This week in 1897, lawmakers in the state of Indiana almost added a mathematical shortcut to state law, with a bill that would have set the wrong value for the number pi.
Apollo 14 may be best known today for the moment when astronaut Alan Shepard hit golf balls on the surface of the moon, but the mission also gave us the “moon trees.”
Next time we drop everything to react to something that's just happened, we should have a name for what we're doing, and if naming those moments after Roger Ebert keeps his voice in the mix a little longer, so much the better.
