Electrostatic accelerators have emerged as a major tool in research and industry in the second half of the twentieth century. In particular in low energy nuclear physics they have been essential for addressing a number of critical research questions from nuclear structure to nuclear astrophysics. This article describes this development on the example of a single machine which has been used for nearly sixty years at the forefront of scientific research in nuclear physics. The article summarizes the concept of electrostatic accelerators and outlines how this accelerator developed from a bare support function to an independent research tool that has been utilized in different research environments and institutions and now looks forward to a new life as part of the experiment CASPAR at the 4,850” level of the Sanford Underground Research Facility.

Albert Einstein's biographers have not explained why he developed the abdominal aortic aneurysm that led to his death. Early conjectures proposed that it was caused by syphilis, without accurate evidence. The present article gives evidence to the contrary, and argues that the principal cause of Einstein’s death was smoking.

This paper considers Hugh Longbourne Callendar’s role in the developments of thermometry and thermodynamics during the last decades of the nineteenth century and the first decades of the twentieth century. Callendar applied the physical principle of the variation of electrical conductivity with temperature to the construction of the resistance thermometer. These works opened the door to his later successful studies on steam properties, which led him to become one of the pioneers in the determination of a set of consistent, accurate, and standardized thermodynamic values for water. The article briefly reviews the state of the art of both subjects before Callendar’s contributions and some of the consequences of his work for the later development of those disciplines. Callendar’s qualities as experimenter, theoretical scientist, and as a human being, are also discussed.