Powers of Ten and Cosmic View

Powers of Ten is a short film made by the designer team of Charles and Ray Eames to illustrate the vast scale of the universe, from the outermost galaxies to the innermost nucleus of an atom, with human scale approximately in the middle. Starting from a look at picnickers on the shore of Lake Michigan, the scene zooms out by a factor of 10 every 10 seconds, from a scale of 1 meter (10⁰) to a scale of 10²⁴ meters. Then it zooms back to the picnic, and then inwards by a factor of 10 every 10 seconds until it reaches the nuclear scale of 
10^-16 meters.

I saw a black-and-white predecessor of this film in my first-year physics course at Cornell in 1968, titled A Rough Sketch for a Proposed Film Dealing With the Powers of Ten. I was kind of blown away by it.

The best version of this film is this finished version of the Rough Sketch, now simply titled Powers of Ten, from 1977. The narration was by noted physicist and public intellectual Philip Morrison.

Other takes on the same theme include this 1996 version, also titled Powers of Ten, an IMAX film narrated by the omnipresent Morgan Freeman, starting on St. Mark's Square, Venice,

and this 1968 animated Cosmic Zoom from the National Film Board of Canada:

Every year I try to do a mini-celebration of Powers of Ten Day on Oct. 10, as I did again last month. When I worked in student life at Franklin & Marshall College in 2010, I organized a Powers of Ten event at 10:10 pm, on 10/10/10, with a showing of the film, or course.

This year I learned that these films emanate from a concept by Kees Boeke, as illustrated in his 1957 book, Cosmic View. Boeke, a Dutch reformist educator, Quaker missionary and pacifist, seems to have been a very interesting and committed individual. His idea for the scale of the universe theme was acknowledged in a couple of the films above.

You can see the pages of the Boeke's book Cosmic View at this website. Just as the Powers of Ten film was narrated by physicist Philip Morrison, this book includes an introduction by Nobel prize winner Arthur Compton. 

Jacket of Cosmic View (1957)

Is it coincidental that this book was published during the International Geophysical Year? At the dawn of the space age, I think that people had an increasing awareness and wonder at the scales of the universe, and it was certainly a challenge for educators to represent this.

I have a couple of Eames souvenirs. There is a flipbook of Powers of Ten:

Then there is our Eames lounge chair and ottoman. It is an iconic piece of mid-century (20th) furniture, first released in 1956, just before the IGY. About 10 years ago, we bought this one, and despite needing a repair due to a design flaw with the aging epoxy, it suits us fine. The seller told us that our chair once belonged to 1984 VP candidate Geraldine Ferraro, although there is no proof of that.

And finally, the philatelic items. I have the 2008 sheet of 16 commemorative stamps showcasing the important contributions  of Charles and Ray Eames to American design. The Eames lounge chair is shown in one of the stamps., top row, second from left.

Charles and Ray Eames sheet, Scott catalog 4133

And I have a first day cover with the stamp of the chair and a corresponding cachet. 

Scott catalog stamp 4333f on a first day cover, canceled in Santa Monica on June 17, 2008 

The place of issue for these stamps was Santa Monica, California, where the Eames's had a house and studio. In 2014, I visited this Eames House in Santa Monica Canyon on a field trip outing during the International Symposium on Archaeometry held at the Getty Museum and UCLA in Los Angeles.

My photo of the exterior of the Eames House and Studio

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

Julie Powell passes away

In the very first post for this blog, I mentioned that I had been inspired to start it by the story of Julie Powell. I had just watched the movie Julie and Julia (2009), contrasting the early years of Julia Childs' culinary career with the life of Julie Powell, who aspired to cook all 524 recipes in Child's cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking (1961) in 365 days, an endeavor she described in a blog. I thought afterwards that a blog of my own could be a good way to present some of my thoughts about the IGY and my collection.

Then I said: "If I do one entry a week (and stay with it!!), I can get 524 blog entries done before the diamond (75th) anniversary of the IGY in 2032-33!" I've now done 113 posts in two years, or just about one a week, so I am on target for my more modest pace, although recently I have slowed down considerably. My efforts have left me even more impressed with the blogging (not to mention cooking) task that Julie Powell set for herself, and at which she succeeded.

Sadly she has died at the age of 49. She kept writing, but never quite matched the success of her blog and resulting book, Julie & Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen. 

Author Julie Powell attends the premiere of Julie & Julia at The Ziegfeld Theatre in New York, on July 30, 2009 (Peter Kramer/AP)

According to this Daily Meal webpage, one of the 25 best selling cookbooks of all time, Julia Child's cookbook (with co-authors Louisette Bertholle and Simone Beck), Mastering the Art of French Cooking (1961), was published not long after the IGY, selling about 1.5 million copies. The two cookbooks on the list published before and closest to the beginning of the IGY were Betty Crocker's Cookbook (1950, 65 million), and the Better Homes and Gardens New Junior Cookbook (1955, 2.6 million). Ahh, makes me think of fish sticks and jello mold!

Belated happy anniversary, Sputnik; Antarctic post office welcomes four new employees

I'm still not up to my preferred blogging speed, but I thought I had better check in. Can I offer a partial excuse that I was on vacation in Switzerland for three weeks, enjoying cultural attractions in Bern, the mountain landscape of the Wallis Alps in Saas-Fee, and the lakeside pleasures of Ascona and Lago Maggiore. Not to mention food and drink in all of those places! 

Allalin Glacier, Wallis, Switzerland

Oops, that trip is fading into the past, so now I also have to blame watching the baseball playoffs. My son Sam and I saw the hometown Phillies knock the Braves out last Saturday. I'm also rooting for my childhood team, the Yankees, so if they meet in the World Series, I'm not sure what I will do.

October 4 was the 65th anniversary of the launching of Sputnik, the first artificial satellite ever launched into orbit around the Earth. This NASA web page on Sputnik is informative. Below is a cover recently added to my collection that commemorates the first satellites of both the USSR and the USA. The postmark date of Dec. 31, 2018, was 60 years after the end of the IGY. It mentions the Belgian ionospheric scientist Marcel Nicolet who was the secretary general of the IGY. I have been searching for a cover signed by him or some other interesting memorabilia related to him, but so far, no luck. Do you have any leads?

My IGY cover #US 245. The stamp is Scott US 4502, issued as a 44¢ forever stamp on March 25, 2011. According to the Mystic Stamp website, this second “Celebrate!” stamp was designed by USPS art director Phil Jordan, working with neon artist Michael Flechtner.

Along with satellite launches, probably the other most noteworthy scientific aspect of IGY studies, and the other area of research that most captivated public interest, was the exploration of Antarctica. The Guardian had a recent story on the four women -- Mairi Hilton, Lucy Bruzzone, Clare Ballantyne and Natalie Corbett -- picked by the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust to run the world’s most remote, coldest post office (also Britains's most southerly post office) on Goudier Island in Port Lockroy, off the Antarctic Peninsula as part of the British Antarctic Territory (BAT), a place with no permanent residents. They will also be in charge of monitoring the island’s colony of 1,500 gentoo penguins; hence, Port Lockroy is also known as the Penguin Post Office. Around 70,000 pieces of mail are posted each year to over 100 countries.

The location of Goudier Island is shown with the arrow on the map below:

British Antarctic Territory government website

The post office and the penguins are shown in this BBC news clip:

Below are two of my covers commemorating the 30th anniversary of the IGY, each franked with a set of four stamps issued in 1987 by the British Antarctic Territory (Scott 141-144).

British Antarctic Territory cover (IN 041 in my collection) with stamps Scott 141-144. The 24p stamp is captioned "Port Lockroy" (in a very small font). The cachet shows the Antarctic Peninsula in teal, the location of Port Lockroy, and the general area of the BAT, but strangely does not indicate the full latitudinal extent of the BAT, which extends from 60°S to the South Pole in latitude, and from 20°W- 80°W in longitude.

British Antarctic Territory cover (IN 042 in my collection), registered, with an orbiting satellite shown in the cachet 

While I am at it, my latest IGY cover postmarked from Antarctica is shown below:

IGY cover US 247 in my collection

It is not the prettiest cover, rather misaligned, but  it is postmarked from the Amundsen-Scott IGY South Pole Station in 1958 during the IGY, and sent to Palmyra, Pennsylvania, outside of Hershey, about 25 miles from me. It bears the slogan Operation Deep Freeze. The air mail postage stamp used is Scott C39, issued in 1949 for the increase of the airmail postage rate from 5¢ to 6¢.  The DC-4 Skymaster in the image was a four-engine propeller plane that was used during World War II, for the Berlin Airlift, and later as a passenger airplane and for the delivery of airmail.

The fairly recent 65th anniversary of the start of the IGY, and my failed commemoration

July 1, 2022 was the 65th anniversary of the beginning of the IGY on that date in 1957. This was noted in a nice article by  Lauren Lipuma for the National Science Foundation website, wherein she mentions some of the major accomplishments of the IGY. Plus, she included some images of IGY stamps!

I tried to create my own 65th anniversary philatelic cover, but it didn't work out. I wanted to create and send a cover addressed to myself, with sufficient postage including the 1958 3¢ U.S. IGY stamp (Scott 1107) and another IGY-themed stamp, and a cachet I designed myself to mark the event. Then my plan was to get the cover canceled and postmarked in Adamstown, PA (Adam's town), just 45 minutes from Lancaster, since the image on the IGY stamp includes Michelangelo's The Creation of Adam. Unfortunately, I waited until the last minute and could not find a printer that I could do this on.

The design looked like this, without the stamps:

For the postage I would have added one of the 2021 Forever solar activity stamps to the 1958 IGY stamp itself:

I will be trying to make such a cover for another IGY anniversary. Any suggestions?

A new Mellone first day cover cachet for my IGY collection

I may be forgotten, but not quite gone.

In a previous post, I mentioned that the specialized Mellone catalogs of cachets on first day covers listed a number of known cachets for U.S. IGY first day covers. The Mellone catalog listed 31 such covers for the U.S. IGY stamp. For a long time, years I think, I have had 25 of these. I recently acquired my 26th (coincidentally also cover #26 in the Mellone listings)! But the majority of IGY covers in my collection were not listed by Mellone. I was pretty excited to find this cover on eBay, and the price was quite favorable.

US242 in my IGY cover collection; Mellone #26 for stamp Scott 1107

Note that in the sidebar of this blog, showing a historic event that happened on or about this day during the IGY (www.eventshistory.com/), I listed that on today's date, 21 August, the Soviet Union in 1957 successfully conducted a long-range test flight of the R-7 Semyorka, the first intercontinental ballistic missile. According to Wikipedia, a modified version of that missile carried Sputnik 1 into orbit on 4 October 1957 and Sputnik 2 on 3 November 1957.

Where have you gone, Joe Dimaggio?

I have been missing in non-action for a month now. I've just kind of lost motivation, at least for now, to keep the blog going using the pace and rubric I've been mostly following for close to a year: summarizing articles from the IGY Bulletin, one by one. And I've just been languishing a bit in general. So I hope to regain forward momentum soon, perhaps using a different rubric. 

I also decided to break my NY Times crossword solving streak at 800+. I realized that although I usually enjoyed doing them and the blog, those activities were sometimes controlling me rather than the other way around. Staring at my computer screen was also starting to make my brain feel congested. Plus, I will need some time in the near future to attend to some other issues, like cleaning out my office at the College, which I am finally vacating this summer. So overall I am trying to change the balance of my activities for now, you might say.

Well, music is a good pick-me-up. The song containing the lyric in this post's title is Mrs. Robinson, by Simon and Garfunkel. You remember ... it goes something like this:

It is from the album Bookends, which was one of my favorites as an undergraduate. It is a concept album about life's journey. I'd best listen to it again, since my location on that route has progressed considerably. I owned the LP for many years, but now I own the CD. For me, the best song on the album was A Hazy Shade of Winter: "Hang on to your hopes my friend. that's an easy thing to say, but if your hopes should pass away simply pretend that you can build them again."

The song was also part of the soundtrack of one of my favorite movies, The Graduate, including the breakout role for Dustin Hoffman. Am I remembering correctly that I saw this in the movie theater with my high school friend Carol? (I guess you wouldn't know.) She was a good person, I wonder what happened to her.

Joe Dimaggio, one of the greatest Yankees and baseball players of all time, finds his way into the title of this post. The years of the IGY, 1957-58, were when I first became aware of professional sports. My family was not into sports, and I gravitated towards the best teams of that era -- the New York Yankees (baseball), Boston Celtics (basketball), and the Baltimore Colts (football) -- rather than the local teams, which weren't very good -- the Washington Senators (baseball) and the Washington football team (there was no regional NBA team). Baseball has always been my favorite sport; I still like the Yankees (and now the Phillies), and am enjoying their amazing run so far this year. I still very casually root for the Celtics, so it is nice to see them in the NBA finals. I'm not even sure where the Colts play any more.

My favorite players from those teams, all hall-of famers, were Johnny Unitas of the Colts,  Bob Cousy and Bill Russell (Celtics), and my favorite athletic "hero" ever, Mickey Mantle of the Yankees.

(I recently read Amy Bloom's In Love, a moving account of her husband's assisted suicide. It took me a while to realize that her husband, Brian Ameche, was the son of another Colts star, running back Alan Ameche, who scored the winning touchdown in sudden death overtime in the 1958 NFL championship game against the NY Giants, sometimes called "the greatest game ever played.")

Mickey Mantle, who replaced Joe Dimaggio as the Yankees' center fielder, was no saint (and why should a ballplayer be one), but he was one of the greatest baseball players ever. As a kid and a fan,  I used to argue that he was the best of the New York center fielders of the IGY years, but now I would have to concede that Willie Mays of the NY Giants had a better career overall. Sorry, Duke Snider of the Brooklyn Dodgers  still comes in third. Mantle was the American League triple crown winner in 1956, the AL most valuable player in 1956 and 1957, an all-star in 1956-1958, World Series champion in 1956 and 1958, and AL champion in 1957. Quite a good run in those IGY years! I started reading Jane Leavy's acclaimed biography of The Mick a couple of years ago. I think I'll go back and finish it!

My figurine of The Mick, with me since 1962 or so

Yesterday was the birthday of the first postage stamp

The stamp considered by most to be the first adhesive pre-paid countrywide postage stamp was issued on May 6, 1840, or 182 years ago yesterday (I thought that was today, but I hadn't yet corrected my watch date after the 30 days of April).

I knew the year, but not the date, which I just came across while reading a general book on stamp collecting that I recently purchased: Guide to Stamp Collecting, by Jiri Novacek, Chartwell Books, Inc., 1989, 224 pp.

The Penny Black (Warwick & Warwick;
not from my collection!)

As the story goes, in the late 1830s, Englishman Rowland Hill proposed to introduce stamps as we know them today. Until then, the posting of letters was paid by the recipient, based on the distance traveled and number of sheets of paper. On this date in 1840 the Post Office issued a black 1 penny stamp known as the Penny Black (duh) along with a blue version of the same design with a face value of twopence. The stamps did not bear the name of the issuing country, but carried an image of the queen (then a young Victoria), still true for British stamps. Postage rates became based on the weight of the letter, but remained uniform throughout Great Britain regardless of distance sent.

According to Warwick and Warwick Auctioneers, 68,808,000 Penny Blacks were printed; around 1.3 million still exist, a 2% survival rate. The value depends largely on physical condition, the printing plate used, and the appearance of the margins. You can buy a Penny Black on eBay starting at about $100, or you can buy a top notch version for tens of thousands of dollars. I don't think I'm gonna go there, though.

Graham Beck has a nice video post on the Penny Black in his YouTube channel Exploring Stamps:

IGY Bulletin, Number 9, March 1958 - Cruise of the Brown Bear

The ocean deeps are some of the most remote places on the Earth's surface (take the water out of the ocean, and the seafloor is the surface). Both the nature of the seafloor itself and the currents of  the ocean waters were of interest during the IGY. This article describes the cruise of the oceanographic vessel Brown Bear, of the University of Washington. 

R/V Brown Bear, photo provided by V. Lundquist, from NOAA Alaska Fisheries Science Center (https://www.ocean.washington.edu/story/School_History)

In the beginning of the IGY, the Brown Bear made investigations at 36 oceanographic stations in the Gulf of Alaska, the Bering Sea, and parts of the Northeast Pacific, as shown in the map below from the Bulletin article. The proposed cruise for 1958 is also shown, as are stations occupied by the Carnegie in 1929. The Carnegie  (you should read the fascinating article in the link) was a brigantine nonmagnetic yacht used to investigate the Earth's magnetic field for the Carnegie Institution's Department of Terrestrial Magnetism. That 1929 voyage was its last, as it exploded and sank while anchored in Samoa that November.

The Brown Bear's measurements were to look at both latitudinal and vertical movement of waters in the ocean, and the factors that affected them. According to the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA):

Differences in water density, resulting from the variability of water temperature (thermo) and salinity (haline), also cause ocean currents. This process is known as thermohaline circulation. In cold regions, such as the North Atlantic Ocean, ocean water loses heat to the atmosphere and becomes cold and dense. When ocean water freezes, forming sea ice, salt is left behind causing surrounding seawater to become saltier and denser. Dense-cold-salty water sinks to the ocean bottom. Surface water flows in to replace the sinking water, which in turn becomes cold and salty enough to sink. This "starts" the global conveyer belt, a connected system of deep and surface currents that circulate around the globe on a 1000 year time span. This global set of ocean currents is a critical part of Earth’s climate system as well as the ocean nutrient and carbon dioxide cycles.

Ocean circulation patterns are also nicely explained and depicted in this Ted-Ed video, Surface currents are the focus of the first half of the video, while deep currents are described in the second half.

The major objectives of the Brown Bear's 1957 cruise were: to gather data for a north-south profile of water properties (temperature and chemistry) extending from the surface to the ocean bottom; and for a preliminary survey of ocean water circulation in the Aleutians. Hauls of marine organisms were also made at various depths. Deep waters were dated using carbon-14 methods. The article goes on to cite specific preliminary findings. 

It turns out that I have a relevant first day cover in my collection for today's post.  It's a first day of issue cover of the U.S. IGY stamp, with a cachet of the R.V. (research vessel) Brown Bear. And, it is addressed to Richard Fleming (1909-1989), who was the director of the Department of Oceanography at the University of Washington.

FDC US141 from my collection

Richard Fleming (School of Oceanography, Univ. of Washington)

One-page philatelic exhibits for the American Topical Association

The American Topical Association has, for the second year, solicited contributions for a gallery of philatelic exhibits that are just one letter-sized page. "The My One-Page Exhibit! Program is an ATA initiative to encourage new and experienced exhibitors to create single-page presentations of philatelic material that especially interest them."

Last year I had a 1-page exhibit derived from my IGY collection. It seems that the ATA did not keep links to last year's exhibits active, but you can find a copy of my exhibit here.

This year I have a 1-pager about the encounter of the USS Constitution, aka Old Ironsides, with the Long Beach earthquake of March 10, 1933. You can see that poster here, or below.

Since I recently discussed the slide rule in a post about the IGY's Phototrack program, you might be interested to look at the 1-page exhibit about the slide rule portrayed on stamps, of which the author David Walker found only 11 examples. He also shared with me a 2015 article showing philatelic examples of slide rules from the Slide Rule Gazette. 

And, of course, you can browse the other exhibits on quite a variety of topics.

While I'm at it, Happy May Day. Wikipedia says "May Day is a European festival of ancient origins marking the beginning of summer, usually celebrated on 1 May, around halfway between the spring equinox and summer solstice." In kindergarten, I participated in the Maypole dance

while wearing pink pants with suspenders. Hmm, I need to find that photo.

Wikipedia goes on to say about May Day: "In 1889, it was chosen as the date for International Workers' Day by the Second International, to commemorate the Haymarket affair in Chicago and the struggle for an eight-hour working day. As a result, International Workers' Day is also called 'May Day', but the two are unrelated."

In a short investigation, I came up with three U.S. stamp that honor labor or unions. These are:

• Scott 1082 (1956), for Labor Day (I know, not the same as May Day), featuring a design from the mosaic mural at the AFL-CIO headquarters in Washington. I have this stamp in my childhood collection:

• Scott 988 (1950), honoring Samuel Gompers who helped found the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions in 1881, later reorganized as the American Federation of Labor (AFL) with Gompers as president.

• Scott 2848 (1994), honoring George Meany, president of the AFL from 1952-1979 (spanning the IGY).

Self-promotion for a presentation about my IGY collection and blog

A few years ago I joined my local stamp club, the Philatelic Society of Lancaster County. I finally made it to a live meeting just before the covid era, after which meetings were moved online. And there they still remain.

Meetings via Zoom have been held twice a month, agendas including business of the chapter, a keynote speaker, and sharing of items of interest by attendees. Although there are dues-paying memberships for the local chapter, anyone can drop in on these meetings.

At the meeting this coming Wednesday, I will be the keynote speaker. I'll be leading attendees through a powerpoint (using Google Slides presentation software, which I've been very pleased with) focusing on my IGY collections of philatelic and other materials, and on this blog. The Zoom meeting will begin at 6:30 pm (EDST), and my presentation will start after the business portion of the meeting has been completed. My guess is that I will speak for about 45 minutes. The meeting will be recorded. I hope to have a recording of my presentation that I can edit and make available, along with the presentation file. But in case you would like to attend live, here is the Zoom invitation:

Join the Zoom Meeting, Wednesday 27 April, 2022, 6:30 pm Eastern Daylight Savings Time:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83188544047?pwd=RlhoUDQ0ZkxaU3NGRHdFbmNzaWQ4QT09

The American Philatelic Society lists about 400 stamps clubs from around the world. Maybe there is one near you!

Happy Earth Day; the International Biological Program

Today is Earth Day, first celebrated in 1970, when I was an undergraduate. One might draw a line from the IGY, the most ambitious attempt ever to study the Earth as a planet, to Earth Day a dozen years later. The nationwide events surrounding the first Earth Day were spurred by the Santa Barbara oil spill of 1969 and the growing concern about the vulnerability of Earth's natural systems to human impact.

The American Philatelic Society has a nice web page for today, on Earth Day Stamps. I'll have to double check if that is changed daily or regularly, in which case I will add it to my blog list in the sidebar. Earth Day stamps would be a nice collecting topic, surely one that has been done. I think I own one such stamp somewhere, but I can't find it. Searching on the colnect web site yields 155 Earth Day stamps.

In writing my last post about biological studies during the IGY, I came across a nicely complementary article on the International Biological Program (IBP):"Big science and big data in biology: from the International Geophysical Year through the International Biological Program to the Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) Network, 1957–Present"; Elena Aronova, Karen S. Baker and Naomi Oreskes; Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences , Vol. 40, No. 2, Spring 2010), pp. 183-224; available here if you have access to JSTOR. 

This very well written (so I will use direct quotes below) article was quite interesting in its discussion of "big science," the historical relationship between the IGY and the IBP, and the similarities and differences between these two programs. It states that 

"the Big Science of the IGY was distinguished by its emphasis on and the visibility of Big Data—a synoptic collection of observational data on a global geographic scale." 

It goes on to say that the 

"International Biological Program (IBP, 1964–1974), conceived shortly after the end of IGY, intended to emulate it by setting up a worldwide research initiative to accumulate a vast array of datasets on different living phenomena on a global scale, deploying standardized methods and interdisciplinary collaborations. The IBP is often referred to as one of the first realized Big Science projects in biology, and is often cited anecdotally as a biological version of the IGY."

As the Bulletin article covered in my last post also suggested, Aronova et al. state that 

"in contrast to the centralized worldwide coordination of the geophysical research initiatives during the IGY, the biological activities were without exception the result of individual initiative, with support coming from diverse sources." ... The "biological programs launched under the auspices of the IGY became the first testing ground for the planning of the IBP." 

The IBP came to focus on ecological studies whereby 

"the properties of the Earth were regarded as determined not only by the chemical and physical properties of the Earth but also by biological activities, which in turn were controlled, at least partially, by the physical properties of the environment." 

I like that systemic approach, including the feedback loops.

The IBP seems to have been less successful than the IGY. Not all biologists bought into the emphasis on ecology, a science which seemed more applied and "political" than other areas of biology. Programs were fragmented and idiosyncratic. Data were not centrally archived and shared as had happened for the IGY with the World Data Centers. And the hopes to construct synthetic models based on those data were unsuccessful. 

I was surprised to find that, in contrast to the IGY, only one stamp was issued for the International Biological Program. Maybe that is commensurate with the perceived lack of its success. 

I've just ordered a cover franked with that stamp:

International Biological Program first day cover with a block of Canada stamp 507 (1970)

The stamp shows a microscopic view of the inside of a leaf, not a great design in my opinion. The cachet on this cover showing the sun, soil, oceans, plants, land-based animals, and fish suggests the multifaceted nature of the Earth's biosphere, reminiscent of the interrelated Earth systems covered during the IGY. All these parts, in quasi-equilibrium, that people's actions have often thrown out of kilter. Let's be kind to Mother Earth.

IGY Bulletin, Number 9, March 1958 - Life sciences in the IGY

Research workers in the life sciences were encouraged to utilize access to remote regions during the IGY to pursue work in their own disciplines. Marine biology studies were conducted on all IGY oceanographic cruises. The nature of Antarctic and Arctic studies are very briefly summarized below.

Antarctic

    Dentistry. Polar expeditions had already shown dental disorders such as severe toothaches among participants (NY Times, 1956). The Navy's Bureau of Medicine and Surgery requested Navy dentists stationed at Little America and McMurdo Sound to undertake investigations.

    Human physiology. Extreme cold and long stays posed various health challenges to Antarctic personnel. Physiological measurements were to be made, comparing people who worked outside, inside, and on traverse parties.

    Psychology. Stress, isolation, and deprivation were polar psychology (Nature, 1991) issues for Antarctic personnel (and perhaps scientists were thinking ahead a few years to what astronauts might experience in other extreme environments). Records of such feelings were to be recorded via written diaries and voice recordings from workers at four IGY Antarctic stations and analyzed by the Division of Neuropsychiatry, Walter Reed Army Medical Center, and the Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery.

    Botany. The Arctic Institute of North America was to study the vegetation of Antarctica, specifically lichens.

    Animal physiology. Frozen whole specimens of Adelie and Emperor penguins were to be collected and studied for the anatomy of their respiratory systems.

    Animal migration. The annual migration of the skua is one of the animal kingdom's longest, with round-trip journeys up to 20,000 miles. It was studied by banding these birds during the IGY.

Arctic

    Sea ice studies. The physiology of frozen organisms such as bacteria, diatoms and protozoa were to be studied. Interestingly, millimeter-sized invertebrate tardigrades, or water bears, can freeze and survive, as well as be boiled alive; following the same link will tell you that frozen iguanas fall from trees but live on.

Tardigrade (World Atlas)

    Marine biology. Phytoplankton, zooplankton, and other organisms were to be sampled from drifting ice stations. Here is a video and its transcript I missed in my earlier posts about operations on top of Drift Station Alpha.

IGY Bulletin, Number 9, March 1958 - Phototrack

Back to the IGY Bulletin articles. Phototrack was the designation for the program utilizing volunteers to help track Earth satellites, as noted in a previous post.

Accuracy of these observations was deemed to be "quite high," limited by timing accuracy, which was 0.1 seconds.

Photographs were taken against a fixed starfield background which yielded satellite positions. Timed breaks were inserted in the image used to track the satellites. 

Image showing the tracking of Earth Satellite 1957β, i.e. Sputnik 2 (from the Bulletin article)

Times were determined with a Phototrack camera by photographing a clock three times per picture, leaving a time mark on the image of the starfield and satellite. The clock was synchronized to radio station WWV, run by the National Bureau of Standards (now the National Institute of Standards and Technology).

Photographing the clock for timing marks (from the Bulletin article)

Other specifications for the Phototrack system are given in the Bulletin article. 

There is a Wikipedia article that summarizes this Phototrack program. There is also a nice personal recollection of participation in the Phototrack program by John Sutherland. He started worked at the Phototrack 5007 tracking operation in Walpole, MA, that had been set up during the IGY by Warren Davis and others. I tried to email Sutherland, but that was bounced back. Sutherland reminds us that "all of this ‘space’ activity happened in the slide rule era – there were no computers to help with the calculations, in fact, there were not even any hand calculators. Everything was done manually and by knowing how to create and use formulas." One of the Wikipedia article citations is "Seven Place Cosines, Sines, and Tangents For Every Tenth Microturn." That sounds pretty brute force.

My antique slide room, vintage 1972

In my undergrad days of the late 1960s and early 1970s, all calculations were done with slide rules; tables of various mathematical functions were also very useful. At some point I lost my trusty K&E slide rule, which I used daily for four years. I still own the replacement shown at right, now gathering dust on my electronics museum shelf.

The history of the slide rule goes back to the early 17th century. There is not a single postage stamp honoring the slide rule, but I think there should be!

In my first real job at Fairchild after graduation, I used a desktop mechanical calculator, a wonderful machine. My father had used one at home to work on his accounts. In grad school I finally used digital calculators, followed by programmable calculators, and then mainframe computers with terminals in the lab where I worked. It wasn't until the very end of grad school that I saw my first Apple personal computer, and then used and bought an original IBM PC soon after I started my job at Franklin & Marshall College in 1983.

My first IBM PC from 1983-84 (right); a later iMac (left)

These older technologies make me think of the women calculators of NASA, and the book and movie Hidden Figures. Kudos to trailblazer Katherine Johnson and her colleagues!

Other International Years observed by the United Nations

Sorry about the greater than usual number of typos in the last post. I correct errors I find afterwards in the blog, but those edits are not forwarded to subscribers. I always thought that posts went out the next morning once the blog was published, but that one went out in the evening after my afternoon's work, before I came back to do another proofreading.

I've been a little blah on blogging lately, but I found a topic that tickled my fancy. I was cleaning up some piles of stamps from my childhood collection when I came across a couple of other "international year" stamps. That made me wonder about so-called international years.

This web page for the United Nations with a list of international years states:

The United Nations designates specific days, weeks, years and decades as occasions to mark particular events or topics in order to promote, through awareness and action, the objectives of the Organization. Usually, it is one or more Member States that propose these observances and the General Assembly establishes them with a resolution. On occasion, these celebrations are declared by the specialized agencies of the United Nations, such as UNESCO, UNICEF, FAO, etc., when they concern issues that fall within the scope of their competencies. Some of them may be later adopted by the General Assembly.

The list contains 88 international years from 1961 to 2024, with more than one for some calendar years.

The IGY in 1957-58 was not a UN designated international year, coming before such declarations began. In an earlier post, I explained that CSAGI (acronym for Comité Spécial de l'Anée Géophysique Internationale, French for The Special Committee for the International Geophysical Year) was formed by the International Council for Scientific Unions (ICSU), now the International Council for Science. The ICSU's mission was to strengthen international science for the benefit of society. It was one of the oldest non-governmental organizations in the world, its predecessor organizations dating back to the start of the 19th century. Thus, it far predates the United Nations, organized in 1945.

We have seen in an earlier post that the UN was involved in the IGY via the cooperation of the World Meteorological Organization (and perhaps in other ways I am not aware of).

I have put the list of UN International Years in tabular form, which you can see here. A number of these do have scientific or environmental themes. The six such years for which the U.S. issued postage stamps were:

I have the first two of these stamps in my childhood collection, and the last one in my IGY collection. This Fourth International Polar Year followed 50 years after the IGY, which was initially going to be the Third International Polar Year.

World Refugee Year, Scott 1149 (1960), canceled, from my childhood collection, mounted in Minkus' The New World Wide Postage Stamp Album.

World Refugee Year, Scott 1149 (1960), mint, more recently purchased. Designed by Ervine Metzl, who also designed the U.S. IGY stamp

International Cooperation Year, Scott 1266 (1965)

International Polar Year, Scott 4123 (2007)

News flash! I forgot I had ordered another U.S. philatelic item for a UN International Year, and it just arrived. It is an aerogram for the 1983 World Communications Year. I consider this IGY-related, since 1983 also happened to be the 25th anniversary of the first U.S. satellite put in orbit during the IGY. An aerogram  is "a sheet of paper with a strategically placed stamp-like indicium that prepays air mail postage. After the message and the name and address of the recipient are written, the sheet is folded, sealed, and mailed. No enclosures are permitted" (Encyclopedia of United States Stamps and Stamp Collecting glossary). My mother exchanged aerograms (the most economical way to write internationally) with overseas relatives when I was young;  I should have a trove of those sent to her somewhere. The U.S. issued a total of 25 aerograms from 1947 to 1999, when their production ceased due to the decline in postal communications (Wikipedia).

Air post stamped envelopes and air letter sheets (aerograms) have a special "back of the book" (items listed in different categories in the Scott catalogs following regular postage stamps) designation in the Scott catalogs, UC.

Front, World Communication Year themed U.S. aerogram, Scott UC56 (1983)

Back, World Communication Year themed U.S. aerogram, Scott UC56 (1983)

The indicium on the front shows a world map with the locations of satellite tracking stations. The cachet on the front of this first day cover shows a satellite and a tracking station. The satellite looks like a Tiros weather satellite, with panels of solar cells surrounding the body.

The image on the back of the aerogram shows another type of satellite and its partner tracking station. The satellite has solar cell arrays deployed on panels that could rotate to orient towards the sun.

Remember that my first non-summer job with Fairchild Space and Electronics Co. involved working on space power subsystems -- solar cell arrays and batteries -- for communications satellites.