Daily Content Archive

Word of the Day
hoodwink Definition: (verb) To deceive or swindle by deception. Synonyms: trick, fool, cheat, con Usage: You don't understand that what imposes on common folk would never hoodwink an editor.

Article of the Day

High-Speed Photography High-speed photography allows fast moving phenomena to be recorded with precision and clarity. While in 1948 high-speed photography was defined as a set of at least 3 photographs taken by a camera capable of recording a minimum of 128 frames per second, today's equipment can shoot as many as 1 million frames per second. High-speed photography was first put to practical use in 1878 to investigate whether or not a trotting horse ever has all 4 feet off the ground at once. What did the images show? More...

This Day in History

Lumière Brothers' First Film Screening for a Paying Public Audience (1895) In 1882, French inventor Louis Lumière developed a method of making photographic plates. By 1894, he and his brother August were producing 15 million plates a year. They worked on improving Edison's kinetoscope, and, in 1895, patented their combination movie camera and projector, the Cinématographe. Their 46-second film La Sortie des ouvriers de l'usine Lumière is considered the first motion picture and was one of 10 included in their first public film screening. What is its subject? More...

Today's Birthday

John von Neumann (1903) Neumann was a Hungarian-born American mathematician. He emigrated to the US in 1930 to teach at Princeton University and was among the original faculty of its Institute for Advanced Study. He solved one of David Hilbert's 23 theoretical problems, collaborated on an algebraic ring with profound applications in quantum physics, and helped develop the atomic bomb. He later made major contributions to the development of computers. What branch of applied mathematics did he help found? More...

Quotation of the Day
Why is it that when you awake to the world of realities you nearly always feel, sometimes very vividly, that the vanished dream has carried with it some enigma which you have failed to solve? Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881)

Idiom of the Day
long-run — (used before a noun) Involving, maturing after, or lasting for a long period of time. More...

Today's Holiday

Russian Winter Festival Moscow (2024) The Russian Winter Festival is a festival of arts and a time of holiday partying largely in Moscow, Russia, and somewhat less grandly in other cities of the former Soviet Union. In Moscow, there are circuses, performances of Russian fables for children, and other special theatrical presentations as well as traditional outdoor parties with troika (sled) rides, folk games, and dancing around fir trees. On New Year's Eve, children wait for gifts from "Grandfather Frost"—who wears a red robe and black boots and has a white beard—and his helper, Snow Girl. More...