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WITandWISDOM(tm) - April 23, 2001 ~~~~~~~ THOUGHTS: Do you have some tough problems to deal with? Cheer up! As long as they're not the identical problems you had a year ago, you must be making progress. Source: Bits & Pieces, July 25, 1992, Copyright (c) Economic Press, Inc., www.epinc.com ~~~~~~~ SPECIAL THOUGHTS: Thomas A. Edison started from humble beginnings, but before he finished his career as an inventor, his dogged determination to find answers and solve problems gained the respect of scientists throughout the world. One of them was the famous English physicist, John Tyndall. Tyndall had many achievements, but the one we like best is that he discovered why the sky is blue. (His experiments showed that the sky's blue color results from the scattering of the suns rays by molecules in the atmosphere.) Tyndall was called to testify in a patent suit involving Edison. The lawsuit was concerned with experiments by Edison to find ways of subdividing electric currents. Tyndall was well aware that a step that seems obvious after it is taken is frequently obscure before the slow, painful processes of learning and experimentation point the way. He testified that he had followed the same course taken by Edison and had stopped before the final step, which now seemed so clear. One of the lawyers demanded of Tyndall, "When the next step was so obvious, why did you not take it?" "Because," said the physicist, "I was not Thomas A. Edison." Source: Bits & Pieces, April 2, 1992, Copyright (c) Economic Press, Inc., www.epinc.com ~~~~~~~ THIS & THAT: KITTY'S BEDTIME PRAYER Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray this cushy life to keep. I pray for toys that look like mice, And sofa cushions, soft and nice. For grocery bags where I can hide, Just like a tiger, crouched inside! I pray for gourmet Kitty snacks, And someone nice to scratch my back. For window sills all warm and bright, For shadows to explore at night. I pray I'll always stay real cool, And keep the secret feline rule. To NEVER tell a human that... The world is really ruled by CATS! Author Unknown Source: Kitty's Daily Mews, Copyright (c) 1997-2001 All rights reserved worldwide, mailto:kittysubs@katscratch.com?subject=Sub_KDM ~~~~~~~ KEEP SMILING: BACHELOR SALAD 1 head lettuce 1 bottle salad dressing (any kind, not Roquefort) Wash head of lettuce over sink, pour dressing intact on head of lettuce, eat over sink; no cleaning, no dishes, no silverware! Source: The Funnies, andychaps_the-funnies- subscribe@egroups.com ~~~~~~~ TRIVIA: Why are pole-top transformers used? When an electric current flows through a wire, the wire heats up, thus, the greater the current flow, the more heat produced. This heating is useful in toasters and hot water systems, but when it happens in power lines, it represents a loss in revenue to the power company. The longer the power line, the greater the loss due to heating. To help reduce this loss to a minimum, the power company "steps up" the voltage with a transformer at the power plant, simultaneously reducing the current flow, and consequently the heat loss in the power lines. This stepped up voltage (which can be many thousand volts), is much higher than can be conveniently used in homes. When the high voltage reaches the consumer after its cross-country journey of perhaps hundreds of miles, it is "stepped down" to a more convenient voltage at a sub-station, then stepped down again (120 V in the US, 220 V in Europe) at the pole-top transformer; all of the houses in a street may be supplied with electricity from this one transformer. More about transformer operation: http://www.ece.umr.edu/areas/power/electric.htm Source: Cool Fact of the Day features.learningkingdom.com/fact/ |