Eliezer and Rebecca. by Nicolas Poussin

The story is from Genesis, Chapter 24.  Abraham exiled at Canaan wanted to find a wife for Issac.He sent his servant, Eliezer with. 20 camels to his homeland, Chaldea/Haran. at Mesopotamia.  Abraham instructed Eliezer to the center of the town where there was a well.  Village young women would gather to fetch water. Eliezer would ask among the young women to give him and 20 camels to drink.  Whoever give Eliezer and camels water, Eliezer would ask the lady her name and her parent to see if the lady came from the same ancestors of Abraham.  Among the ladies, it was Rebecca who gave  Eliezer and his camels drink. Rebecca was the daughter of Bethuel who was the son of Nahor.  Nahor was the brother of Abraham.  Eliezer then presented to Rebecca with a ring and the bracelet and told Rebecca that she was chosen to be Issac’s wife. The painting by Nicolas Poussin in 1648 showed the reactions of Rebecca and other ladies upon hearing the news.  Enjoy yourself with the painting.

Sleepy Hollow

 My wife and I were at my brother’s home and visited the Sleepy Hollow and refreshed the story by Washington Irving, “The Legend of the Sleepy Hollow”.  The story began with the haunted Sleepy Hollow, and the headless horseman who as the story said that the horseman would rise up from his grave in the cemetery and would ride his horse in search of his head.  In the village, came with a lanky schoolmaster from Connecticut, named Ichabod Crane.  Crane was very superstitious, and would love to listen to ghost stories by the Dutch women in the village as Village Dutch women would love to befriend with Crane.  In the village, there was a beautiful and rich woman, named Katrina van Tassel, to whom Crane wanted to earn her hands.  Yet, Katrina had another suitor, a local hero, named Abraham van Brunt. Both Ichabod and Abraham were invited to a harvest party hosted by father of Katrina.  In the party, Abraham told Ichabod another ghost story.  Ichabod planned to propose to Katrina but did not succeed.  Feeling depressed, Ichabod rode his very temperamental horse called the gunpowder home.  On the pitch dark night, and on an intersection, came with the headless horseman who threw things at Ichabod.  Ichabod fell from the horse, and the next morning, Ichabod and his horse gunpowder disappeared from the village.  All they could find are the broken pumpkins, Ichabod’s discarded hat, and the trampled saddle of Gunpowder.  Now, it is up to your imagination on what was really happened on that night.

The story of building 200” reflective mirror telescope at Corning

 The story was noted on August 17 while my family was at Ithaca, New York.  The telescope was conceptualized by a famed astronomer, George Hale in 1928 who wished to build the largest telescope to be situated at Palomar Mountain.   He commissioned Corning to build the telescope with the Corning Pyrex technology.  Corning engineer, Mr. George McCauley took the challenge.  One great challenge was not to break the mirror during the cooling.  With this gigantic glass mirror, avoiding cracks during cooling was critical.  At Corning, they first build a honeycomb-like mold so that the mirror could be annealed slowly and uniformly.  Their first attempt was not successful.  In the 2nd attempt, the mirror was annealed for a year.  The mirror was then transported to Palomar, California in a train with a train speed of 25 miles/hr.  The mirror was then installed at Palomar, CA in 1948.