(Roughly) Daily

Mushroom cloud from the world’s first successful hydrogen bomb test, Nov. 1, 1952

At RAND in 1954, Armen A. Alchian conducted the world’s first event study to infer the fissile fuel material used in the manufacturing of the newly-developed hydrogen bomb. Successfully identifying lithium as the fissile fuel using only publicly available financial data, the paper was seen as a threat to national security and was immediately confiscated and destroyed…

How a bench researcher used publicly-available market data to unlock the secret of the H Bomb: “The Stock Market Speaks: How Dr. Alchian Learned to Build the Bomb” (pdf).

* Auguste Compte (attributed by John Arthur Thomson in a quote at heading of the chapter “Scientific Method,” in his Introduction to Science

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As we comb the columns, we might recall that it was on this date in 1883 that the S.S. Daphne sank moments after her launching at the shipyard of Alexander Stephen and Sons in Glasgow.  The 500-ton steamer went down with 200 men on board– all of them working to finish her before the shipyard closed for the Glasgow Fair.  Only 70 were saved.

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