- Although c is now the universal symbol for the speed of light, the most common symbol in the nineteenth century was an upper-case V which Maxwell had started using in 1865. That was the notation adopted by Einstein for his first few papers on relativity from 1905. The origins of the letter c being used for the speed of light can be traced back to a paper of 1856 by Weber and Kohlrausch…
- Oral-History:Federico Faggin (ethw.org)
Federico Faggin was born 1 December 1941 in Benito Mussolini’s Italy. Intellectualism ran in Faggin’s blood. His father was a teacher in the history of philosophy and general history. To his father’s dismay he was interested in electronics, not the humanities. At a young age, Faggin realized that his interests were the opposite of his beloved father. He remembers being interested in machines and anything mechanical at a young age. Even as a young boy, Faggin recalls the irony of the lure of technology: he felt he could understand why machines worked, but not humans.