Monday, October 30, 2006

So fond of young trees


Fantasy II
Originally uploaded by jhhymas.
And soft colors at twilight.
Tonight I tried to explain to my daughter and grandson what Marie Curie actually did and why she was my childhood hero. Wikipedia imforms me that some recent forensics demonstrated that Marie probably got her excess radiation from running the World War I X-ray ambulances she set up with her daughter. Before the end of the war the two had trained 150 women to run the equipment and do the math to show where the bullet or shrapnel fragment was. The conclusion was that she was a careful scientist with the radium. Her clothes and notebooks will still set off Geiger counters after almost 100 years. She certainly had drive and focus.
I learned quite a bit by clicking on links and trying to explain to the others. My science education was a long time ago and not very thorough. At the same time we were trying to help my grandson study for his Beowulf test, when he had forgotten his text. Wikipedia is surprisingly good on kennings, too! It was a very pleasant family evening.

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