Philosophy
Not much is ever said about Thomas Watson...Alexander Graham Bell's assistant. And today is Watson's birthday.
The Writer's Almanac...
It's the birthday of Thomas Watson, born in Salem, Massachusetts (1854). He was the assistant to Alexander Graham Bell, and helped him invent the telephone, although he never demanded credit. He was on the receiving end of the first telephone call: Bell said, "Watson, come here. I want to see you."
Bell was a professor at Boston University, and he was looking for help building a new kind of telegraph. He hired the 20-year-old Watson from a machine shop in Boston. The two men set up a secret lab in a Salem cellar to work on their new invention. Watson fine-tuned the device and invented the ringer, the ability to "hang up" the phone when it wasn't being used, and some early switchboards.
He worked with Bell for seven years, and then resigned, taking his royalty money and looking for a new adventure. He opened his own machine shop, building engines for small ships. By 1901, he was running the biggest shipyard in the country. When the company ousted him, he went to work in mining, evaluating ore deposits, and he discovered a new passion: the stage. He joined a Shakespeare company, starting with bit parts and working his way up to bigger roles.
He came full circle in 1915, when he and Bell were invited to place the first transcontinental telephone call from New York to San Francisco.
Thomas Watson [Wikipedia]
- Sherlock Holmes And Chemistry
"Sherlock Holmes knew chemistry" by James F. O’Brien April 8th, 2013 Oxford University Press Sir Arthur Conan Doyle claimed that he wrote the Sherlock Holmes stories while waiting in his medical office for the patients who never came. When this...
- Watson--more
"Watson’s a Kindle, humans are iPads" February 22nd, 2011 REUTERS I missed the first and last days of IBM Watson’s assault on humanity, played out innocently on a game show. But Tuesday’s edition of Jeopardy alone was as demoralizing for me as...
- Watson Again
Whoops...wrong Watson! IBM's "Watson" on Jeopardy this Fall ...
- Rosalind Franklin...x-ray Diffraction Drama
Rosalind Franklin July 25th, 1920 to April 16th, 1958 Rosalind Franklin was an English scientist who contributed to the discovery of the molecular structure of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), a constituent of chromosomes that serves to encode genetic information....
- Galileo's Unilateral Myopia/creeping Angle Closure Glaucoma
"One of the "errors" that Galileo made...is that he believed Saturn was not perfectly round but may have had an irregular, inflated side." So postulates Paolo Galluzzi the director of the Museum of History and Science in Florence. He and Peter Watson...
Philosophy
Neither Emma Watson, Dr. Watson [Sherlock Holmes] nor "Jeopardy" Watson, but Thomas A. Watson
Not much is ever said about Thomas Watson...Alexander Graham Bell's assistant. And today is Watson's birthday.
The Writer's Almanac...
It's the birthday of Thomas Watson, born in Salem, Massachusetts (1854). He was the assistant to Alexander Graham Bell, and helped him invent the telephone, although he never demanded credit. He was on the receiving end of the first telephone call: Bell said, "Watson, come here. I want to see you."
Bell was a professor at Boston University, and he was looking for help building a new kind of telegraph. He hired the 20-year-old Watson from a machine shop in Boston. The two men set up a secret lab in a Salem cellar to work on their new invention. Watson fine-tuned the device and invented the ringer, the ability to "hang up" the phone when it wasn't being used, and some early switchboards.
He worked with Bell for seven years, and then resigned, taking his royalty money and looking for a new adventure. He opened his own machine shop, building engines for small ships. By 1901, he was running the biggest shipyard in the country. When the company ousted him, he went to work in mining, evaluating ore deposits, and he discovered a new passion: the stage. He joined a Shakespeare company, starting with bit parts and working his way up to bigger roles.
He came full circle in 1915, when he and Bell were invited to place the first transcontinental telephone call from New York to San Francisco.
Thomas Watson [Wikipedia]
- Sherlock Holmes And Chemistry
"Sherlock Holmes knew chemistry" by James F. O’Brien April 8th, 2013 Oxford University Press Sir Arthur Conan Doyle claimed that he wrote the Sherlock Holmes stories while waiting in his medical office for the patients who never came. When this...
- Watson--more
"Watson’s a Kindle, humans are iPads" February 22nd, 2011 REUTERS I missed the first and last days of IBM Watson’s assault on humanity, played out innocently on a game show. But Tuesday’s edition of Jeopardy alone was as demoralizing for me as...
- Watson Again
Whoops...wrong Watson! IBM's "Watson" on Jeopardy this Fall ...
- Rosalind Franklin...x-ray Diffraction Drama
Rosalind Franklin July 25th, 1920 to April 16th, 1958 Rosalind Franklin was an English scientist who contributed to the discovery of the molecular structure of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), a constituent of chromosomes that serves to encode genetic information....
- Galileo's Unilateral Myopia/creeping Angle Closure Glaucoma
"One of the "errors" that Galileo made...is that he believed Saturn was not perfectly round but may have had an irregular, inflated side." So postulates Paolo Galluzzi the director of the Museum of History and Science in Florence. He and Peter Watson...