What Is It Made Of, Little-Known Facts About the Roman Empire and Autumn Festivals Around the World
This week we’ll take a look at what “things” are made of – whatever: you, the planet, the computer you’re using right now, some of the great fall festivals to look forward to, why 24 hours a day, and what happens when new technologies comply with old laws.
Why are there 24 hours in a day
Most of us do not wonder why a day consists of 24 separate hours. Why 24, why not 25 or 100? Especially when so many of our other number systems are based on the decimal system? Well,this Mental Floss video has the answer, and like so many things, it goes back to the ancient Egyptians and Sumerians who were before and inspired them. The Sumerians divided the day into three parts: 12-hour “night”, 2-hour “twilight” and 10-hour “daytime”.
For their part, the Egyptians were probably among the first to accurately measure the length of a day, and while they adopted the base 10 as the basis of their number system, they also used 10 for other things, such as the number of days in their weeks. This meant that the Egyptian calendar had 36 weeks, each with 10 days, and they chose 36 evenly spaced stars in the night sky to represent each week. However, since they were evenly distributed, on summer nights, 12 of them rose above the horizon at approximately equal intervals, with each star symbolizing the beginning of a new hour. But this is just the beginning. 12 also corresponds to the number of lunar cycles in a year, making it an equally reliable number to orbit for short periods of time.
The story of the 24-hour day continues from there, but this is the root of the story. Click Play on the video above (it’s just two minutes) to see it all and take a journey through history. [ via Mental Floss ]
The coolest autumn festivals in the world
The weather is getting a little cooler in these areas, and while many of us may already be thinking about the upcoming holidays and bad weather, this can be a great time to plan your trip. Oyster has a great list of the best fall festivals around the world to look forward to, including Dia de los Muertos in Mexico in November, Diwali in mid-October (or Festival of Lights), Nuit Blanche in Paris and more. …
There are a few more things on the full list that you might want to consider, but they are all beautiful, they all take you to some spectacular locations, and they all deserve attention if you are not actually planning your trip. [ via Oyster ]
Old laws, new technologies, and how the old system didn’t adapt to the digital romance
In this week’s ” Notes to Myself” episode , host Manush Zomorodi (a friend of Lifehacker, by the way) travels to North Carolina to chat with a high school star defender who is facing five charges of sexual exploitation of a minor. Sounds serious, and of course it is, but where did the accusations come from? He has sex with his girlfriend, who is also in high school.
This is also a problem – it’s not that she is very different in age or anything else that could easily explain the problem. The exhibition notes explain:
Depending on where you live, teenagers who send or receive sex from someone under the age of 18 may be accused of child pornography. In Fayetteville, things have changed for Kafkians because of North Carolina’s law that treats 16-year-olds as adults if charged with a crime. Fayetteville Observer reporter Paul Wolverton explains: “We are one of two states that say that if you are 16 or older, if you are charged with a crime, you are an adult. But if you are the victim of a crime, you are a minor. So in these cases, because they were under 18 but over 16, they were both adult criminals who exploited themselves. “
Cases like these are nothing new – in fact, parents of teenagers have been worried about it since texting and smartphones became common among high school students, and God knows it. This issue explores the problems with the law, the reactions of the people behind the case and the law that govern it, and of course, what that means for all of us in the future. [ via Note to myself ]
Rarely-mentioned and little-known facts about the Roman Empire
Most of us probably understand at some level exactly how much the Roman Empire influenced Western civilization, even if we haven’t studied its history in one form or another (and I urge you to study it if you haven’t). However, the story is that this is a long, incredibly large-scale thing, and a lot is lost in the cracks, even if you spend semester after time on a topic. As such, this Quora thread aimed to uncover some of the often overlooked facts about the Roman Empire, and the results are amazing to read.
It’s worth taking a look at the whole thread , but I especially liked this answer by Alberto Jagos :
Over time, gladiators became second-rate entertainment compared to another type of spectacle: venators (hunters).
From about 100 BC before 50 AD gladiators were great crowd pleasers: although they were slaves, they were well trained and well equipped, and they learned to wound their opponents with bloody cuts without necessarily killing them. Most of them were saved and survived to fight another day.
But good training and good food are expensive and over time it was considered too difficult, so the quality of the fighting deteriorated and they had to improvise: gladiators, now prisoners with no formal training, were launched into the arena in large groups, sometimes chained up. between them, sometimes with rusty weapons or helmets that left them blind. A “coreographic” fight in which a gladiator could die turned into a mass of people who beat themselves to death without preparation.
That is why Marcus Aurelius was bored with games, and during them he dictated letters to his secretaries.
But if the quality of the duels deteriorated, the fight of humans against blows became more popular: Sila (93 BC) showed a fight against 100 lions. Julius Caesar 400, Pompey 600 lions, 20 elephants and 400 leopards. August (10 AD) brought the first tiger and 3500 elephants. Trajan (102 AD) killed 11,000 animals in the arena.
Unlike bestiaries , prisoners sentenced to death by animals, venators were highly skilled professionals (as were gladiators). Sometimes they were from wealthy families who enjoyed the thrill of killing beasts in relative safety (they used bows, which was quite exotic in Rome), but over time they fought much closer (Strabo told us about a Venator jumping on the back of a crocodile and stabbed him to death with a knife), with a wide variety of weapons and their prowess, drove the crowd mad.
By 80-90 AD, they were the best part of games. Martial, for example, dedicated many of his epigrams to the powers of the Venators, including this:
[…] Doesn’t compare to Carpophorus! He shot down a boar [with a spear] ! Then he thrust his darts into the bear, the largest […], and then he ran over the lion [with the spear] and, throwing the spear, killed the swift leopard in the air. And he still had the strength to get his prizes!
So, wild boar, bear, lion and leopard one by one . Venatores made people cheer up to the max.
Of course, the Venators also took over. This answer by Truman Sharp discusses the impact they – and the sight of watching them – have had on the native fauna of Europe:
You can often hear about spectacular gladiator fights. Wild, ferocious animals often appeared. Thousands of animals were killed in a day; What do you think happened to the fauna of Europe as a result? In fact, you almost never hear about the extinctions caused by the Roman Empire.
Exotic animals were so in demand in the arena that some of the species of lions and leopards found in Asia Minor became extinct. The larger elephants of North Africa were over-hunted and became extinct. Rhinos, crocodiles, leopards, bears, ostriches and many other species have become endangered as a result of the bloodthirsty desires of the Roman people. Hippos were exterminated near the Nile Delta, European wild horses became extinct, and the bison, the ancestor of livestock, was slaughtered for sport.
Another answer mentioned venators, arena hunters. These were the very “fighters” who slaughtered countless animals.
It is truly a sad fact that so many animals became extinct just for fun. Moreover, few historians find it heroic or dramatic enough to be included in books.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. The entire thread discusses everything from Rome’s massive trade in living plants, the dental habits of Roman citizens, the engineering miracle that the Colosseum was, and, as mentioned above, the fact that gladiatorial battles only rarely resulted in death. [ via Quora ]
What is a thing and what is it made of?
Specifically, what are the things? What is something and what constitutes “things” or rather “everything”? This fun animated poyasnitel by consistently surprising Kurzgesagt shows how complex the issue is actually, but also how easy it is to actually answer when you look at it as a physicist (as, well, full disclosure – this is my general view on things.)
And I’m totally that bird. Questions like these keep me awake at night, then I start writing something in my notebook and look for reference materials in my old textbooks. Have a nice week. [via Kurzgesagt – in a nutshell ]
Everyone this week! If you have thought-provoking stories, interesting podcasts, eye-opening videos, or anything else that you think is perfect for Brain Buffet, share it with us! Email me , leave it as a comment below, or send it in any way convenient for you.