Quote of the Day

"I think most scientific discoveries should involve the suffering of an entire continent."
-Dargan, my Geophysical Fluid Dynamics II professor

Dargan was referring to the discovery of the stratospheric temperature inversion by pioneering French meteorologist Leon Teisserenc de Bort. In 1899, the scandalous Dreyfus Affair was drawing to a close and all of Europe awaited the outcome with high anticipation. All of Europe except for de Bort, that is, who was busy attempting to obtain upper air observations near Paris. To do this, he used a kite on a 7km wire. He was getting it up to 4500m successfully when the kite broke loose and began to drift, trailing 7km of wire behind it. The wire took out a main telegraph line from Paris, and news of the verdict was delayed leaving Europe in suspense.