The mother of the atomic bomb who never won a Nobel Prize

There is a memorable scene in “Oppenheimer,” the blockbuster film about the building of the atomic bomb, in which Luis Alvarez, a physicist at the University of California, Berkeley, is reading a newspaper while getting a haircut. Suddenly, Alvarez leaps from his seat and sprints down the road to find his colleague, the theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer.“Oppie! Oppie!” he shouts. “They’ve done it. Hahn and Strassmann in Germany. They split the uranium nucleus. They split the atom.”The reference is to two German chemists, Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann, who in 1939 unknowingly reported a demonstration of nuclear fission, the splintering of an atom into lighter elements. The discovery was key to the Manhattan Project, the top-secret American effort led by Oppenheimer to develop the first nuclear weapons.Except the scene is not entirely accurate. A major player is missing from the portrayal: Lise Meitner, a physicist who developed the theory of nuclear fission. (via the NYT)

Capitol Hill had a mystery soda machine with buttons that dispensed unusual flavors

The Capitol Hill mystery soda machine was a vending machine in Capitol Hill, Seattle, notable for its "mystery" buttons which dispensed unusual drink flavors. It is unknown who restocked the machine; this originally caused the development of a local legend that the machine was haunted. The machine reportedly operated from the late 1990s until its unexplained disappearance in 2018. It was located in front of Broadway Locksmith on East John Street in Seattle, Washington. It was a 1970s-made Coca-Cola-branded unit, but dispensed drinks from various manufacturers. A drink could be ordered using one of the "mystery" buttons and some of the dispensed drinks were unusual varieties which were no longer being manufactured. Broadway Locksmith provided electricity to power the machine but employees said they didn't stock the machine. (via Wikipedia)

A 20-minute “In Living Color” special from 1992 paved the way for the modern Super Bowl half-time show

The Super Bowl half-time show is a big gig, even for megastars like Beyonce, Madonna, Prince, and now Usher. But it wasn’t always so. In 1992, the sketch comedy show In Living Color lured viewers away from the big game with their own half-time show airing on Fox. Twenty million viewers flipped the channel to watch a 20-minute special that poked fun at the game. It featured young comedians including Jim Carey and the Wayans Brothers. Prior to 1992, Super Bowl halftime shows were all-around wholesome events that featured marching bands and other community-centered ensembles. The Fox channel was also in its fledgling period, finding ways to counter-program in response to the other big networks of the time, including ABC, CBS, and NBC. CBS lost about 10 ratings points and more than a fifth of its viewership during the half-time special. So that was definitely a threat. And that boosted Fox’s popularity tenfold. (via KCRW)

Hi everyone! Mathew Ingram here. I am able to continue writing this newsletter in part because of your financial help and support, which you can do either through my Patreon or by upgrading your subscription to a monthly contribution. I enjoy gathering all of these links and sharing them with you, but it does take time, and your support makes it possible for me to do that. I also write a weekly newsletter of technology analysis called The Torment Nexus.

The former US embassy building in Turkey was acquired because of a poker game

The Palazzo Corpi is a 19th-century palazzo in Istanbul, Turkey. The property was bought by the United States government in 1907 to serve as the American embassy in Turkey, and from 1937 to 2003 the Palazzo Corpi housed the Consulate General of the United States of America in Turkey. The US legation to the Ottoman Empire began leasing the Palazzo Corpi from the Corpi family in 1882. The structure was purchased outright by John George Alexander Leishman in 1907, who was at the time the ambassador to Turkey. Leishman bought the palazzo using 28,000 liras of his own money on the assumption that he would be reimbursed. However, the government refused to compensate Leishman, considering the purchase to be a personal expense. So Leishman invited a number of members of Congress to a party at which a poker game was played. While playing one hand of poker, Leishman bet some of his competitors that, if he won, the government would reimburse him for his acquisition. He won. (via Wikipedia)

In 1912 they discovered a secret pneumatic subway underneath New York City

In February 1912, a small group of officials arrived at City Hall Park on Manhattan’s Broadway street. The men gathered at one grassy corner of the park grounds, where a long-neglected iron grating protected the entrance to a seemingly unremarkable ventilation shaft. The grille was pried from its resting place, and the men descended one by one into the cavity. About twenty feet below the pavement the group emerged into an eight-foot-wide brickwork tube. The sturdily-constructed tunnel was a relic from the years following the Civil War, and it had remained virtually forgotten beneath the streets of New York since its main entrance was sealed sometime around 1880. As the men explored, they found the tunnel in remarkably good condition in spite of its age. When they reached the end of the tube, the men happened upon the wrecked remains of a unique mechanism for transport: a pair of carriages from America’s first subway, the experimental and ill-fated Pneumatic Transit System. (via Damn Interesting)

The incredible dancing Nicholas brothers

Acknowledgements: I find a lot of these links myself, but I also get some from other places that I rely on as "serendipity engines," such as The Morning News from Rosecrans Baldwin and Andrew Womack, Jodi Ettenberg's Curious About Everything, Dan Lewis's Now I Know, Robert Cottrell and Caroline Crampton's The Browser, Clive Thompson's Linkfest and Why Is This Interesting by Noah Brier and Colin Nagy. If you come across something you think should be included here, feel free to email me at mathew @ mathewingram dot com