Mt

Googolplex (1 followed by a googol of zeros); even using one proton for each zero, it couldn’t be written with all the matter in the universe

5th Ackermann number (of the form n^(n, n times)): cannot be written on a sheet of paper as large as the entire universe… …even if one uses exponential notation

10^(3 638 334 640 024): 4th Ackermann number (of the type n^(n, n times))

A Googol of years (a term coined by mathematician Edward Kasner at the age of 9). After a Googol of years, the temperature of the Universe is a nearly uniform value very close to absolute zero (0K).

Physicists Giuseppe Mussardo and André LeClair published an article in which, using physical rather than mathematical methods, they demonstrated (mathematically!) that “while a violation of the Riemann Hypothesis (RH) is strictly speaking not impossible, it is nevertheless extremely improbable.”; that is, it is technically possible

Researchers from Caltech and Purdue University reveal that they have solved a particular type of partial differential equation (PDE) in the Fourier domain using Artificial Intelligence algorithms (Neural Networks). Navier-Stokes is used to describe the motion of incompressible fluids, much more efficiently than traditional techniques

Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo, VSS Unity, flies over Mojave Air and Space Port, reaching an altitude of 82.7 kilometers (51 miles) before landing back at base. The pilots are Mark Stucky and CJ Sturckow.

Strasbourg. Christmas Market. Cherif Chekatt, shouting “Allah Akbar,” shoots at people at the market, some holding the gun to their heads. Five people are killed and dozens are injured. The attacker manages to escape. After a manhunt lasting several days, he is identified and killed.

Efforts, including the decisive ones by the Bill & Belinda Gates Foundation, to eradicate polio worldwide are showing incredible results: the total number of cases has dropped from 350,000 in 1988 to just 33 in 2018. It was endemic in 125 countries in 1988 and

US President Donald Trump announced the unilateral withdrawal of the United States from the INF Treaty (Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces), signed with the Soviets in 1987 by Reagan and Gorbachev, due to Russia’s repeated violations of the treaty in recent years (particularly the nuclear cruise tests

Ankara. Two suicide bombers detonate bombs amidst a crowd of peaceful students and workers demonstrating in the streets of the capital. 128 people are killed and over 500 injured. Investigations point to ISIS. The next day, thousands of protesters return to the streets to demonstrate

General Al-Sisi, Egypt’s new president, visiting al-Azhar University, argues that we must decide to reform Islam, recognizing that the problem lies not in the Quran, but in the eyes of those who read it and treat it as God himself. He says: “It is inconceivable

Following the presentation by the United States of evidence of the involvement of Bin Laden and the Al Qaeda network in the September 11 attacks, Article 5 of NATO was triggered, which provides for the mobilization of all member countries; this is the first time

2:46 PM Italian time (8:48 AM local time): A Boeing 767 (American Airlines Flight 11) with 81 passengers and 11 crew members on board crashes into the 92nd floor of the North Tower. All employees below the 92nd floor are saved. Everyone above the impact

Ahmad Shah Massoud, charismatic leader of the anti-Soviet struggle and current leader of the Northern Alliance, is assassinated by a suicide kommando sent by Osama Bin Laden.

The Yangtze River overflows its banks in China; the flood directly affects 300 million people, inundates an area almost twice the size of Italy, and destroys 10% of the annual crops.

Researchers at the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh clone a sheep, generating Dolly

Deep Blue (IBM) defeats Gary Kasparov in a chess tournament.

A Tokyo hospital announces the discovery of a strain of staphylococcus aureus that is resistant to all known antibiotics.

A car bomb causes the Khobar Towers in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, to collapse, killing 19 American soldiers who were residing there and injuring 240.

New York. Ownership of Rockefeller Center passes to a consortium comprising Goldman Sachs (with 50%), Gianni Agnelli, Stavros Niarchos, and David Rockefeller.

00:27 UTC: The Galileo spacecraft’s probe ignites its main engine for 48 minutes to decelerate and enter orbit around the gas giant.

On the evening of November 4, 1995 (the 12th of Heshvan in the Hebrew calendar), Syrian Prime Minister Rabin was assassinated by Yigal Amir, a law student and right-wing extremist opposed to the signing of the Oslo Accords. Rabin had attended a mass demonstration in

The Venona program, with which the NSA decrypted over 3,000 Soviet messages and telegrams from 1940 to 1948, is declassified. The Soviets used the “one-time pad” system, which, if used correctly, is virtually unbreakable. The Americans’ opportunity was opened by the Soviets’ repeated use of

Göbekli Teple, southeastern Turkey. An archaeological site is being excavated, revealing ten monumental T-shaped structures, ranging from 5 to 30 meters in height, dating to 9500 BC, with no obvious practical use. They were likely erected by bands of hunter-gatherers for obscure cultural reasons.

Russian space program. The turning point came with the entry of the Americans, following the agreement signed by Yeltsin and Clinton in 1993. Much of the hardware would be Russian, but paid for by the Americans. Then came the private joint ventures: Lockheed and Khrunichev

More than 100 people die in the Moby Prince ferry accident that rammed into the Tyrrhenian Sea.

Ground attack in the Persian Gulf: Allied troops sweep into Kuwait and southern Iraq

Latvia, following the example of Lithuania and Estonia, declares independence from the USSR

The Hungarians open the border with Austria. The USSR’s economy is collapsing, due to military spending, the inefficiency of the communist system, and the drop in oil prices. For this reason, Gorbachev decides he can no longer finance Eastern European countries to support an unsustainable

Tim Berners-Lee submits an official funding request to CERN for his World Wide Web project. His boss, Mike Sendall, responds, “vague, but exciting.” And he funds the project. Tim Berners-Lee finds an important collaborator in Robert Calilliau to lead the project. CERN management proposes patenting

Artificial Intelligence (AI): Reinforced Learning (RL: Sutton & Barto) is invented, with an agent interacting with its environment, learning from its actions and the consequences/rewards (this is semi-supervised learning). It is a technique related to Dynamic Programming (Bellman, 1952) that models interactions with the environment

Physicists Kip Thorne and Michael Morris of Caltech and Ulvi Yurtsever of the University of Michigan publish an article in the prestigious journal Physical Review Letters, in which they argue that time travel is not only possible, but probable, under certain conditions.

European probe Giotto encounters the nucleus of Halley’s Comet

Microsoft releases Windows 1.0

Michael Green and John Schwarz propose a scheme (later called Super-String Theory) in which Super-Symmetry is incorporated into String Theory, reducing the dimensions of spacetime from 26 to 10

Robert Mugabe of the Zanu party establishes a national solidarity government in Zimbabwe with the Zapu party.

First launch of an Ariane (ESA)

Sergey Brin, a Jew born in Moscow to a poor family, arrives in the United States. In the USSR, his father lost his job as soon as he applied for emigration. In the United States, his father finds work at the University of Maryland and

Beirut, Lebanon. Ali Hassan Salameh, leader of Black October, the Palestinian terrorist organization responsible for the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics, is assassinated by the Mossad. An explosive device is detonated as his car passes by. His four bodyguards are killed

The first methods for sequencing DNA appear and the first human genes are isolated

Russian chemist Ilya Priggine won the Nobel Prize for demonstrating that in non-isolated systems operating far from thermodynamic equilibrium (such as living beings), irreversible processes can increase their organization as they move further and further away from thermodynamic equilibrium. The properties of dissipative structures (i.e.,

Deng Xiaoping, Chairman of the Chinese Central Committee

The Viking 1 probe is launched toward Mars. It will gently descend on Chrysie Planitia.

Ed Roberts uses an Intel 8080 microprocessor to build a Personal Computer. In some ways, it’s the first PC. It has 256 bytes of memory and no keyboard: it uses switches. Les Solomon, of Popular Electronics magazine, is looking for something for his cover. Solomon

Helsinki Final Act: USA, USSR and all European states recognize existing state borders and renounce the use of force to change them

Leningrad. The KGB officially informs Vladimir Spiridonovic Putin, father of young Vladimir Putin, that it is considering enlisting his son. The father expresses his approval. In the Soviet Union, young men could not choose their profession; instead, they were informed of their decision after graduation.

Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty

In the United States, the SST project for supersonic civil air transport was canceled. Among other things, there had been strong public protests. Reports also emerged that the shock waves from supersonic aircraft “frightened residents, shattered windows, cracked plaster, and caused dogs to bark.” There

After 3 years of construction, the London Bridge (Roman Bridge of London) is inaugurated in Lake Havasu City, Arizona, dismantled stone by stone in London and reassembled in the desert (then water is added)

United States. News is made public of the visit of an American delegation led by Henry Kissinger to Beijing the previous week, and of the Chinese invitation to President Nixon for an official visit.

In Chile, Christian Democracy withdraws support for Allende’s government, which nationalized the copper mines.

Actor-director Woody Allen makes his film debut with “Take the Money and Run.”

Bombay. An 18-year-old man believed to possess paranormal powers was buried in a concrete pit 2 meters underground for 12 days. When he was pulled out, he was found dead. An autopsy revealed he died just hours after being buried.

Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle, commonly known as General de Gaulle (Lille, 22 November 1890 – Colombey-les-Deux-Églises, 9 November 1970), dies.

The American Lynn Margulis hypothesized for the first time the independent origin of DNA-containing organelles such as mitochondria and chloroplasts, in the form of parasitic prokaryotes.

The last launch of a Soviet satellite from the Zenit-2 program. These spy satellites were launched over a period of seven years. This is Kosmos-344 (to confuse matters and cover up military launches, 95% of Soviet launches are designated Kosmos…). Eighty-one Zenit-2 satellite launches were

The Thule incident, according to the “Indian” nomenclature adopted by the Pentagon, is a Broken Arrow: it involves an unauthorized launch, explosion, fire, or release of radioactivity from a nuclear weapon. However, an accident that causes damage to a nuclear weapon without any risk of

Israel. Prime Minister Levi Eshkol hands over the Ministry of Defense to Moshe Dayan. The air in the Middle East is saturated with hatred and violence. Neighboring Arab nations, led by Egypt, have formed an anti-Israeli coalition and built up military forces along Israel’s border.

Stephen Hawking, George Ellis, and Robert Geroch use Penrose methods to apply the Singularity Theorem to the entire Universe.

Nikita Khrushchev removed from all power in the USSR: Leonid Brezhnev becomes Chairman of the Supreme Soviet. Nikita Khrushchev pays for his retreat in the Cuban Missile Crisis, but above all for his disastrous agricultural policy.

Berkeley, California. Student Jack Weinberg is arrested while proselytizing on campus. The police car is immediately surrounded by three thousand students demanding his release, blocking the car for 32 hours. The roof of the car becomes a stage for rallies. The student is eventually released.

Inchunthil, Scotland. The Romans retreated and did everything possible to leave the Celts with nothing of use, especially metal objects. They also burned the fort, and from the ash they removed the nails and staples used for axes. Everything, including non-transportable weapons and armor, and

First research in the United States on plasma screens

Global peak CO2 emissions per dollar of GDP: 0.55. In the US, it is 0.8, a national all-time high, and in Mao’s China and the Great Leap Forward, it is over 3.0, due to coal. The global index will then progressively decline to 0.4 at

Britain detonates its first thermonuclear device: 1.8 million tons on Christmas Island

After the two Sputniks, finally the United States granted permission for von Braun’s team to put the first satellite into orbit (in reality, already on September 20, 1956, von Braun’s Jupiter had flown at more than 1000 km but without putting anything into orbit because

Philosopher Karl Popper published The Poverty of Historicism, in which he criticized the social sciences that aspire to predict history through alleged laws, patterns, cycles, or tendencies. He criticized Marxism and popular beliefs such as the alleged Second Coming of Christ or the inevitability of

After the failure of low-level flights and high-altitude balloons, the Americans now attempt aerial photoreconnaissance over the USSR with U-2 aircraft. A first U-2 takes off from the American military base in Wiesbaden, West Germany. It flies over Belarus, Ukraine, Poland, Moscow, Leningrad, and the

Hussein’s succession to the throne of Jordan. Prince Hussein ascended the throne of Jordan after his father, King Talal, was declared unfit to rule due to mental illness. Hussein was formally crowned on November 14, 1953, his 18th birthday. The third ruler of the constitutional

Douglas MacArthur calls for the immediate surrender of North Korean troops

Australia. The myxovirus, which afflicts and exterminates rabbits, is intentionally introduced in the hope of controlling the non-native species, which is in turn severely altering the local flora and fauna. The first year, it rewards Australians with a 99.8% mortality rate, but then in the

Baltic States. Second round of mass deportations by the Soviets. This is Operation Priboi (Surfing the Coast), during which 95,000 people, or 2.5% of the population of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, are deported to Siberia.

US Air Force Captain Edward A. Murphy coins the first Murphy’s Law

American Bobby Fischer, from lower Manhattan, was already considered a chess master at the age of just 6.

Romania. All farms up to 50 hectares, previously exempted from Groza’s agrarian reforms, are now equally expropriated without compensation. Local militias and police evict 17,000 farming families. This time, violent resistance to the expropriation arises, and 80,000 farmers are put on trial.

A V-2 converted into a two-stage (called Bumper) by Douglas and General Electric reaches an altitude of 400 km and a speed of 800 km/h

The International Criminal Tribunal in Tokyo condemns Japanese war criminals: 7 are hanged and 16 others are sentenced to life imprisonment, but in just 10 years they will all be free.

In 1948, Candido Jacuzzi used the know-how of the family business to build a running bathtub for his son who had contracted rheumatoid arthritis in 1943.

Arthur C. Clarke publishes the article “Extra-terrestrial Relays” in which he theorizes the use of geostationary orbit