Since setting up this blog I've been a bit haphazard about what I post on here, mostly depending on how much time I manage to find. In an attempt to start posting more regularly, every now and then I'm going to post details of some of the things I'm hoping to learn and write about over the next couple of weeks. So here goes.
Jamestown - I've just finished a book ('Savage Kingdom' by Benjamin Woolley) on the founding and early years of Jamestown, the first English settlement in America (the first one to last more than a few months anyway). I'm hoping to write my own brief re-telling of this landmark history story.
Rivers - It always seems to come up on Eggheads (tv quiz show) so I'm going to read up on rivers, what are the world's longest, biggest, most diverse etc. A geography lesson I should enjoy I think.
Trees - It's dawned on me recently just how few trees I can successfully identify (about 3 or 4 is all). So I'm going to invest in a book on tree species in Britain, see how many I can identify out and about in the next week or so and maybe even take a few photos to post on here.
I'm sure there'll be more (I'm starting an evening course on history of the Tudors next week so I should learn some things there), but at least this gives me a starting point for the next week or two. See you soon!
Friday, 27 April 2007
In the news - a new earth and and an old book?
In my ongoing quest for knowledge, I often overlook the news as being full of celebrity gossip, political rumourmongering and bad news about killings, wars etc. From time to time there are some real gems. There were two that stood out this week.
The first concerned the news that scientists may have discovered a new earthlike planet. It orbits a star called Gliese 581 (they've got to come up with a better name, surely) and its radius is 1.5 times bigger than Earth. According to scientists models, it is likely to have an average temperature of between 0 and 40 degrees celsius, so assuming there is water it would be in liquid form, and they think the planet is either going to be rocky or full of oceans. It's 20.5 light years away so we are not likely to be able to visit anytime soon alas. It fills me with such a sense of awe to think that there might be life out there, so close (cosmically speak) and yet so out of reach. One day, it is highly likely that our descendants will visit this earth-like world... Of course there's no pictures yet - we don't have telescopes big enough to see it, but we can detect indirect signs of a planets existence such as the gravitational 'wobble'. In the next couple of decades however, scientists are hoping to have telescopes that can identify other clues as to what a plent is like such as the gases in its atmosphere. Exciting times could be ahead...
The other piece of news was about an old book. It was actually prayer book written in the 13th century by a scribe called John Myronas. Instead of using new parchment, the scribe used pages from 5 existing books and scrubs the writing from it before writing on the newly blank parchment. This is what is known as palimpsest. Anyway it was discovered in 2002 that one of the books that had been wiped clean was a unique work by Archimedes. Modern imaging techniques allow people to read the text underneath that had been wiped all those centuries ago. More recently, another of the books was identified as the only known manuscript by Hyperides, a Green politician of the 4th century BC. Now, a third book has been identified: an early commentary on Aristotle. What is so amazing is that if 3 works of such importance can be found in the same prayer book, what other texts lie hidden, waiting to be discovered?
Read more about the Archimedes Palimpsest here.
The first concerned the news that scientists may have discovered a new earthlike planet. It orbits a star called Gliese 581 (they've got to come up with a better name, surely) and its radius is 1.5 times bigger than Earth. According to scientists models, it is likely to have an average temperature of between 0 and 40 degrees celsius, so assuming there is water it would be in liquid form, and they think the planet is either going to be rocky or full of oceans. It's 20.5 light years away so we are not likely to be able to visit anytime soon alas. It fills me with such a sense of awe to think that there might be life out there, so close (cosmically speak) and yet so out of reach. One day, it is highly likely that our descendants will visit this earth-like world... Of course there's no pictures yet - we don't have telescopes big enough to see it, but we can detect indirect signs of a planets existence such as the gravitational 'wobble'. In the next couple of decades however, scientists are hoping to have telescopes that can identify other clues as to what a plent is like such as the gases in its atmosphere. Exciting times could be ahead...
The other piece of news was about an old book. It was actually prayer book written in the 13th century by a scribe called John Myronas. Instead of using new parchment, the scribe used pages from 5 existing books and scrubs the writing from it before writing on the newly blank parchment. This is what is known as palimpsest. Anyway it was discovered in 2002 that one of the books that had been wiped clean was a unique work by Archimedes. Modern imaging techniques allow people to read the text underneath that had been wiped all those centuries ago. More recently, another of the books was identified as the only known manuscript by Hyperides, a Green politician of the 4th century BC. Now, a third book has been identified: an early commentary on Aristotle. What is so amazing is that if 3 works of such importance can be found in the same prayer book, what other texts lie hidden, waiting to be discovered?
Read more about the Archimedes Palimpsest here.
Sunday, 22 April 2007
Roman Numerals
After a quiz question (while playing Perplex City board game) in which I needed to know, I decided to learn my Roman Numerals once again (having forgotten them long since). They are:
I - One
V - Five
X - Ten
L - Fifty
C - One hundred
D - Five hundred
M - One thousand
If there is a bar (line) above the letter, multiply it by a thousand. Not sure how to type this on here, but I imagine you get the idea. Note the lack of zero, as the Romans didn't have the concept of zero as a number.
As well as helping with quiz questions, it may come in useful for dating plaques, inscriptions, tombstones etc. as I investigate the local history of Lancaster (my abode).
As to how to learn them, I think I, V and X are fairly commonly known. I remember some of the others by using the following mnemonic (sp?):
M - Short for millenium which is 1000 years, hence the one thousand.
C - Short for century = 100 years therefore one hundred.
L and D are the hardest. The only things I can think of are that D is after C in the alphabet, hence 500. L is lower, hence 50. Not great I know. If anyone can think of a better way of remembering them, please let me know!
I - One
V - Five
X - Ten
L - Fifty
C - One hundred
D - Five hundred
M - One thousand
If there is a bar (line) above the letter, multiply it by a thousand. Not sure how to type this on here, but I imagine you get the idea. Note the lack of zero, as the Romans didn't have the concept of zero as a number.
As well as helping with quiz questions, it may come in useful for dating plaques, inscriptions, tombstones etc. as I investigate the local history of Lancaster (my abode).
As to how to learn them, I think I, V and X are fairly commonly known. I remember some of the others by using the following mnemonic (sp?):
M - Short for millenium which is 1000 years, hence the one thousand.
C - Short for century = 100 years therefore one hundred.
L and D are the hardest. The only things I can think of are that D is after C in the alphabet, hence 500. L is lower, hence 50. Not great I know. If anyone can think of a better way of remembering them, please let me know!
Wednesday, 4 April 2007
Irish History: Brendan the Navigator & Newgrange
I'm reading a book called 'Ireland' by Frank Delaney. It's a novel, made up of lots of stories about the history and legends of Ireland. I'm only about a quarter of the way through the book, and there has been several stories so far including:
Brendan the Navigator - the story of an Irish monk who was also a sailor. He sailed around various the coast of Ireland, Scotland, England and to France. Then one day he set off with a group of monks to sail across the Atlantic. He visited several islands, spent 7 years travelling around the islands. He eventually visited the 'promised land', which the story names as America, where he meets natives with feather head-dresses. I've looked up Brendan on Wikipedia. He became a Saint, and the legend is based on several historic sources. One theory is that the promised land he visited was America, though this has never been proved. I found it fascinating though, particularly with my interest in early American history. Visit the wikipedia article for Brendan the Navigator
The building of Newgrange. This is a prehistoric temple, a sort of Irish stonehenge. I'd never heard of it before, but it sounds like it is quite famous. It is a 'passage tomb' and is older than both Stonehenge and the Grea Pyramid at Giza in Egypt! It was buried for over 4,000 years but uncovered in the 17th century by some men digging for Stone. Every year at the winter solstice, the sun shines for 17 minutes into a central chamber - this was obviously designed to be so.
Wikipedia article for Newgrange.
Brendan the Navigator - the story of an Irish monk who was also a sailor. He sailed around various the coast of Ireland, Scotland, England and to France. Then one day he set off with a group of monks to sail across the Atlantic. He visited several islands, spent 7 years travelling around the islands. He eventually visited the 'promised land', which the story names as America, where he meets natives with feather head-dresses. I've looked up Brendan on Wikipedia. He became a Saint, and the legend is based on several historic sources. One theory is that the promised land he visited was America, though this has never been proved. I found it fascinating though, particularly with my interest in early American history. Visit the wikipedia article for Brendan the Navigator
The building of Newgrange. This is a prehistoric temple, a sort of Irish stonehenge. I'd never heard of it before, but it sounds like it is quite famous. It is a 'passage tomb' and is older than both Stonehenge and the Grea Pyramid at Giza in Egypt! It was buried for over 4,000 years but uncovered in the 17th century by some men digging for Stone. Every year at the winter solstice, the sun shines for 17 minutes into a central chamber - this was obviously designed to be so.
Wikipedia article for Newgrange.
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