How fast does light travel? 186,000 miles/s or 300,000 km/s. Galileo tried with shuttered lanterns across mountain tops... didn't work During the 1670's, the Danish astronomer Ole Roemer was making extremely careful observations of Jupiter's moon Io. The black dot is Io's shadow. Io makes one complete orbit around Jupiter every 1.76 days; the time it takes to make each orbit is always the same, so Roemer expected that he could predict its motion quite precisely. To his astonishment, he discovered that the moon didn't always appear where it was supposed to be. At certain times of the year, it seemed to be slightly behind schedule; at other times, it was slightly ahead. http://www.colorado.edu/physics/2000/waves_particles/lightspeed_evidence.html ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- How did the venus fly trap get its name ? Date: Mon, 08 Nov 1999 22:59:31 +0000 From: Paul Temple To: CP listserver mail address Subject: Well done Bill Tribe! (Dionaea etymology) Message-ID: <382755C2.EA32DC50@ecologycal.demon.co.uk> Aha - so my secret is out! A few lucky soles knew (because I told them) that my "oh so clever" lecture was really just some intelligent regurgitation of someone else's hard work. I never intended anyone should think I did the research on Dionaea and hope no-one really thought so. For the record, Bill (Tribe) is absolutely correct and the full reference to the best historical account of Dionaea's introduction is: Aphrodite's Mousetrap by E. charles Nelson 1990 Pub. Boethius Press, Aberystwyth, wales ISBN 0 86314 176 5 Meanwhile, fo those still interested, the plant also goes by the name of Miraculum Natarae, evidently first uttered by Linnaeus (more famous you can't get!). However, the first ever letter describing the plant called it a "Catch Fly sensitive" (1759). Then, order of appearance: "Sensitive Leaf", this then became the "fly trap sensitive" (1760). Tippitiwitchet then (1762) seems to assume nore importance for a while, also spelt as "Tippity Twitchet". This was reputed to be a native american name for the plant but that is since disputed. The name then evolves into the "Tip(p)itiwitchet sensitive" and then to "Tippitiwitched". Venus's Flytrap and venus's Mousetrtap then appear (in the same letter to the Press, 1768). We then find it as Venus's fly-trap (i.e. suddenly hyphenated). "Flytrap" appears next (about 1773). Since then there as been Venus's-fly-trap, Venus' fly-trap, Venus flytrap The Venus Fly Trap and of course, VFT (which at a guess is an americanism and possibly even arose in the ICPS journal?), and a few more variations of upper or lower case letters with or without hyphens. OK, enough of this; by now I guess anyone who previously pondered over the value of Latin names for plants may now have some understanding of the benefits! But wait, what have I just found? Jan should know that there is a reference to a W. Young proposing the generic name Youngsonia (was he a touch vain?) - for Jan's benefit - ref: W. Young, Catalogue d'Arbres Arbustes et Plantes Herbacees d'Amerique, 1783 (reprinted 1916: Botanica Neglecta.) As to the true source of Tippitiwitchet, it's now possible that the various authors using this trivial name chose it deliberately, and that it was really rather rude, not Native American at all, and the current "Venus's Flytrap" usage was actually a clever way to hide the rude meaning but make it possible for scholoars to work it out. http://www.flytrap.demon.co.uk/digests/2000.txt