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In London, arguments about the redevelopment of the area around the Thames River are becoming heated again. However, until recently, the riverside redevelopment plan centered around the Dockland, which was spotlighted in the '80's, had seemed to have faced a setback from 1990, due to the rapidly deteriorating English economic environment. In actuality, even today, the Dockland area, mainly Surrey and Canary Wharf, cannot be described as rejuvenated, and moreover, the economy has not arrived at an upswing. Even then, the arguments about the Thames River are becoming heated among a specific group.

June 13 -- Dr. D.B. Steinman, designer of the St. John's Bridge, chose a gothic style of architecture with the determined purpose of making the span his most beautiful work, "The gothic arch was made of stone in the mideval days because steel had not been developed. It is really more appropriate in steel. Until recently the public took it for granted that steel bridges had to be utilitarian and unattractive, but now the interest is turning to the development of forms of beauty in steel."

Though accustomed to having the type of bridge left to his discretion, Dr. Steinman & Robinson, Consulting Engineers, worked out and submitted to the county commissioners plans and estimates for both the suspension and the canti- lever forms before the former was finally chosen. His estimate showed that the suspension type, beside from being more suitable for the site, would be $640,000 cheaper than the cantilever style.

It was called the most beautiful bridge in the world. At the time of its 1931 opening, it certainly was the longest single span. To honor the engineering feat it represented, a stamp with its picture was issued, and the bridge became the subject of music, even a children's book.

Yet, a section of suspension cable for the George Washington Bridge in the collections of the National Museum of American History can only hint at such glories. Three feet in diameter and ten feet long, the massive cylinder weighs an ungainly 34,000 pounds. From its ends protrude 26,474 individual steel wires, compacted under 400 tons of pressure. Before computers, this experimental section helped engineers model the effects of compression on the finished bridge's cables. Today, it represents an engineering marvel, whose creation spanned half a century of depressions, politics and the passions of two of America's greatest bridge designers.

When the retreating French Army and its allies reached the banks of the ice-filled Berezina River on the 23rd of November, 1812, they discovered their sole means of escape blocked by the smoldering ruins of the Borisov bridge. On the opposite bank lay a Russian force under Admiral Pavel Vasil'evich Chichagov, sent there specifically to cut off the French retreat from Russia. But with ingenuity born of desperation, French Engineer Jean-Baptiste Éblé and four hundred pontonniers managed to quietly build two new bridges using materials taken from nearby houses. Only days before this the French Army's Commander-in-Chief, Napoleon Bonaparte, had ordered all sixty boats of the army bridging train to be burned along with all other "nonessential" gear. General Éblé protested the decision at the time and discretely ordered two wagons of charcoal and six wagons of tools to be spared. He also assigned each of his men to carry a tool and some cramp irons. The Berezina bridges would be built using only these hand-tools, during the winter, for an army on the verge of disintegration.

The Cold War was only beautiful once, and that was during the race to space. Because after the Russians fired Sputnik across our bow in October 1957, and generals and presidents fretted over great missile silos in the sky, there were others who just wanted to see whose guys could fly the highest. When Yuri Gagarin (above) went first, America countered with its first real heroes since the war: The Mercury Seven. Alan Shepard was the first American to go up, in '61; John Glenn went up and around and around and around, and we all craned our necks and cheered and made him a senator. We saw blood on the launchpad after three were burned alive right on the ground; we saw footprints on the moon, back in 1969 when something like a moon landing could still get an 80 share (what were the other 20 percent watching?). And of course there was the Challenger in 1986, that awful fire in the sky. But we won. And we've been lucky. And we've used the moon for a driving range. Now for the planets, and the stars in the sky at night.

The Soviets launched Sputnik, the first man-made satellite, on October 4, 1957. Forty years later, the Cold War is over, and the Russian space program frightens only its own cosmonauts. It's difficult to recapture the sense of paranoia and self-doubt that Sputnik created in the U.S., but The New York Times' coverage of that week helps a bit. If journalism is the first draft of history, this was an especially rough draft, because the Soviets released information about the satellite in limited bursts, leaving much to speculation. But the paper's stories delved into the political and military implications of the Soviet feat, while managing to convey a sense of wonder. After all, the first step into space was an achievement that transcended politics.

UNIVERSITAS is the newsletter of the International Centre for the History of Universities and Science (CIS) at the University of Bologna. It is an occasional publication, with at least one issue a year. Its aim is to circulate news of work in progress in the fields of the history of universities and the history of science and technology. UNIVERSITAS, like CIS, is designed to promote the exchange of information between Italian historians and the international community of scholars. It will be sent free of charge to those interested.

The first mass administrations of a scholastic -aptitude test led with surprising speed to the idea that the nation's leaders would be the people who did well on tests

-Chinese scientists' growing appetite for the latest research tools is eating up China's science budget. So last month the government launched an effort to crack down on redundant purchases and encourage the sharing of costly facilities and instrumentation.