Stamps: 20th Century Inventions

Here are my contributions for today's theme at See It On A Postcard.

The stamp on the left was issued on 13 October 2011 under the theme, At Home in Germany: German Inventions. Among these 3 objects, the MP3 player qualifies for the theme. MP3 is an acronym for an audio coding format that was developed and enhanced mostly in the 20th century.

On the right , we have the Schmidt camera or telescope. It was invented in 1930 by the German-Estonian optician Bernhard Schmidt. The stamp was issued by Latvia in 2 April 2009.

~maria

Marie Curie's Day

US-1821803, Sender: Amy
Sent: 16 Aug 2012 from Louisville, KY
Received: 16 Oct 2012, Traveled 13,529 km in 61 days

The Philippines' medical physicists community is joining the world in celebrating the first International Day of Medical Physics. The date is 7 November 2013, birthday of Marie Sklodowska-Curie. She's a Polish scientist, whom with her husband Pierre, won the 1903 Nobel Prize for Physics for the isolation of radium and polonium. In 1911, she became the first person to receive a second Nobel Prize, for further research into the properties of radium.

We're doing two programs for the celebration. First we had unveiling of portraits of the Pillars of Medical Physics in the Philippines on 7 November. Then tomorrow, we'll have a colloquium on radiation protection and safety. We're currently experiencing the strength of the super typhoon Haiyan. Hopefully tomorrow, the weather will be better and that we can have another happy photo like the ones we had yesterday.

I'm off to bed for now as it's gonna be a long and busy Saturday for me and my colleagues. I'm on the scientific committee. There's a high chance that my committee-mates won't be around ... 1 is stranded at fieldwork because of the typhoon, and another 1 is strapped to a wheelchair due to a recent ACL surgery. Wish me luck! 

But oh, before I finally sign out for tonight, happy Postcard Friendship Friday folks! I wish us all many nice postcards to view and a great weather for the weekend!

~maria

Nobel Laureates in Chemistry & Physics

Petrus Josephus Wilhelmus Debije, a Dutch-American physicist and physical chemist, Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1936.

Melvin Calvin, an American Chemist, Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1961.

Frits Zernike, a Dutch physicist, Nobel Prize for Physics in 1953.

Maria Goeppert Mayer, a German-American physicist, Nobel Prize for Physics in 1963.

The theme this week for Viridian's Sunday Stamps is Industry, interpreted broadly. I honestly had to look up the meaning of industry -- The Merriam-Webster online defined it as noun, the process of making products by using machinery and factories. I decided to feature scientists, more specifically Nobel laureates for this theme. Their discoveries are the core concepts of many processes in production of almost everything in factories. 

I am a physicist in profession but whenever I read about the works of other scientists, I am ashamed to call myself one... much respect and admiration for their brilliant minds!

~maria

Albert Einstein: Self-Portrait

Albert Einstein, c. mid-1920's
Photograph courtesy of American Institute of Physics - Niels Bohr Laboratory
US-1897546, Sender: Gina, Sent: 3 Oct 2012 from Williamsburg, Virginia
Received: 17 Dec 2012, Traveled 13,972 km in 75 days

"One doesn't need to understand the world, it's enough to find one's way around it."
DE-1388891, Sender: Alare, Sent: 21 May 2012 from Cologne, Germany
Received: 8 June 2012, Traveled 10, 339 km in 18 days

Mass-Energy Equivalence
FI-1544668, Sender: Plp, Sent: 22 Sep 2012 from Espoo, Finland
Received: 5 Oct 2012, Traveled 8,952 km in 12 days

August 2013 is Inventor's Month. Before it ends, I wish to share some of my Einstein postcards and also one of my favorite essays of him from the book, Albert Einstein: Out Of My Later Years. --

Self-Portrait

Of what is significant in one's own existence one is hardly aware, and it certainly should not bother the other fellow. What does a fish know about the water in which he swims all his life?

The bitter and the sweet come from the outside, the hard from within, from one's own efforts. For the most part I do the thing which my own nature drives me to do. It is embarrassing to earn so much respect and love for it. Arrows of hate have been shot at me too; but they never hit me, because somehow they belonged to another world, with which I have no connection whatsoever.

I live in the solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in the years of maturity.

The English translation of the quote on the second postcard was by the sender. Thinking deeper of it, I believe it's a shorter version of the essay I found on the book.

Sharing these postcards for Beth's Postcard Friendship Friday. Wishing every one a relaxing weekend.

~maria