William Smith has died

Dr William Smith decorated by President Cyril Ramaphosa in April 2019.
Photo credit: Netwerk24.com

Today, Wednesday 21 August 2024, Netwerk24 and News24 reported that the iconic South African teacher, Dr William Smith, died peacefully in Australia after a short battle with stage four cancer.

Dr Smith started his ground-breaking physical sciences and mathematics classes on SABC TV in the 1990s. He was an amazing teacher with a practical and hands-on approach to excellent explanations. He helped millions of learners to understand the subject content better, and he helped thousands of teachers to improve their own explanations of the subject content.

Apart from his amazing career and service to teachers and learners of South Africa, something of special interest to me is that Dr Smith appeared as a boy in a picture that was taken when the second coelacanth was brought to South Africa.

William Smith as a boy on the far right.
Photo credit: saafmuseum.org.za

This amazing story can be read here and here. We thank the websites and authors for documenting this interesting history.

My sincere condolences to Dr Smith's family. What a great honour it was to have experienced this man!

Very interesting interview with Neil Armstrong

A few days ago, I posted something about the first moon landing in 1969.

Since then I discovered an amazing interview that was held with Neil Armstrong.

It was done by Alex Malley, the CEO of Certified Practicing Accountants, an organisation in Australia. Mr Malley did an outstanding job and showed so much respect, grace, and good humour.

Do yourself a favour and view it here. There is so much to learn for everybody.

The description of the video is as follows:

In this interview, the first man to walk on the moon gives a personal commentary on Apollo 11’s historic lunar landing along with his thoughts on leadership and taking risks to innovate for the future.

Neil Armstrong is a household name, yet, in contrast to his crew-mate Buzz Aldrin, he has studiously stayed out of the spotlight in the decades since he walked on the Moon. He frequently passed on interview and advertising requests, all the while beating back unwelcome advances on his legacy.

So it was a coup of sorts for Certified Practicing Accountants organization of Australia to score an extended interview with Armstrong, a connection that seems about as natural as a two-headed kangaroo. (CEO Alex Malley had developed the relationship, sharing his concerns about long-term strategic planning both in business and politics with Armstrong. The interview was a part of CPA Australia’s 125th anniversary celebration.)

Armstrong shows flashes of the rationality and equanimity that made him an ideal astronaut candidate in the first place. He confesses that he gave Apollo 11 a 90% chance of returning home safely, but just a 50% chance of landing on the Moon successfully. He expresses a sense of fate about his dangerous work as a test pilot and astronaut, refusing to worry about future tasks because he figured something would go wrong first and he’d be otherwise engaged firing the ejection seat or scrambling to repair a valve. Of his time on the Moon’s surface: “we weren’t there to meditate, we were there to get things done.”

First Moon Landing 55 years ago

Today, 20 July, we commemorate the first Moon Landing.

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was the first country to put a man in space. It happened on 12 April 1961 when Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space. Click here and also here to read more about him.

Click here for a short voice recording of his impressions. According to the Scientific American, Gagarin’s first spoken words were: “The Earth is blue, how wonderful.” Later: “The Earth was moving to the left, then upwards, then to the right, and downwards … I could see the horizon, the stars, the Sky,” Gagarin said. “I could see the very beautiful horizon, I could see the curvature of the Earth.”

On the 25 May 1961, the president of the United States of America, John F Kennedy, set a goal to land a man on the moon and return him safely back to Earth. Click here to listen to this sound clip.

Through science and mathematics, engineering, and lots of motivation and hard work by many men and women, the rocket carrying the first three Americans to the moon was launched on 16 July 1969. Click here for the sound clip.

On 20 July 1969, Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon, followed by Edwin (Buzz) Aldrin. Click here to listen to Armstrong's famous words.

What a remarkable achievement 55 years ago!