Whale catches runaway train.
Miscellany
In 1745 a German cleric by the name of Ewald Georg von Kleist tried to pass an electrical current into a bottle through a nail and was shocked for his efforts. From this accident came the Leyden jar, an electrical condenser that allows electricity to be stored. The following year the abbé Jean-Antoine Nollet discharged a Leyden jar in front of Louis XV, sending electrical current through 180 Royal Guards, who jumped at the sensation.
Whenever there is excess, an ax remedies it.
—Sumerian proverbMore TechnologyGo to Issue Page >
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In the Beginning, There Were Taxes
On the historical inevitability of paying the government. More
The World in Time
Nathaniel Rich
Lewis H. Lapham speaks with the author of Second Nature: Scenes from a World Remade. More
Lapham's Daily
In the Beginning, There Were Taxes
Roundtable