The Weird Actions of Brilliant Thinkers
Some of history’s greatest thinkers were more than a little eccentric. Let’s look at strange facts about five inventors, scientists, and philosophers who helped shape our world. Inventor Nikola Tesla walked around a building three times before entering it. He apparently became obsessed with the numbers 3, 6, and 9 and would only stay in hotel rooms that had a number divisible by 3.
Famed physicist Albert Einstein created a contract for his first wife that outlined her household duties. The contract established that she must provide fresh meals, clean laundry, and “silence on request.” Unsurprisingly, they divorced after 11 years. Scientist Marie Curie carried test tubes full of radioactive isotopes in her pockets almost everywhere she went. She also kept them in desk drawers and open areas around her lab. This practice is believed to have contributed to her death from aplastic anemia in 1934. The ancient Greek mathematician Pythagoras was afraid of fava beans, which wasn’t an uncommon fear during his time. Myth said that fava beans contained the souls of the dead since they had a flesh-like appearance. Finally, Sir Isaac Newton once inserted a sewing needle into his eye for an experiment to learn about how the eye perceived color and light. Surely, there was a less gruesome way to test his hypothesis!
Nestled in northern Mexico near Durango lies a mysterious tract of land that has baffled some scientists and hobbyists for years: the Zone of Silence. According to urban myth, this enigmatic area is where radio signals and telecommunications mysteriously vanish into thin air. It all started in 1970 when a U.S. White Sands Missile Base missile veered off its predetermined path and crashed into this strange dead zone — 400 miles from its designated target. U.S. Air Force authorities employed local residents to recover the missile, all while keeping the specifics and location of the missile under wraps. When the rocket was eventually discovered in a sand mound, a complex retrieval system was established, which included extending a railroad track to the dune. Though the THE ZONE OF SILENCE: Where Science and Conspiracy Converge
objective was to maintain secrecy, this incident might have sparked even more questions about the area’s secrets. Since that time, theories and conspiracies about the area have grown. They range from odd UFO sightings and alien encounters to unexplained fossils and natural phenomena. Scientists in the area say there is no truth to these rumors, and those with expert knowledge of the area’s local flora and fauna can explain each discrepancy. Despite these rebuttals, though, conspiracy theorists continue to flock to the zone in search of “answers.”
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