindrome!
@PAShanky was pleased to get 42
Simon in Switzerland
Lance in San Diego
@mathslinks may frame this one
Here's the video which the postcard is from...
Our friend Luis Brudna, from Brazil, has translated MANY of our Periodic Videos.
We met Luis when we went to Brazil
In fact it is no longer feasible for me to keep a playlist of his many translations.
But here are the latest seven, just added today.
There was a time when Europeans had no idea what people around the world would look like.
Maybe they'd look like this, with giant feet they could use to shelter from the sun?
This image is contained within Margarita Philosophica, a famous text book from the early 1500s.
We looked at various editions of the book at the Royal Society for Episode 34 of Objectivity.
And with the summer of cricket rivalry at its height, it was unsurprising that librarian Rupert Baker (an Englishman) used the strange depictions to poke fun at me (an Australian).
I went along to Dismaland, the "bemusement park" secretly created by street artist Banksy on the seafront at Weston-super-Mare.
Here are some pictures.
Last week we posted a video about the so-called Eight Queens Problem.
Today we posted some extra footage from the same interview with Dr James Grime.
And in case you missed them, here are previous videos about the Knight's Tour.
And the number of possible chess game configurations (Shannon's Number).
I am a nut for anything relating to the Apollo Space Programme.
That's why the recent album, The Race for Space, is my favourite thing right now.
It's by the band Public Service Broadcasting, which uses archive sound (such as newsreels, propaganda films, etc) as the backbone for their music.
They even have a brilliant song from a previous album about my other obsession, Mount Everest.
So with songs about space AND Mount Everest, it's unsurprising I've been gushing about them on the Hello Internet podcast. Even CGP Grey had nice things to say.
The podcast discussion led to many listeners trying (and buying) the album.
This came to the attention of the band's main man, J. Willgoose Esq, who subsequently agreed to meet and appear in a special episode of Objectivity.
(I think a chance to visit The Royal Society and meet Keith was the real incentive!)
The video loosely followed a few of the key songs on the album (and hence the space race itself).
Second track on the album but first object in our video - it's Sputnik, the first human-made satellite to orbit the Earth.
Our object, from the Royal Society archives, was this Sputnik replica.
It seems unclear who gave it to the society, but presumably it was a Russian delegation blowing their own trumpets (quite rightly!)
The model included a button which no longer works, but an enclosed circuit diagram hints the model is capable of producing Sputnik's famous beep-beep-beep.
The PSB song Gagarin has quite the music video...
And we had some impressive objects to match it.
The first man in space, Gagarin visited the Royal Society on 13 July, 1961 - just three months after his famous space flight.
It was clearly a big deal for the society and it appears they started a new visitor's book specially.
The first signature on the on first page is Gagarin himself (written in his native Cyrillic script of course).
The page includes other interesting signatures from the event - including Howard Florey (society president at the time and Nobel Prizewinner for penicillin), Bernard Lovell (Jodrell Bank director and UK science icon) and Nikolai Kamanin (aviation hero and head of Russian cosmonaut training).
There was also a great stash of photos from the visit, including this one of Gagarin and Howard Florey (Florey was from my home city of Adelaide so gets more blog mentions than he should).
I was also very excited by this one of Gagarin with Isaac Newton's telescope.
Also among the archive items was a copy of the day's programme.
And yes Gagarin had signed it...
The Race for Space album also features a track about the first woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova.
(another great video by the way)
The same visitor book signed by Gagarin was used again for the Tereshkova visit. She is the top signature.
After all this Russian triumph, I then then took J. to see items relating to the American cherry on top - the Apollo lunar landings!
There are numerous souvenirs donated by visiting atsronuats.
Perhaps my favourite relates to Apollo 8 - which is also the subject of my favourite song on the album, The Other Side. Listen to this one if nothing else!!!
In the society archive is this huge picture of the moon's far side, signed by the mission's commander, Frank Borman.
I think it might be this one of the lunar far side (which we never see from Earth). The image is AS08-14-2453.
Also in the archive were two Apollo 15 photos signed by the entire crew - Dave Scott, Jim Irwin and Al Worden.
And just as The Race for Space album ends with an emotive song from the final moon landing, Apollo 17, our video also ended with a photo from Apollo 17.
Harrison Schmitt (the only scientist to walk on the moon) had signed and written a message on this photo showing the Earth peaking past the moon's limb.
And again here is our video of the whole adventure in the archives with J. Willgoose Esq, from Public Service Broadcasting.
Some people will be aware I have a keen interest in Mount Everest.
I've been to base camp twice, making this video during the second trip.
But it many ways it's the mountain's history which fascinates me most.
More recently I took an opportunity to visit the grave of George Everest, after whom the mountain is named.
It was an excuse to talk a little about the mountain's history.
And this brings me to my most recent foray into Everest-arama!
Since starting the video series Objectivity, I've been granted fantastic access to archives at the Royal Society.
(This does not make me special - anyone with a good reason or who asks politely can access items from the society's archives)
On a recent visit I flipped through the catalogues and found three index cards with references to George Everest.
Perhaps the least promising of the three cards was this one.
It says Everest had written a letter to the esteemed scientist John Herschel on 14 October, 1844.
Everest had apparently travelled to the city of York where he hoped to see Herschel at a meeting "but was disappointed to hear he was not there".
Everest assured Herschel of "his friendship and esteem for his work".
All sounds very polite, albeit dull.
But the letter itself made for more interesting reading.
It begins:
"My Dear Sir,
I went to the York Association buoyed up chiefly by the hope that I might have the pleasure of meeting you..."
Pretty much as expected so far.
"and to my infinite disappointment found my journey in so far undertaken in vain"
A little melodramtic, but okay.
But then things get interesting.
"I greatly longed to express to you my regret that there should ever have been the semblance of a cause for disagreement between us, and to offer my hand in token of reconciliation..."
And so begins what essentially is an attempt at a peace offering between two of the biggest names in science.
The letter continues in a manner very praiseworthy and apologetic to Herschel, calling him an "ornament of his country", etc
"... I shall be happy when I next have the pleasure of seeing you to meet you on terms of friendship."
It ends with Everest's signature - how I'd love one of those in my Mount Everest collection! ;)
The letter makes no reference to what caused the problem - and we have no indication if the matter was resolved.
Both men certainly lived long after the letter was written in 1844 (Everest died in 1866, Herschel in 1871).
John Herschel
A possible clue I found was in the book "Mapping an Empire: The Geographical Construction of British India, 1765-1843" by Matthew Edney.
It refers to a man named Thomas Jervis who hoped to succeed Everest as the Surveyor-General of India. It seems Jervis was sending letters and petitions that gave the impression that Everest had resigned.
This caused a "a very public squabble" between the pair, Edney writes.
In reaction to some of Jervis's actions, Everest published materials to air his grievances.
These letters - and the bad blood between Jervis and Everest - certainly came to the attention of London's top scientists, including Herschel.
It is not clear whose side Herschel took. And Edney described the incident as "quite minor in the bigger scheme of scientific politics".
George Everest
And in 1848, four years after Everest's peace letter, it appears John Herschel may have presented Everest with a medal at the Royal Astronomical Society, so perhaps things were resolved?
Peak XV was later named after the Surveyor-General
Clearly this letter is a minor thing between two long-dead men. Something we would write in an email these days and perhaps disregard hours later.
But I still find it intriguing that these things are preserved and give us a tiny glimpse into the human stories behind some of the biggest names in history!
THE FULL LETTER
