Kids Need Science is devoted to demystifying and explaining science, technology, engineering and math words, names, and concepts. Check back often for a science, technology, engineering or math word defined and explained every day.
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Linnaeus, The Name Giver
Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus was an early information architect. He believed that every kind of plant and animal on...
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Larva is actually a fairly poetic word in English that meant “mask” in Latin.
It comes from Carl Linnaeus, who first applied it to caterpillars,...
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Linnaeus’ flower clock was a garden plan hypothesized by Carolus Linnaeus that would take advantage of several plants that open or close their...
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If this isn’t a treehouse?
In the garden of the place where famous botanist, physician, and zoologist, Carl Linnaeus lived.
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While humans have been dreaming of flight since the dawn of time, it wasn’t until the turn of the nineteenth century that the Wright brothers achieved that magical 59 second flight covering 852 feet. After thousands of years of dreaming about flight, it only took another two and a half decades to coin the term cosmonaut and the related astronaut and set the bar higher for flight. A combination of two Ancient Greek words kosmos and nautes, a cosmonaut was a sailor of the cosmos, while an astronaut sailed the stars.
And it was only a couple of decades later that Russian Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, a 27 year old Major in the Russian Air Force left the Earth’s atmosphere on April 12, 1961 and began the Space Age. Less than a decade would pass before an American became the first man on the moon when Neil Armstrong took his famous step. Right now there are three Russians and three Americans in space carrying on the daring tradition of Gagarin: Commander Chris Hadfield, Flight Engineer Pavel Vinogradov, Flight Engineers Alexander Misurkin, Chris Cassidy, Roman Romanenko and Tom Marshburn.
Photo of Yuri Gagarin of unknown origin.
While humans have been dreaming of flight since the dawn of time, it wasn’t until the turn of the nineteenth century that the Wright brothers achieved that magical 59 second flight covering 852 feet, skimming over the beach not more than twenty feet off the ground. The new science of flight and aeronautics was born and after thousands of years of dreaming about flight, it only took another two and a half decades to coin the term astronaut (and the related cosmonaut) and set the bar higher for flight. A combination of two Ancient Greek words aster meaning star and nautes meaning a sailor, an astronaut was a sailor of stars.
More than that though, these early pioneers of both space and technology became heroes of popular imagination. They inspired generations of young boys and girls into science and technology and the technology derived from the space program has enriched our everyday lives from breakfast foods to automobile safety.
And it was only a couple of decades later that Yuri Gagarin, a 27 year old Major in the Russian Air Force left the Earth’s atmosphere and began the Space Age. Less than a decade would pass before an American became the first man on the moon when Neil Armstrong took his famous step. This week Neil Armstrong died at the age of 82. Among the extremely elite group of people dedicated and privileged enough to call themselves astronauts, Neil Armstrong stood higher than the rest. Of the many ‘firsts’ that the various space programs around the world have given us, Neil Armstrong’s was, is and always will be the most significant. He was the first man to step on ground not of this earth. At his passing his family asked for something small and simple: “For those who may ask what they can do to honor Neil, we have a simple request. Honor his example of service, accomplishment and modesty, and the next time you walk outside on a clear night and see the moon smiling down at you, think of Neil Armstrong and give him a wink.”
Photo of Neil Armstong at the time of the Lunar landing courtesy NASA.
This may be the newest coined word to be featured here, and get used to it, because you will be hearing it more and more in the next decade: taikonaut. Official English-language texts issued by the government of the People’s Republic of China use astronaut while texts in Russian use космонавт (kosmonavt). In official Chinese-language texts, the terms “yǔhángyuán” (宇航员, “sailing personnel in universe”) for cosmonaut and “hángtiānyuán” (航天员, “sailing personnel in sky”) for astronaut have long been used. The phrase “tàikōng rén” (太空人, “spaceman”) is often used in Taiwan and Hong Kong.
The term taikonaut is used by some English-language news media organizations for professional space travelers from China. The word has featured in the Longman and Oxford English dictionaries, the latter of which describes it as “a hybrid of the Chinese term taikong meaning space and the Greek naut meaning sailor; the term became more common in 2003 when China sent its first astronaut Yang Liwei into space aboard the Shenzhou 5 spacecraft. This is the term used by Xinhua in the English version of the Chinese People’s Daily since the advent of the Chinese space program. The origin of the term is unclear; as early as May 1998, Chiew Lee Yih (趙裡昱) from Malaysia, used it in newsgroups.
Welcome home, taikonauts, and congratulations on your successful mission!
Images courtesy the Chinese Space Agency. Definition courtesy Wikipedia under Creative Commons 3.0 license.
While humans have been dreaming of flight since the dawn of time, it wasn’t until the turn of the nineteenth century that the Wright brothers achieved that magical 59 second flight covering 852 feet. After thousands of years of dreaming about flight, it only took another two and a half decades to coin the term astronaut (and the related cosmonaut) and set the bar higher for flight. A combination of two Ancient Greek words aster and nautes, an astronaut was a sailor of stars.
And it was only a couple of decades later that Yuri Gagarin, a 27 year old Major in the Russian Air Force left the Earth’s atmosphere and began the Space Age. Less than a decade would pass before an American became the first man on the moon when Neil Armstrong took his famous step. At this very moment orbiting 250 miles above the Earth are six astronauts: Expedition 29 crew members pictured from the left on the front row are Commander Mike Fossum and Flight Engineer Dan Burbank. Pictured from the left on the back row are Flight Engineers Satoshi Furukawa, Sergei Volkov, Anatoly Ivanishin and Anton Shkaplerov.
Don’t forget to check out my weekly science blog with NPR:
http://www.talkingscience.org/category/parent/science-dad/
ISS Expedition 29 photo and Armstrong photo courtesy NASA. Image of Gagarin of unknown provenance. Please contact me if you can provide copyright/credit details.
The word space comes from the Latin word spatium (Medieval Latin allowed spacium) via the French word espace, thanks to something linguists and philologists call aphesis which is the loss in a word of a short vowel over time. I suppose we have a double aphesis going on here as the Latin gave up a vowel in the suffix before the French donor word gave up a short vowel in the prefix. For much of its history space was merely a noun, denoting both time and area. In the mid-fifteenth century space began to be used as a verb. The first use of space to denote what is now known as ‘outer space’ is attributed to Milton in Paradise lost.
The modern definition of space is not exactly arbitrary: Hungarian-American aeronautics engineer Theodore von Kámán calculated that at a height of approximately 100 kilometers (62 miles) the Earth’s atmosphere became too thin for aeronautical purposes. This definition has been ratified so to speak by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale, the governing body for aeronautics. The United States does not however, recognize this standard, NASA instead awarding ‘astronaut’ status to any person flying above 80 kilometers (50 miles) above sea level.
Recently we have added space ship (1894), space craft, space station, space suit (all 1930s), space age (1946), space walk (1965), and space shuttle (1970).
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http://www.talkingscience.org/category/parent/science-dad/
Image courtesy NASA, showing the edge of atmosphere and beginning of space, photo take 20 July 2006 by International Space Station crew Expedition 13 over the South China Sea.
