THE ULTIMATE
On this day, 18th April 1955, Albert Einstein the German born physicist died.
Einstein is considered the most famous scientist winning the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1921, and his Theory of Relativity is a key aspect of modern Physics. His formula 'E=MC squared' is probably the most famous equation in the world. He became a Swiss citizen, and also a US citizen after the Nazi takeover of Germany, knowing that his Jewish background meant he couldn't return to Germany in that era. His fame is in part due to his academic brilliance, with him being seeing as the archetypal genius, as well as his instantly recognisable looks with his seemingly electrically charged white hair of his later years. His theories including the warping of space and time, and the impact of gravitational waves and black holes. He was influential in getting the US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to develop nuclear weapons, for fear Nazi Germany was already on that path. An act that deeply troubled him later, due to his pacifist views, but he was glad the Nazis didn't manage to gain them. He loved the freedom of the USA, but was critical of the racism in US society that he saw being passed on from one generation to the next and said he would refuse to keep quiet about it.
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Today is the 50th Anniversary of the return to Earth of the sticken NASA spacecraft mission Apollo 13.
The crew of Apollo 13 - Lovell, Swigert and Haise - experienced an explosion in their Supply Module's oxygen tanks as they headed to orbit the moon, and reported to Mission Control - 'Houston we've had a problem'. The three astronauts were left in space, reducing their energy consumption and preventing their carbon dioxide levels climbing too high, whilst NASA officials in Houston tried to figure out ways to get offset the problem and return the astronauts to Earth - by only using what the astronauts had on board. Whilst the astronauts hung in space, their fate uncertain the world united below praying for their safe return. NASA worked out how the astronauts could create a do-it-yourself carbon dioxide filtration unit, by ripping up manuals and other equipment and using tape. This was one of only a series of problems the crew faced as their moon landing was cancelled and they readied for re-entry into the Eart's atmosphere - and the splashdown in the ocean. The mission events were turned into a major film in the 1990s directed by Ron Howard, with film stars Tom Hanks and Kevin Bacon - the film altered the report of the explosion to Mission Control to the now poularly quoted 'Houston We Have a Problem', and created the phrase 'Failure is not an Option', which Gene Kranz the Nasa Flight Director for both Apollo X1 and XIII used as the title for his biography in 2000 - though he didn't use the phrase at the time, it did sum up what the atmosphere of the NASA teams. Alexander Graham Bell the inventor of the telephone first transmitted speech electronically to his laboratory assistant Thomas Watson on March 10th 1876. He had filed the patent for an instrument to transmit speech, but hadn't yet developed it, so this moment was the beginning of Bell's development of the telephone. He wrote in his lab notes that he summoned Watson with the words ' Mr. Watson - come here - I want to see you.'
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