Boring Stories To Fall Asleep

Born in Corsica to a family of minor Italian nobility, he studied in France, where he became an officer in the artillery and then a general during the French Revolution.

Having gained prestige and esteem thanks to his victories during the first Italian campaign, after the coup d'état of 18 Brumaire (9 November 1799) he assumed power in France: He was First Consul from November of that year until 18 May 1804, and Emperor of the French, with the name of Napoleon I (Napoléon Ier) from 2 December 1804 to 14 April 1814 and again from 20 March to 22 June 1815.

He was also President of the Italian Republic from 1802 to 1805, King of Italy from 1805 to 1814, ‘mediator’ of the Swiss Confederation from 1803 to 1813 and ‘protector’ of the Confederation of the Rhine from 1806 to 1813.

From the first underground steam railways in London to modern electrical systems, this episode traces the technological progress and the challenges faced. It examines how cities such as New York, Paris and Tokyo have dealt with overcrowding and the need for innovations such as escalators and efficient maps.

Albert Einstein's perspectives on God, religion and the universe, tracing the evolution of his thought from early family influences to his conception of a ‘cosmic spirituality.’

In physics, string theory is a theoretical framework in which the point-like particles of particle physics are replaced by one-dimensional objects called strings. String theory describes how these strings propagate through space and interact with each other. On distance scales larger than the string scale, a string acts like a particle, with its mass, charge, and other properties determined by the vibrational state of the string. In string theory, one of the many vibrational states of the string corresponds to the graviton, a quantum mechanical particle that carries the gravitational force. Thus, string theory is a theory of quantum gravity.

The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program.

Its official program name was Space Transportation System (STS), taken from the 1969 plan led by U.S. Vice President Spiro Agnew for a system of reusable spacecraft where it was the only item funded for development.

One of the possible ends of the universe is the ‘Big freeze’, namely a continuous expansion coupled with a slow cooling during which all matter would end up disintegrating. But other scenarios are also conceivable, such as that of a great collapse, the ‘Big crunch’. Or that of a universe expanding so rapidly that it ends up tearing itself apart under the effect of increasingly violent forces: the ‘Big Rip’.

For the past thirty years or so, the brain has been all the rage. We could explain everything by brain mechanisms. Not only how we see and how we speak, but also how we think and how we make mistakes, and even why people eat fat, are lazy, fail at school or vote left. Knowledge of the brain could lead to progress not only in medicine, but also in education, public policy, management and self-improvement.

I sometimes wonder what I would do if I were an income-only earner. If I had money coming in every month, no matter what. Would I still work, if only for the need for social recognition? Or would I take the opportunity to do something completely different? Travelling, reading, drinking coffee on a terrace. It's hard to know... It's quite dizzying to imagine a world where we would be free from the fear of unemployment.

What did man's ancestors eat? How did they prepare their food? How did their food contribute to their evolution and their anatomical and cognitive development?

Our universe is made up of two worlds: the one we can see, and the microscopic world of quanta made up of the very smallest particles. In this world, particles can be in two places at once and teleportation is possible.