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The Daily Triptych273 / 365

30 SEP 2026

Day 273

A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents, but rather because its opponents eventually die.

Max Planck · Scientific Autobiography
A large religious polyptych painted in oil on oak panel, measuring 255 centimetres (8 ft 4 in) high and 218 centimetres (7 ft 2 in) wide.

I · THE OBJECT · BRITISH MUSEUM

Cervara Polyptych

Early Netherlandish painting · 1500 · Oil paint on oak panel

Gerard David’s large religious polyptych, dated 1500, is recorded across two major museum collections and at Cervara Abbey, leaving its modern trail unusually compressed.

Enter lesson 4 MIN
A diagram showing a transmitter connected to an antenna radiating curved lines representing radio waves outward through space toward a receiving antenna connected to a receiver.

II · THE DISCOVERY · HISTORY OF SCIENCE

Radio

1894 · technology

Radio waves carry voices, data, and radar signals across distances without wires. The technology rests on waves Heinrich Hertz proved existed, and apparatus Guglielmo Marconi built to send them.

Enter lesson 6 MIN
A man in dark furred robes kneels at left before a book; opposite him a seated Virgin holds a naked Child while an angel lowers a crown. Behind them an open arcade reveals a river city in sharp detail.

III · THE WORK · ART HISTORY

Madonna of Chancellor Rolin

Jan van Eyck · Oil on panel · 66 × 62 cm (2 ft)

A chancellor and a Virgin share a stone loggia. Between them a landscape falls away in sharp detail, and the room will not say which of them it belongs to.

Enter lesson 6 MIN
Head-and-shoulders portrait of a man in a white baseball uniform with red trim, a white cap with a red letter C on it, holding a bat across his chest, looking directly at the camera with a neutral expression.

IV · THE GAME · MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL

Frank Robinson

Outfielder · 17 April 1956 · 31 August 1935, Beaumont, Texas

He hit 586 home runs across twenty-one seasons, but the year he hit 49 was also the year he made 34 doubles. The power was there from the start.

Enter lesson 6 MIN

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