“Everything begins with an idea,” said Earl Nightingale. Ideas have the power to change the world. University of Chicago has played host to some of the most powerful ideas in the world. A new series of video shorts from University of Chicago aim to highlight the role the researchers and scientists of the University have played in changing the universe and our understanding of it. The series is called “The Day Tomorrow Began” and portrays compelling stories in video, podcast and written formats. Every story details a groundbreaking and gripping idea or discovery.

Could you ever imagine a star collapsing in on itself? A light, once shining so bright, suddenly turning into the darkest void you have ever seen. Indian-American scientist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar could imagine it. He is the first story topic covered, for his role in discovering black holes. In 1931, at only the age of 19, Chandrasekhar was the first person to calculate that stars would ultimately collapse in on themselves at the end of their lives. And if the star had enough mass, it would create a black hole. This is only one of the fascinating stories the series has to tell.  

Thinkers and scholars of the world have always advanced our way of life. Today, higher education and its researchers are facing challenges when it comes to lack of funding. The series was created, in part, as a hope to reinvigorate people’s passion for research and new ideas. “There’s a tremendous belief that universities need to play, and do play, a role in helping drive innovations and breakthroughs that really reshape our world,” said Paul Rand, vice president for communications at the University of Chicago.

 To watch or listen to the captivating series “The Day Tomorrow Began”, you can visit here.

The Clark Bridge, linking Illinois to Missouri in Alton, is a cable-stay bridge, unique in its structure in the United States. The bridge is named for explorer William Clark, who helped lead the Lewis & Clark expedition from 1804 to 1806. The bridge is a 4,620 foot gateway inviting visitors to discover the region.

Requiring 8,100 tons of structural steel, 44,100 cubic yards of concrete and more than 160 miles of cable wrapped with four acres of yellow plastic piping, the Clark Bridge is expected to be a part of the area's scenery well into the next century. The bridge is supported by 44 steel cables looped over saddles and perched on top of a pair of ten foot wide concrete pylons 250 feet above the Mississippi River.

Design work on the bridge began in 1985, with construction starting in June 1990. Designed by Hanson Engineers under contract to Illinois Department of Transportation, the Clark Bridge was the first in the United States in which a light steel-framed cable-stayed design was combined with a cable saddle type of pylon. The bridge used 8,100 tons of structural steel, 44,100 cubic yards of concrete, and more than 160 miles of cable wrapped with four acres of yellow plastic piping. The span carries four lanes of traffic and two additional paths for bicycles and pedestrians. It is the northernmost river crossing in the St. Louis metropolitan area.

The new Clark Bridge was built to replace the Old Clark Bridge, which was built by the Alton-St. Louis Bridge Company in 1927 and demolished after the completion of the new bridge in the 1990s. The old bridge was a toll bridge while the new one is not.

The new Clark Bridge is sometimes referred to as the “Super Bridge.” Its construction was featured in a NOVA documentary entitled Super Bridge, which highlighted the challenges of building the bridge, especially during the Great Flood of 1993.

Can you imagine life without a dishwasher? Fudge brownies? Your cell phone? Neither can we—that’s why we’re taking a moment this National Inventors’ Day to recognize a few Illinois inventors and their contributions to history.

In 1885, Josephine Cochrane developed the dishwasher in Shelbyville. As the story goes, Cochrane—a wealthy socialite who frequently hosted dinner parties—hated washing dishes so much that she invented and patented the world’s first mechanical dishwasher. She founded the Garis-Cochran Manufacturing Company in 1886, which became part of KitchenAid after her death in 1913.

Sweet-toothed Illinoisans, rejoice: Chefs at Chicago’s Palmer House Hotel invented the brownie in 1893. According to legend, the hotel owner’s wife requested a dessert that would hold up in boxed lunches for attendees of the World Colombian Exposition. The result? A nutty, apricot-glazed predecessor to the fudgy treats we know today.

The Argonne National Laboratory has received a $200 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to build a supercomputer that will be five to seven times faster than any now on the planet, according to a statement made by the organization.