A busload of tourists arrives at Runnymede, just west of central London.
They gather around the guide who says: “This is the spot where the barons forced King John to sign the Magna Carta."
A guy at the front of the crowd asks: "When did that happen?”
“1215,” answers the guide.
The man looks at his watch and says: “Damn! Missed it by a half hour.”
Thomas AndrewsDied 26 Nov 1885 at age 71 (born 19 Dec 1813). Irish physical chemist who demonstrated the continuity of the gaseous and liquid states whereby during changes between the two states, physical properties display no abrupt changes. He discovered the critical temperature for carbon dioxide (1861), above which the gas cannot be liquefied by pressure alone. He wrote: We may yet live to see...such bodies as oxygen and hydrogen in the liquid, perhaps even in the solid state. He accurately measured heats of neutralisation, formation and reaction; and latent heats of evaporation. Andrews was the first to use a "bomb calorimeter" - a strong, sealed, metal vessel for measuring heat of combustion. He studied ozone, and proved that is an allotrope - or altered form - of oxygen.« |
