Stories 📁 Rivalries 📁 Genius 📁 Tragedies 📁 Discoveries 📁 Mysteries 📖 Chinese Idioms 👔 Ancient Worker About

📁 Rivalries

Famous feuds, competitions, and rivalries between mathematicians

The Eight Mice That Proved Mold Could Cure
👤 Howard Florey
The Eight Mice That Proved Mold Could Cure

In May 1940, Howard Florey and Ernst Chain used eight mice to prove penicillin worked inside a livi…

#penicillin discovery #Howard Florey #antibiotic history #medical breakthrough #Oxford university
The Ghost Atom That Split the Air
👤 Amedeo Avogadro
The Ghost Atom That Split the Air

Discover how Amedeo Avogadro solved a massive chemistry paradox in 1811 by introducing the molecule…

#Amedeo Avogadro #Gay-Lussac law #atomic theory history #molecule discovery #chemistry paradox
How Cavendish Weighed the Earth with Lead Balls
👤 Henry Cavendish
How Cavendish Weighed the Earth with Lead Balls

In 1798, Henry Cavendish used a delicate torsion balance and some lead balls to measure the Earth's…

#Henry Cavendish #torsion balance experiment #weighing the Earth #gravitational constant #18th century science
Boiling Tons of Rock to Catch a Ghostly Glow
👤 Marie Curie
Boiling Tons of Rock to Catch a Ghostly Glow

How Marie Curie boiled tons of pitchblende in a leaky shed for four years to isolate 0.1 gram of ra…

#Marie Curie #discovery of radium #pitchblende ore #radiochemistry history #atomic weight 226
The Dummy Key That Saved the Heart
👤 James Black
The Dummy Key That Saved the Heart

How a simple 'dummy key' hypothesis in the 1960s blocked adrenaline receptors, birthed beta-blocker…

#beta blockers history #James Black pharmacology #competitive inhibition #adrenaline receptor blockade #heart disease treatment origin
Confucius vs. The Hoarder: Why Bookmarks Aren't Skills
👤 Confucius
Confucius vs. The Hoarder: Why Bookmarks Aren't Skills

Confucius meets a modern office hoarder who mistakes bookmarked tutorials for actual learning. Anci…

#confucius modern office #ancient wisdom workplace #digital hoarding humor #learning vs collecting #workplace comedy
Six Moves That Built a Dynasty
👤 Chen Ping
Six Moves That Built a Dynasty

Trapped in Xingyang, Chen Ping used carved wooden rods to map a six-step dependency chain, turning …

#directed acyclic graph #dependency chain #ancient Chinese mathematics #military strategy logic #graph theory history #Chen Ping stratagems
How Math Stopped a War in 585 BC
👤 Thales of Miletus
How Math Stopped a War in 585 BC

Thales of Miletus stopped a war in 585 BC using math. See how geometry predicted an eclipse and for…

#Thales #Ancient Math #Solar Eclipse