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Posted by: Jennifer Harbster
There is scarcely any subject that has so many practical and scientific aspects as the subject of color (Henry LeFavour, Elementary Color, 1895:p1) There are many ways to study color*. We can trace the history of color pigments, the development of color chemistry, the effect of color on our psyche, and the perception of color. …
Posted in: Chemistry, Favorites From the Fifth Floor
Posted by: Ellen Terrell
This post features and advertisement for Victrolas.
Posted in: Advertising, Business
Posted by: Jennifer Harbster
Pluto has become one of our most favorite bodies in the solar system, perhaps gaining increased appreciation after it was demoted from a full-sized planet to dwarf planet in 2006 and thus decreasing our solar system planet count to eight planets. A significant portion of Pluto’s mass is icy material and so it is often referred …
Posted in: Aeronautics/Astronautics, Astronomy/Mathematics, Lunchtime Lectures and Videos
Posted by: Jennifer Harbster
Today’s guest blog post is by science fiction and fantasy author Fran Wilde, who will be visiting the Library on Dec. 3 to talk about “Flights of Fantasy and Fact: Man-made Wings in Literature and History”. Wilde is also a technology consultant and former engineering and science writer. Her short fiction has appeared in publications …
Posted in: Aeronautics/Astronautics, Guest Blog Posts, Inventions, Lunchtime Lectures and Videos
Posted by: Jennifer Harbster
In late 2007 the Dawn mission spacecraft launched and began the 1.8 billion mile journey to the giant asteroid Vesta, which it reached in 2011. It was the first spacecraft to orbit a main-belt asteroid. In March 2015 it completed another 990 million miles to the dwarf planet Ceres and was the first spacecraft to …
Posted in: Aeronautics/Astronautics, Astronomy/Mathematics, Lunchtime Lectures and Videos
Posted by: Ellen Terrell
This is the cover of a recruitment booklet – Stenographers and Typists, Uncle Sam Needs You – published by the Army Service Forces in 1943. It provides an interesting window into Washington, D.C. during World War II. As they wrote: Uncle Sam does need you – badly. This is an opportunity for You, and an …
Posted in: Business, Washington and the Capitol
Posted by: Jennifer Harbster
Today’s guest post is by ST&B’s upcoming speaker Glenn “Marty” Stein, a maritime and polar historian who will be at the Library on October 29 to talk about his recent book “Discovering the North-West Passage: The Four-Year Arctic Odyssey of H.M.S. Investigator and the McClure Expedition” (McFarland & Co, 2015). Stein has researched maritime and …
Posted in: Biography, Guest Blog Posts, Lunchtime Lectures and Videos
Posted by: Ellen Terrell
Photographs and description of the architecture of the John Adams Building.
Posted in: John Adams Building
Posted by: Jennifer Harbster
The first exoplanets, or extrasolar planets, were definitively discovered in the 1990s, although the idea of other worlds like ours goes back to the ancient Greeks, and their existence had been theorized by Giordano Bruno in the 16th century and Isaac Newton in the 18th. The first direct images of exoplanets were produced in 2008. …
Posted in: Aeronautics/Astronautics, Astronomy/Mathematics, Guest Blog Posts, Lunchtime Lectures and Videos