Maunder minimum
n.— «Between 1645 and 1714, astronomers reported almost no sunspot activity. This solar funk, which has not been repeated, came to be called the “Maunder minimum,” and it coincided with the coldest part of the Little Ice Age in Europe and North America.» —“Solar funk” by Pamela Zerbinos Astronomy.com June 18, 2004. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
It was a dark and stormy night. So begins the long and increasingly convoluted prose of Edwards Bulwer-Lytton’s best-known novel. Today the annual Bulwer-Lytton Contest asks contestants for fanciful first sentences that are similarly...
Enthusiastic book recommendations! Martha’s savoring the biography of Alexander von Humboldt, the 19th-century explorer, polymath, and naturalist who revolutionized our understanding of nature and predicted the effects of human activity on...
