Infinitesimus

Across the world since the dawn of humankind, keeping track of the time was one of the most important things that could be done. Ever since the creation of calendars and clocks, timekeeping has become more and more accurate, and since January 1st 1970, there’s been another clock in use counting off the seconds since, known as Unix time.

Used in Unix-like operating systems, like the Mac OS, and in various file formats, Unix time is yet another method to keep track of time, and like celebrating the eve of a New Year, enthusiasts also celebrate milestones in Unix time.

With ten digits to represent time, the first great milestone was the Unix billennium, 1,000,000,000 seconds, reached at 01:46:40 UTC on September 9th 2001. On February 13th 2009, Unix time ticked over to 1,234,567,890 and in the year 2033, on May 18th, we’ll have reached the second billennium, 2,000,000,000 seconds.

And then we’ll hit a snag akin to the Y2K problem. Just like ticking over from 1999 to 1900, older systems using 32bit Unix time will tick over from 2038 to 1901. This will no doubt cause some problems should you still be using old systems by then, but, as we already head into the 64bit era, Unix time will be able to eliminate the Y2.038K problem entirely, ticking over for longer than the Universe has thought to have existed, reaching the year 292,277,0256,596 before encountering a problem on December 4th at precisely 15:30:08.

Hopefully by then we’ll be using yet another time keeping device…

Image: UNIX Time ticking over to the billennium, Chlor/Antaya

The crew of the USS Enterprise did quite a bit on their five year mission to boldly go where no man has gone before, with the original Star Trek series airing for the first time on NBC.

The first episode, The Man Trap, saw Captain Kirk and the crew fight off a shapeshifter with a love of salt, and while met with mixed reviews it kicked off the original series which went on a 79 episode run over three seasons before being cancelled in June 1969, though it wouldn’t be the end of Star Trek, thanks in part to syndication and reruns, fueling fans desire for more.

More would of course come and decades later new Star Trek content across all forms of media is still produced and watched by millions.

Native to Australia, Tasmania and New Guinea, the Thylacine or Tasmanian Tiger, can trace it’s evolutionary past back over tens of millions of years, but the last known death of the species came in a zoo, as a victim of neglect.

Nicknamed Benjamin - though evidence suggested that not only was he actually a female, but that she wasn’t ever called Benjamin - the last known Thylacine joined Hobart Zoo in 1933. While a number were held in captivity no efforts were made to breed them, perhaps due to the idea that they were pests more than predators, and even had reports of them as blood drinkers, though supporting evidence is non-existent.

Benjamin died has a result of the extreme heat of daytime and the extreme cold of the night, while being locked outside her sheltered sleeping quarters. Six years before this death was the last confirmed death in the wild, shot by a farmer.

With some unconfirmed sightings in the decades since Benjamins death in 1936, the conclusion is that the species is now extinct, and September 7th has now become National Threatened Species Day in Australia, highlighting the importance of conservation.

Image: Last known Thylacine, Benjamin, in Hobart Zoo, 1933

Portugese explorer Ferdinand Magellan had one goal on his last journey, and five ships with which to achieve it. The Trinidad, San Antonio, Concepción, Victoria and Santiago would set sail with 270 crew members on August 10th 1519, tasked with finding a Western route to the Spice Islands in Indonesia.

Leaving Spain and heading down the coast of South America saw a number of troubles. First, an unsuccessful mutiny, then the loss of the Santiago, wrecked in a storm while it sailed down around the coast, while the other four ships began their journey through what is now the Strait of Magellan. The crew survived, some even managing to cross land to inform Magellan.

The captain of the San Antonio decided enough was enough and turned around to go back to Spain, leaving three ships to sail through towards the Pacific ocean, a year after they had left Spain.

A few months of sailing across the Pacific brought them to their destination, where Magellan was convinced by local leaders to help them fight off their enemies. On April 27th 1521, he brought a small attack force into the Battle of Mactan, where he would be brought down with a bamboo spear and killed shortly afterwards.

With so many casualties, the decision was made to abandon and burn the Concepción and continue home on the Trinidad and the Victoria, with the historical decision to keep heading west, pushing towards Africa and a circumnavigation, rather than back across the Pacific.

However, the Trinidad was damaged and it was decided that it would take the Eastern route back across the Pacific, but was soon captured by Portugese sailors and destroyed in a storm.

The Victoria continued west, though the crew would be cut through starvation and offloading in an attempt to return home quicker, and in September, just over three years after setting sail, the remaining crew under the command of Juan Sebastian Elcano became the first people to circumnavigate the Earth via ship - and it was never their intention to do so.

Voyager 1 launches just before 1pm on the final Titan IIIE rocket system, a few weeks after Voyager 2 lifts off using the same launch system.

Though it’s first launch in 1974 ended with a malfunction, it’s payload being the Sphinx test satellite, the Titan IIIE would see the successful launches of the Helios probes, both Viking probes and the two Voyager spacecraft, arguably some of the most important missions to have been conducted.

If you’re wondering why Voyager 2 was launched before Voyager 1, it’s trajectory to the outer planets and beyond was longer, such that the Voyager 1 launched two weeks later would effectively overtake it’s sister and arrive at Jupiter first.

Image: Launch of Voyager 1, NASA

Discovered by a team of chemists at Rice University in 1985, Buckerminsterfullerene, perhaps better known as C₆₀, was the first known fullerene, a shell of carbon atoms arranged much like a football.

Named after the designs of American engineer Buckminster Fuller, Buckminsterfullerene is the most commonly occurring fullerene in nature, being found in soot for example, and other fullerene shapes have been discovered in the depths of space.

One of the most famous shapes is the carbon nanotube, whose potential applications could revolutionise all manner of areas, from structural engineering to electronics.

Fullerenes have a number of properties, including being soluble and superconductive, and they are of interest to a number of different fields of study to see how useful they could be.

Image: Depiction of C₆₀, Michael Ströck

Motorist Malcolm Campbell had held a number of land and water speed records during the 1920s and 30s, with his final record making him the first person to reach speeds of more than 300 miles per hour in an automobile.

The Campbell-Railton Blue Bird had managed 272mph at Daytona Beach in 1933, but issues including wheel spin meant much of the top performance of the car was lost. A redesign and mechanical improvement all over would push the vehicle further, and by March 1935 it wasn’t the vehicle that was the problem, but the sand at Daytona Beach being just too uneven for top speeds.

Relocating to Utah, to the famous Bonneville Salt Flats, Campbell was able to try again, pushing the car to 301.337mph (484.955km/h), setting his final land speed record.

Image: Blue Bird at Daytona Beach, 1935, R H LeSesene

In the middle of the night at a bakery in Pudding Lane, with the family of Thomas Farriner sleeping upstairs, a fire breaks out. Soon spreading and awakening the family, there was no way out but through the window, towards the next house, and it was here where the first victim of the Great Fire of London was recorded, a maidservant too frightened to attempt the escape.

The neighbours tried to put out the fire but got nowhere, with parish constables deciding that the only effective method would be to demolish the surrounding houses and stop the fire in it’s tracks - of course the householders objected, and the issue was brought to the Lord Mayor, Thomas Bloodworth, who had the authority to decide what to do. With raging fires and pleas of firefighters to demolish, Bloodworth did not give permission to demolish on the grounds that many of the buildings were rented, and the owners could not be found.

History would soon record what happened afterwards. The fire raged for three more days and destroyed the homes of an estimated 70,000 inhabitants of the City - damage that could have lead to a complete rebuilding of the City of London. Instead of a proposed grid-like layout, London return to what it liked, winding twisting streets and densely packed buildings, only this time ones not built with so much wood. 

Widely regarded as the first science fiction film, Georges Méliès’ A Trip to the Moon was released in France.

Based around the works of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells, the film depicts six astronauts shot towards the Moon by a giant cannon, spending the night under the stars, fighting off aliens and splashing back down to Earth.

For the time it was one of the most popular films available, and continues to be ranked in lists of the best films of all time, but for Méliès it wasn’t without it’s problems.

He had intended to release the film to new audiences in the United States, but technicians working for Thomas Edison had secretly copied the film and released it themselves, and Méliès would eventually go bankrupt, but arguably not because of piracy - a tendency to explore visual effects rather than addressing the plot of his movies may have lead to his downfall, something of which modern cinema is all too aware…

The production of Le Voyage dans la lune was covered in the final episode of the TV series From the Earth to the Moon (a must-watch series for anyone interested in the history of the Apollo program), cutting between the Moon as seen by film pioneers of the early 1900s and the final Apollo mission making it a reality just 70 years later.