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Friday, June 3, 2011

There may be life on the Moon!...but the atmosphere's lousy

The news from 89 years ago...I guess it really isn't "news" nor is it even remotely correct. But I was going through my collection of Portuguese-American Weekly's and this leaped out at me. Seriously, it was just another odd magazine in a box of old papers. I couldn't read a word of it, until I came to the English section in the middle, and found all sorts of interesting news bites. I was really thinking that in 1922, information like this was similar to any tabloid today; just printed to get eyes and pennies to purchase and all of it junk science and made up "wow factor" facts. 

Then I looked up Dr Archenhold, and low and behold....
There he is with his creation, the Treptow Observatory. This observatory was built from monies raised by Archenhold and donated by Andrew Carnegie.  The fascinating fact was that Albert Einstein gave his first public speech about his Theory of Relativity here in 1915, and the 2 men developed a friendship. This friendship was eventually compromised by Archenhold's interest in showmanship and Einstein's destiny to be the father of all Geeks (not that there's anything wrong with that). Archenhold really wanted to introduce the public to the wonders of Astronomy and science in general. He died in 1939 just before his family was imprisoned by the Nazi's and killed in a concentration camp. The Observatory survives today, and in 1989 was re-named after it's founder. You can read more about Archenhold here. And you can read more about the Einstein connection here.

1 comment:

  1. I've just finished reading Jules Verne's "From The Earth To The Moon" written in 1865. It's uncannily similar to what really occurred almost a century later. Science had a little trouble keeping up with fiction.

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