Month: January 2024

Discoveries

Helium (He)

The founder of the prestigious magazine ‘Nature’ was Warwickshire-born Sir Norman Lockyer (1836-1920) and its first edition in 1869 includes his description […]

The founder of the prestigious magazine ‘Nature’ was Warwickshire-born Sir Norman Lockyer (1836-1920) and its first edition in 1869 includes his description of his own discovery of the so-called ‘noble’ gas, helium, the year before. Such an achievement was remarkable for a man with no formal scientific education, but rather a thirst for knowledge, a telescope and a spectroscope. He became a member of the Royal Astronomical Society at age 25.

Lockyer was particularly interested in the Sun’s fiery corona and ‘prominences’, which he called the chromosphere. He observed these during solar eclipses and would travel far and wide at great expense and effort to observe as many eclipses as possible. In between times he used his method for blocking out the sunlight by using seven prisms positioned radially on a spectroscope fitted in a refracting telescope.

This enabled Lockyer to discern spectral lines of hydrogen and sodium, along with an unknown element, which he named ‘helium’ after Helios, the sun-god. Helium was later found to exist on Earth as well, albeit in much smaller amounts than in the celestial arena. Lockyer was the Director of the Solar Physics Observatory in 1885-1913 and there are craters named after him on the Moon and Mars.

(Images: Lockyer & his spectroscope both from Wellcome Collection at Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 4.0, solar chromospheric and coronal spectra by Bob Fosbury at Flickr.com / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

24/01/2024
3 min
11 months
229 words

Culture

Tea on the lawn

The British tend to make the most of the limited number of dry, tranquil summer days and, bearing in mind the many […]

The British tend to make the most of the limited number of dry, tranquil summer days and, bearing in mind the many health benefits of being out in the sun, take great pleasure in dining outdoors. This may take the form of a barbecue on the patio, a picnic, tea on the lawn, or even a Royal Garden Party.

‘Afternoon tea’ is a British custom dating from the 1840s, when the new-fangled gas lighting encouraged townsfolk to have dinner at a later hour. The consequent hunger pangs at around 4.30pm were quelled with some tea and cake, biscuits, scones or bread-and-butter. This little ritual soon made its way to the lawn in the summer and although it was apparently a Duchess’s idea, the masses took to it gladly.

Just two decades later, Queen Victoria (1819-1901) was hosting afternoon tea al fresco on a grand scale at Buckingham Palace. These Royal Garden Parties have become a regular feature, with three occurring every May. Originally for the aristocracy only, invitees now include commendable citizens. The game of cricket has incorporated a break for tea into every match (except the short formats) and tea-rooms open up their outdoor seating areas whenever the weather permits.

(Image: Michael Garlick at geograph.org.uk / CC BY-SA 2.0)

10/01/2024
3 min
12 months
211 words

Sport

William Wilson and Water Polo

Water polo was a sport just waiting to burst onto the scene, considering its rapid spread, not only in Britain but also […]

Water polo was a sport just waiting to burst onto the scene, considering its rapid spread, not only in Britain but also abroad, although the International Swimming Hall of Fame took until 2003 to honour the inventor, William Wilson (1844-1912). Born in London and raised in Glasgow, Wilson was a keen advocate of daily open-air swimming, even in icy conditions, and as well as teaching swimming he was involved in the administration of swimming clubs in the Glasgow area.

A bizarre forerunner called ‘aquatic football’ was apparently attempted in the early 1870s, whereby swimmers had to use their feet to kick the ball, but when asked to think of a crowd-pleasing event for an annual swimming gala at River Dee in 1877, ‘aquatic hand-ball’ was Wilson’s solution.

Water polo, as it later became known, is said to be the sport requiring the most strength, but even Wilson realised that it was too difficult to control the ball in river currents so he moved it to indoor pools in the following years. As well as formulating the rules of water polo, Wilson was a pioneer of techniques for swim races, such as starts and turns at the end of a length, and for life-saving.

(Top image: David Sanborn at Flickr.com / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

01/01/2024
3 min
12 months
216 words

Quoting Neil Oliver...

I love Britain more than anywhere else in the world. With all my heart I declare that those of us born here, or who have made a home here by choice, are the luckiest, most blessed of all people. I am British. I will always be British.