Fact of the Day

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - HELIUM

 

Did you know... that Helium is a chemical element with the symbol He and atomic number 2? It is a colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic, inert, monatomic gas, the first in the noble gas group in the periodic table. Its boiling point is the lowest among all the elements. 

 

Helium is the second most abundant element in the universe.  In 1928 helium became available on the open market for the first time.  Helium is so light that Earth’s gravity is not strong enough to hold on to it. When helium atoms are released into the atmosphere, they rise until they escape into space.  It is one of only two natural elements that has never been observed bonding to another element in a compound. The other element is neon. Helium plasma can, however, form temporary excimer molecules with elements including sodium, fluorine and sulfur.

 

At temperatures close to absolute zero helium condenses to a liquid with amazing properties – the properties of a superfluid, flowing with zero friction up and over the walls of containers.

 

At normal atmospheric pressure helium does not solidify. At 25 atmospheres of pressure helium is a solid at 0.95 K. As the pressure rises, the temperature at which solid helium exists also rises. Helium can be made solid at room temperature if the pressure rises to about 114 thousand atmospheres: that is a pressure of 1.67 million psi, or 834 tons per square inch. This is over 100 times greater than the pressure at the oceans’ deepest point, the Challenger Deep, which is almost seven miles deep (10 916 meters).

 

Helium exists in Earth’s atmosphere only because it is constantly resupplied from two sources – decay of radioactive elements on Earth, and cosmic rays, about 9% of which are high energy helium nuclei.  The helium we buy in cylinders is produced by the natural decay of radioactive elements in the earth’s crust – principally thorium and uranium.  Radioactive decay of uranium and thorium produces about 3000 metric tons of helium a year.

 

Current world production of helium is over 30 000 metric tons a year. (Helium has been accumulating for many millions of years in a few natural gas fields, therefore we can currently extract more each year than is being created by uranium and thorium decay.)  Helium was discovered in the Sun’s atmosphere before it was found on Earth.

 

Helium balloons can reach the edge of space. NASA’s Ultra Long Duration Balloons (ULDBs) can lift 6000 lbs to an altitude of 110,000 feet, above 99 percent of Earth’s atmosphere. ULDBs are huge – 500 feet tall, made of 20 acres of plastic and can carry heavy instruments – to study cosmic rays, for example.

 

Helium was discovered when a new, bright yellow line was seen in our sun’s spectrum. You can see helium’s spectrum here at 24 seconds, with the characteristic yellow line. Start at the beginning to see hydrogen’s spectrum too.

 

The story of helium’s discovery is interwoven with the discovery of the nature of stars.  At one time people believed we would never know what stars are made of. In 1835 French philosopher Auguste Comte declared, “we shall never be able by any means to study their chemical composition.”  Comte thought we could only learn what star-stuff was if we could get it into the laboratory.

 

Despite Comte’s pessimism, the method for the discovery of helium and the compositions of the stars had already been found. In 1814 German physicist Joseph Fraunhofer had taken Isaac Newton’s method of splitting sunlight using a prism and had made a crucial advance. Fraunhofer had noticed dark lines in the rainbow of colors coming from sunlight split by a prism; the lines he saw were the first ever observation of a star’s spectrum. 

 

In 1859/60 German scientists Gustav Kirchhoff and Robert Bunsen made enormous leaps in the science of spectroscopy, including the discovery that the dark lines Fraunhofer had seen were like a substance’s fingerprint.  The scene was set for Kirchhoff and Bunsen to discover new elements by studying light from substances when they were burning.

 

In 1860 they discovered cesium by its blue spectral lines and in 1861 rubidium from two red spectral lines. Then William Crookes discovered thallium in 1861 after observing a bright green spectral line.  Kirchhoff and Bunsen looked at the sun’s spectrum and were able to conclude that iron was present in its glowing atmosphere.  For helium’s discovery, a few more years were needed. In August 1868 the first total eclipse since Kirchhoff and Bunsen’s work had been published was due.

 

French astronomer Pierre Janssen was waiting for an eclipse in order to observe prominences in the sun’s corona using a spectroscope. In the two weeks following the eclipse Janssen developed a method of recording prominences’ spectra without the need for an eclipse. In these spectra, he observed a yellow line.   The line was in a similar but not identical position to lines in sodium’s spectrum. These were called the D1 and D2 lines. English scientist Norman Lockyer studied the new yellow line; later it would be called the D3 line. He published his study of the line, aware it might be caused by a new element:

 

“…so then we knew that we were not dealing with hydrogen; hence we had to do with an element which we could not get in our laboratories, and therefore I took upon myself the responsibility of coining the word helium, in the first instance for laboratory use.”  The name helium came from the Greek word for the sun, helios.  Lockyer and Edward Frankland, his coworker, had a number of other ideas about the possible causes of the yellow line and therefore did not announce a new element.

 

By 1871, other scientists were aware of the situation. Lord Kelvin discussed “reflection of the light of the glowing hydrogen and ‘helium’ round the sun.” The use of ‘helium’ is followed by a footnote to explain it:

“Frankland and Lockyer find the yellow prominences to give a very decided bright line not far from D, but hitherto not identified with any terrestrial flame. It seems to indicate a new substance, which they propose to call Helium.” 

 

Helium’s existence was not, however, accepted by everyone. 

 

All doubts were dispelled when Scottish chemist William Ramsay isolated helium in 1895 in London. Ramsay had codiscovered argon in 1894; argon was the first of the noble gases to be discovered. In 1895 he read a paper by William Hillebrand describing an unreactive gas that was released when acid was added to the uranium mineral, uranite. Hillebrand believed the gas was nitrogen. [We now know that uranium emits helium during radioactive decay. Radioactivity’s existence was not recognized until 1896 when Henri Becquerel’s work was published.]

 

Ramsay, who believed the gas might contain argon, repeated Hillebrand’s experiment using another uranium mineral, cleveite, and collected the gas.  His spectroscope indicated the presence of nitrogen, argon and one other gas. Ramsay suspected it could be helium, because there appeared to be a D3 line. (8) Aware that Lockyer and William Crookes had a better spectroscope than his, he sent them a sample of the gas. Unfortunately the sample was not suitable, so Lockyer obtained a sample of uranite, extracted the gas and studied it by spectroscope. He writes:  “One by one the unknown lines I had observed in the sun in 1868 were found to belong to the gas.”  The gas’s spectrum was identical to the sun’s ‘helium.’ A new element won its place in the periodic table.

 

Want to learn more about Helium?  CLick here.

 

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - ANCIENT GREECE

 

Did you know... that the ancient Greek period lasted for about a thousand years and ended with the advent of Christianity? It is considered by certain historians to be the first Western civilization. Greek culture had an amazing impact on the Roman Empire, which allowed it to be adapted and brought to the rest of Europe. The ancient Greeks had a huge influence on language, legislature, education, reasoning, science, and culture which led first to the Renaissance in Western Europe and then later to various neo-Classical revivals in 18th and 19th century Europe and the Americas.

 

It is widely accepted that Athens was the birthplace of a vote-based system of government, and despite several hypotheses to the contrary, Athens remains the inspiration for later democracies.
Ancient Greece had a complex system of government as each of its urban communities had its own way of ruling, and the idea of rule by majority was born over a period of time in response to a series of localized political and social issues. Prior to democracy, there was a great deal of social inequality, and out of a need to address elitism and lack of opportunity for the lower classes, the vote-based belief system was born.

 

The Greeks didn't call their country Greece.  This is a truly bizarre statement, but the Greeks have called their nation Hellas or Hellada for a long time, with its official name being the Hellenic Republic. The English word “Greece” comes from the word Graecia, which is Latin for “the land of the Greeks.”

 

Greece is well known as the birthplace of the modern Olympics, and historians believe that the first-ever Greek Olympics was held as a religious celebration in 776 BC in honor of the mighty god, Zeus.  However, the sporting events then were very different from those we see today. Two very popular events were the exciting but dangerous chariot race and an ancient sport known as pankration which was a mixture of wrestling and boxing. Boxing itself was a separate event and was not divided into weight categories. You could also view ancient Greece as the first place to host highly competitive events like modern-day mixed martial arts contests. One final point of interest is that, for the most part, the ancient Greeks competed in the nude or wearing just a thong.

 

The custom of greeting someone by shaking hands dates as far back as the ancient Greeks. One section of the Acropolis depicts the Greek goddess of marriage, Hera, shaking hands with the Greek goddess of intelligence, Athena.

 

Somewhere in the region of 40 to 80 percent of the population of Classical Athens were slaves, and historians believe that over the entire region, the ratio of slaves to the rest of the population could have been approximately 2:5. Slaves were common in all households and most Greek families owned at least one slave. Other slaves such as the “helots” were state-owned.

 

At its economical height in the fifth and fourth centuries BC, ancient Greece was the most developed economy in the world. This can be seen from the average daily Greek wage which was around 12kg of wheat. During the Roman era, the average pay for an Egyptian laborer was about 3.75kg.

 

The Greek statesman Pericles used taxes and contributions from the wealthy to boost the Athenian state. An example of this is the magnificent Parthenon, built to pay tribute to the goddess Athena at the Acropolis.  Pericles also paid for annual plays such as comedies and tragedies to be staged at the Acropolis. These plays embodied the social and cultural accomplishments of the ancient Greeks while the Parthenon showed how advanced their architecture had become.  Through the narratives of Herodotus and Thucydides, and the medical insights of Hippocrates, the ancient Greeks showed a great aptitude for rational thinking, philosophy, and public speaking.  The great architecture of the ancient Greeks bears testament to their advanced craftsmanship and building techniques and is woven into the fabric of their daily and political life.

 

The Greeks moved southwards into the Balkan promontory in waves, starting in the late third millennium BC, the last being the Dorian invasion. The proto-Greek language is accepted to date to sometime between the 23rd and 17th centuries BC. The period from 1600 BC to around 1100 BC is known as Mycenaean Greece, famous for the rule of King Agamemnon and the wars against Troy, as described in the sagas of Homer.

 

The period from 1100 BC to the eighth century BC is a “dark age” from which no essential writings survive and only meager archeological proof remains. Third-hand accounts, for example, Herodotus’ Histories, Pausanias’ Description of Greece, Diodorus’ Bibliotheca, and Jerome’s Chronicon contain references to this period and document some of the rulers from this time. The history of ancient Greece is commonly believed to have finished with the rule of Alexander the Great who died in 323 BC.  The history of ancient Greece relies heavily on contemporary sources. The Greek historians and political journalists whose works have endured, most notably Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Demosthenes, Plato, and Aristotle, were for the most part Athenians. That is why many of these accounts focus on the history and legislative issues of Athens over other cities. They offer little insight into the everyday life of communities and contain barely any social history; their focus is completely on political, military and strategic issues.

 

For the most part, education was a private affair and most well-off families could afford a private tutor. However, during the Hellenistic period, some city-states set up government-funded schools. Young men were taught how to write, sing, and play one melodic instrument and were prepared for a life of military administration. Many of them were upper-class citizens and did not need to work. Young ladies were taught how to write and do basic math to help them with running a household.

 

Few young men continued their education into adulthood, with the exception of the Spartans who underwent extensive military training. Most young men had a mentor and learned by watching him debate legal issues in the marketplace, helping him with his public duties, practicing with him in the recreation center, and going to symposia with him. Some students went on to train in colleges in the cities such as the Lyceum and the Academy, where they were under the tutelage of the most noteworthy instructors.

 

In ancient Greece, an “idiot” was anyone who didn’t participate in political or public arenas. Their opposite was the “polites” who were considered worthy public citizens.  “Idiot” (Ιδιωτης) comes from the word idios, meaning “self” or a selfish person who ignores political debate, does not take part in decision making and generally does not participate in politics. As the word implies, it was someone who only cared for himself, “separated from the whole.” 

 

In ancient Greece, politics was a serious business, and determining the way in which the city-state would rule was of utmost importance for everyone. This was especially true in democratic Athens where every citizen had the right to state their opinion publicly, and indeed were obliged to do so. Any man had the right for his opinion to be heard by his peers and respectfully debated.  Being an idiot, therefore, was considered a serious flaw. Idiots were thought to be weak-minded individuals who let others control their lives, and with time the word has evolved to become a common insult.

 

In the month before the ancient Olympic Games took place, no fighting was permitted, allowing spectators to travel across Greece safely to get to the games. To encourage this, and in deference to the religious significance of the games, a ceasefire or ekecheiria was put in place all over Greece.

 

At first, the ceasefire was for one month but over hundreds of years, it was extended to three. No wars were allowed, no arms could be carried in the region of Elis, and no obstruction was to be put in the way of spectators, competitors or “theories,” the officials who had to travel from their homes to the games. Envoys or spondophoroi were sent from Elis to publicize the games all over Greece, and spectators came from mainland Greece as well as the islands, Ionia and Magna Graecia.

 

In Athens, the populace was separated into four social classes depending on wealth, and individuals could move up a class only if they attained more money.  In Sparta, all male natives were called homoioi, meaning “peers” but Spartan lords, who acted as the city-state’s military and religious leaders, originated from just two families. Only free, land-owning, locally born men qualified for full assurance under the law in a city-state. In most city-states, unlike in Rome, high social ranking did not give a man extra rights.

 

The ancient Greeks were pioneers in human progress, creating many systems and traditions without the use of cutting-edge technology to help them. Ancient Greece also has many fascinating facts relating to culture, sports, food, etc.

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - GLITTER

 

Did you know... that Glitter describes an assortment of small, reflective particles that come in a variety of shapes and colors. Glitter particles reflect light at different angles, causing the surface to sparkle or shimmer? Glitter is similar to confetti, sparkles, or sequins, but somewhat smaller.  Because they're so tiny, glitter particles can pass through sewage treatment filters and then end up being dumped into the ocean. Since they're made of plastic, it can take up to 400 years for each tiny particle to degrade. And in the meantime, they interfere with ocean life and could even end up in YOUR stomach!

 

If we were to map out glitter's family tree, the mineral group mica would be at the top! According to this article in "The New Yorker," mica flakes have been used this way since the days of cave paintings. In fact, it was being used by some ancient civilizations (including the Egyptians, Chinese, Greeks, and Romans) since as early as 40,000 B.C.!  Glitter as we know it today was invented in 1934 by the American machinist Henry Ruschmann. He basically created a machine that crushed plastic in large quantities. According to this article from "The Huffington Post," the company he founded remains one of the industry's largest in the United States to this day.

 

According to this Reddit AMA (answered by a guy who worked in a glitter factory), the color is applied to a sheet of plastic polymer that is glued to a sheet of reflective material, such as aluminum. The new sheet goes into a rotary crusher and the result is glitter in small pieces of identical size. The smaller the glitter, the longer it takes to make because there are more cuts needed. According to this article by Mental Floss, for some time the US Air Force used a military strategy called "chaff," which consisted of releasing glitter from the back of warplanes to confuse the radar of enemy forces. The UK also tried a similar trick to fool German radar, using strips of aluminum-coated paper.

 

Here is a brief guide to getting glitter off any part of your body:

• Fingernails: To remove glitter nail polish, moisten a cotton ball with acetone, place it on the nail, secure it with an elastic band or wrap it with tinfoil, and leave it there for a few minutes. The acetone will practically melt away most of the polish that's sticking the glitter to the nail, which makes removal very easy.
• The face: According to makeup artist Hannah Levy Nunes, when you're applying makeup and get glitter in an area where you don't want it, the quickest way to get it off is by using adhesive tape. Try to use tapes specifically meant for the skin, such as a micropore medical tape, for example.  And remember, you shouldn't use stationery glitter near your eyes. "You can use it everywhere except the eyes. It's itchy, and your eyes could become inflamed or you could even scratch your cornea!" explains the makeup artist.
• The face and body after partying: To get the glitter to come off easily with water, apply a little cream makeup remover or even conditioner. Just be careful not to rub too hard, or else you might irritate the skin.  The oilier makeup removers only work if you used a product to glue the glitter onto your skin, such as eyelash glue, for example. Otherwise, they may have the opposite effect and make the glitter stick even better! If a lot of glitter still remains even after you've showered, you can use the tape trick, or even use one of those adhesive lint and hair removers for clothes.
• Hair: A recent beauty trend is glitter roots, which consists of applying glitter to the roots of your hair. But if there's a technique for putting it on, there's usually one for taking it off, too. Here it is: separate the part that you slathered with glitter and saturate it with conditioner. Pass a fine-tooth comb through it, and then rinse thoroughly. Then simply wash your hair as you normally would.  If, after shampooing, there are still some remnants of glitter, when your hair is dry, you can then use paper towels sprayed with a little hairspray and dab the area with the sticky towels to remove the excess pieces of glitter.

The glitter particles spread all over the place — on the victim, at the crime scene, in the car, on the criminal's clothes — and it can be a fundamental piece of evidence to incriminate a criminal. That's what happened in this case of a pedophile who tried to attack a little girl who left home wearing glittery tennis shoes.  It's made from ingredients like vegetables, seaweed, minerals, and other biodegradable materials. This special glitter is perfect for all those who want to keep on shining without messing with Mother Earth.

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - TEMPLE OF SATURN

 

Did you know... that The 4th century CE Temple of Saturn is situated in the north west corner of the Roman Forum of Rome and has eight majestic columns still standing? Built in honour of Saturn it was the focal point of this ancient cult and stood on the site of the original temple dedicated in c. 497 BCE, which itself had replaced the god's first shrine, the Ara Saturni. In addition, during the Republic the temple also housed the public treasury (aerarium), a function it kept, albeit in a more limited function, in the Imperial period.

 

 

Saturn is something of a mysterious figure in Roman religion. Depictions of the god in surviving art have him wearing a veil and brandishing either a sickle or a pruning knife. Perhaps a version of the Greek god Kronos, he was especially worshipped in the Saturnalia festival held every 17th of December (from at least the 5th century BCE) and which lasted several days. This was a festive occasion when people gave gifts to one another, slaves had the freedoms enjoyed by ordinary citizens, more informal clothes were worn instead of the usual toga, and there was a general round of partying and merrymaking which made it the jolliest Roman festival in the calendar; a fact which led Catullus to describe it as 'the best of times'. In later centuries the festival would metamorphose into the Brumalia festival and the similarity of its features and timing - pushed later into December in subsequent centuries - suggest an influence on the Christmas celebration.

 

The surviving ruins of the temple stand on a pediment of travertine blocks and are themselves composed of pieces recycled from earlier temples. The columns are of the Ionic order and eight still remain on the northern facade. The shafts of the columns are made from Egyptian granite, the two on the side from pink Aswan and the six facade ones from grey Mons Claudianus. Indicative of their differing history, three are monoliths and the others are composed of two pieces fitted together.  The Ionic capitals are, in fact, the only parts made specifically for the temple and are from Thasian marble and carved in typical Late Antique style. The architrave carries an Ionic frieze of acanthus leaves and palmettes and came from the previous temple on the site, commissioned by one of Julius Caesar's generals, Lucius Munatius Plancus, in 43 BCE using spoils from the campaigns in Syria.

 

Within the temple once stood a cult statue of Saturn which became the centre of attention during the Saturnalia when his feet were symbolically freed from the woollen bonds that tied him up for the rest of the year. This act has led to Saturn being associated with liberation, certainly a feature of the Saturnalia festival. The inscription on the exterior of the architrave relates to the reconstruction carried out in the 360s and 370s CE and reads as follows:

 

SENATVS POPVLVSQVE ROMANVS
INCENDIO CONSVMPTVM RESTITVIT

(The Senate and People of Rome, restored following destruction by fire).

Edited December 17, 2019 by DarkRavie

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - FACT

 

Did you know... that a fact is a thing that is known to be consistent with objective reality and can be proven to be true with evidence?  For example, "this sentence contains words" is a linguistic fact, and "the sun is a star" is a cosmological fact. Further, "Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States" and "Abraham Lincoln was assassinated" are also both facts, of the historical type. All of these statements have the epistemic quality of being "ontologically superior" to opinion or interpretation — they are either categorically necessary or supported by adequate historical documentation.

 

Conversely, while it may be both consistent and true that "most cats are cute", it is not a fact (although in cases of opinion there is an argument for the acceptance of popular opinion as a statement of common wisdom, particularly if ascertained by scientific polling). Generally speaking, facts transcend belief and serve as concrete descriptions of a state of affairs on which beliefs can later be assigned.

 

The usual test for a statement of fact is verifiability — that is whether it can be demonstrated to correspond to experience. Standard reference works are often used to check facts. Scientific facts are verified by repeatable careful observation or measurement by experiments or other means.

 

The word "fact" derives from the Latin factum, and was first used in English with the same meaning: a thing done or performed a meaning now obsolete.[1] The common usage of "something that has really occurred or is the case" dates from the middle of the sixteenth century.

 

Fact is sometimes used synonymously with truth, as distinct from opinions, falsehoods, or matters of taste. This use is found in such phrases as, "It is a fact that the cup is blue" or "Matter of fact", and "... not history, nor fact, but imagination." Filmmaker Werner Herzog distinguishes between the two, claiming that "Fact creates norms, and truth illumination."

 

Fact also indicates a matter under discussion deemed to be true or correct, such as to emphasize a point or prove a disputed issue; (e.g., "... the fact of the matter is ...").

Alternatively, fact may also indicate an allegation or stipulation of something that may or may not be a true fact,[7] (e.g., "the author's facts are not trustworthy"). This alternate usage, although contested by some, has a long history in standard English.

 

Fact may also indicate findings derived through a process of evaluation, including review of testimony, direct observation, or otherwise; as distinguishable from matters of inference or speculation.[9] This use is reflected in the terms "fact-find" and "fact-finder" (e.g., "set up a fact-finding commission").

 

Facts may be checked by reason, experiment, personal experience, or may be argued from authority. Roger Bacon wrote "If in other sciences we should arrive at certainty without doubt and truth without error, it behooves us to place the foundations of knowledge in mathematics."

 

In philosophy, the concept fact is considered in epistemology and ontology. Questions of objectivity and truth are closely associated with questions of fact. A "fact" can be defined as something that is the case—that is, a state of affairs.  Facts may be understood as information that makes a true sentence true. Facts may also be understood as those things to which a true sentence refers. The statement "Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system" is about the fact Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system.

 

Correspondence and the slingshot argument

Pascal Engel's version of the correspondence theory of truth explains that what makes a sentence true is that it corresponds to a fact. This theory presupposes the existence of an objective world.  The Slingshot argument claims to show that all true statements stand for the same thing - the truth value true. If this argument holds, and facts are taken to be what true statements stand for, then we reach the counter-intuitive conclusion that there is only one fact - the truth.

 

Compound facts

Any non-trivial true statement about reality is necessarily an abstraction composed of a complex of objects and properties or relations. For example, the fact described by the true statement "Paris is the capital city of France" implies that there is such a place as Paris, there is such a place as France, there are such things as capital cities, as well as that France has a government, that the government of France has the power to define its capital city, and that the French government has chosen Paris to be the capital, that there is such a thing as a place or a government, and so on. The verifiable accuracy of all of these assertions, if facts themselves, may coincide to create the fact that Paris is the capital of France.  Difficulties arise, however, in attempting to identify the constituent parts of negative, modal, disjunctive, or moral facts.[19]

 

Fact–value distinction

Main article: Fact–value distinction

Moral philosophers since David Hume have debated whether values are objective, and thus factual. In A Treatise of Human Nature Hume pointed out there is no obvious way for a series of statements about what ought to be the case to be derived from a series of statements of what is the case. Those who insist there is a logical gulf between facts and values, such that it is fallacious to attempt to derive values from facts, include G. E. Moore, who called attempting to do so the naturalistic fallacy.

 

Factual–counterfactual distinction

Main article: Counterfactual conditional

Factuality—what has occurred—can also be contrasted with counterfactuality: what might have occurred, but did not. A counterfactual conditional or subjunctive conditional is a conditional (or "if-then") statement indicating what would be the case if events had been other than they were. For example, "If Alexander had lived, his empire would have been greater than Rome." This contrasts with an indicative conditional, which indicates what is (in fact) the case if its antecedent is (in fact) true—for example, "If you drink this, it will make you well."  Such sentences are important to modal logic, especially since the development of possible world semantics.

 

In science

Further information: scientific method and philosophy of science

In science, a fact is a repeatable careful observation or measurement (by experimentation or other means), also called empirical evidence. Facts are central to building scientific theories. Various forms of observation and

measurement lead to fundamental questions about the scientific method, and the scope and validity of scientific reasoning. In the most basic sense, a scientific fact is an objective and verifiable observation, in contrast with a hypothesis or theory, which is intended to explain or interpret facts. 

 

Various scholars have offered significant refinements to this basic formulation. Scientists are careful to distinguish between: 1) states of affairs in the external world and 2) assertions of fact that may be considered relevant in scientific analysis. The term is used in both senses in the philosophy of science.

 

Scholars and clinical researchers in both the social and natural sciences have written about numerous questions and theories that arise in the attempt to clarify the fundamental nature of scientific fact.[22] Pertinent issues raised by this inquiry include:

• the process by which "established fact" becomes recognized and accepted as such;
• whether and to what extent "fact" and "theoretic explanation" can be considered truly independent and separable from one another;
• to what extent "facts" are influenced by the mere act of observation; and
• to what extent factual conclusions are influenced by history and consensus, rather than a strictly systematic methodology.

Consistent with the idea of confirmation holism, some scholars assert "fact" to be necessarily "theory-laden" to some degree. Thomas Kuhn points out that knowing what facts to measure, and how to measure them, requires the use of other theories. For example, the age of fossils is based on radiometric dating, which is justified by reasoning that radioactive decay follows a Poisson process rather than a Bernoulli process. Similarly, Percy Williams Bridgman is credited with the methodological position known as operationalism, which asserts that all observations are not only influenced, but necessarily defined by the means and assumptions used to measure them.

 

The scientific method

Apart from the fundamental inquiry into the nature of scientific fact, there remain the practical and social considerations of how fact is investigated, established, and substantiated through the proper application of the scientific method.[27] Scientific facts are generally believed independent of the observer: no matter who performs a scientific experiment, all observers agree on the outcome. In addition to these considerations, there are the social and institutional measures, such as peer review and accreditation, that are intended to promote factual accuracy (among other interests) in scientific study.

 

Want to read more about Fact? Click here.

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - THE SKELETAL SYSTEM

 

Did you know... that The axial skeleton part of the human skeleton has 80 bones?  It includes the vertebral column, the rib cage and the skull and helps us maintain our upright posture, by spreading the weight in the head, and upper areas down to the lower areas near the hips.

 

At birth the human skeleton is made up of around 300 bones. By adulthood, some bones have fused together to end up with 206 bones.  Human bones grow continually from birth till our mid 20's. Our skeleton's bone mass is at its maximum density around the age of 30.  If broken our bones will re-grow and repair themselves. Often doctors will place a cast on splint to make sure these bones repair straight and true.

 

The appendicular skeletal section of our skeleton has 126 bones. It includes the pectoral (shoulder) girdles, the pelvic girdle and the bones of the lower and upper limbs. Its function is for movement of the body and to protect some organs.

 

The human skeletal system has six major functions including the production of blood cells, for support, for movement, for protection, for storage of ions and endocrine regulation.  The longest bone in the human body is the thigh bone called the femur.  The smallest bone found in the human body is located in the middle ear. The staples (or stirrup) bone is only 2.8 millimetres (0.11 inches) long.

 

Like our skin, the human body's bones are also constantly worn down and re-made, to the point where every 7 years we essentially have a new bone.  The area of our body with the most bones is the hand, fingers and wrist where there are 54 bones.  Our teeth form part of the skeletal system, but are not counted as bones.

 

There a just a few differences between human male and female skeletons. The female skeleton is generally slightly smaller and the pelvis bones differ in shape, size and angle in order to assist with childbirth.  The majority of human bones have a dense, strong outer layer, followed by a spongy part full of air for lightness, while the middle contains a soft, flexible, tissue substance called bone marrow.  Bone marrow makes up 4% of a human body mass. It produces red blood cells which carry oxygen all over the body. Marrow is also produces lymphocytes, key components of the lymphatic system, which support the body's immune system.

 

Calcium is very important for our bones and helps keep them strong and healthy.  The areas where our bones meet are called joints. The joints in our cranium have no movement while our hip joints allow for a wide range of movement.  Bones are held in place at joints by muscles and also tissues called ligaments. Another type of tissue called cartilage covers each bone joint surface area to prevent the bones rubbing.

 

The medical branch of learning about the human skeletal system is called Orthopedics.  There are a number of skeletal disorders, osteoporosis is a bone disease that increases the chance of fractures, scoliosis is a curvature of the spine, while arthritis is an inflammatory disease that damages joints.

 

The human skeleton is an interesting and complex structure. It's more than just a scaffolding for our body or a structure that enables us to move. The bones that make up the skeleton are made of living tissue that has vital functions.  In addition to supporting the body and allowing it to move, the skeleton protects organs, makes blood cells, and stores fat and minerals. Bones release minerals into the bloodstream and absorb them from the blood as needed. In addition, researchers are discovering that the skeleton makes chemicals that trigger effects not only in the bones but also in other parts of the body.

 

There are two divisions of the skeleton—the axial skeleton and the appendicular skeleton. The axial skeleton is located in the midline of the body and is composed of the skull, the vertebral column or backbone, the sternum or breast bone, and the ribs. It also includes smaller bones which aren't connected to the rest of the axial skeleton. These are the hyoid bone in the neck and the ossicles in the middle ears.  The appendicular skeleton is made of the limbs and their associated bones. It includes the bones of the hands, arms, feet, and legs as well as the pelvic bones, the scapula or shoulder blade, and the clavicle or collar bone.

 

 

Want to learn more about this topic?  Click here.

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - FIREWORKS

 

Did you know.... that fireworks are a class of low explosive pyrotechnic devices used for aesthetic and entertainment purposes? The most common use of a firework is as part of a fireworks display, a display of the effects produced by firework devices.

 

The earliest documentation of fireworks dates back to 7th century China. They were invented more than 2000 years ago in China.  China is the largest manufacturer and exporter of fireworks in the world. 90% of all fireworks originate from here.  In 1240 the Arabs acquired knowledge of gunpowder. A Syrian named Hasan al-Rammah wrote of fireworks using terms that suggested he derived his knowledge from Chinese sources.

 

The first recorded fireworks in England were at the wedding of King Henry VII in 1486.  Dreaming about fireworks means that you like to be the centre of attention and are showing off to others. It also symbolizes enthusiasm and exhilaration.  The fireworks were used to accompany many festivities, scare off evil spirits and promote prosperity.

 

The largest chocolate firework was measuring 3m high and 1.5m in diameter and containing 60kg of Swiss Cailler chocolates. The firework was released in Zurich on New Year's Eve 2002.  Fireworks are not fun for animals. Always keep dogs and cats inside the house when fireworks are being let off. Stay calm and make sure they have somewhere to hide.  The biggest occasion for fireworks in the UK is Guy Fawkes Night (5th November). It is a celebration of the failing of the Gunpowder Plot on 5 November 1605, an attempt to kill King James I at the Houses of Parliament.  The largest firework rocket is 13kg and was produced and launched in Portugal in 2010.

 

Queen Elizabeth was so fascinated with fireworks that she created an honorary title, "Fire Master of England" for the individual who created the best fireworks.  The word for firework in Japanese, 'hanabi', which actually means "fire-flower".  Amédée-François Frézier published a "Treatise on Fireworks" in 1706, covering the recreational and ceremonial uses of fireworks. The book became a standard text for fireworks makers.

 

A rocket can reach speeds of 150mph, however the shell can reach as high as 200 metres.  A sparkler burns at a temperature over 15 times the boiling point of water. Three sparklers burning together generate the same heat as a blowtorch. When your sparkler goes out, put it in a bucket of water.

 

France uses fireworks to celebrate Bastille Day and celebrate storming the prison of Bastille.  The record for the largest firework display consisted of 66,326 fireworks and was achieved in Portugal in 2006.  Static electricity in synthetic clothing can set off firecrackers. People making firecrackers wear only cotton clothing while making firecrackers.

 

Italy was the first country to truly master and experiment with fireworks in Europe. They were the first to use shells for firecrackers to be loaded into canons and shot into the air.  Half of all firework injuries are to children under the age of 16.

 

The biggest annual fireworks display event in Europe is the International Festival concert held in Edinburgh, Scotland, in which a million fireworks are set off in less than an hour.  At first fireworks were only orange and white. In the Middle Ages new colours were achieved by adding different salts. The hardest colour to create is blue.

 

Sparklers can be used to make funny pictures. All you need is a totally dark setting, a sparkler to draw with and a camera recording a long exposure.  A record breaking 56,000 firework rockets were launched simultaneously in a spectacular opening to the Plymouth, UK Fireworks Championships by Scientist Roy Lowry.

 

A string of firecrackers that went on and on lasting 22 hours marked the New Years day celebrations in Hong Kong in 1996.

 

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - TINSEL

 

Did you know... that Tinsel is a type of decorative material that mimics the effect of ice, consisting of thin strips of sparkling material attached to a thread? When in long narrow strips not attached to thread, it is called "lametta", and emulates icicles. It was originally a metallic garland for Christmas decoration. 

 

Christmas in the 1950s and 1960s was much shinier. Aluminum Christmas trees — illuminated blue, green and red by a rotating color wheel — sparkled in American living rooms. The trendy fake trees were a Midwestern creation, first manufactured in Chicago in 1955. They were all the rage for a decade, as the natural evergreen in 1965's A Charlie Brown Christmas is credited with killing off the trend.  The decoration of choice for these twinkling Tannenbaums, of course, was tinsel. Perhaps no holiday decoration better captures a retro Christmas than tinsel. Many of us share memories of draping strands of the thin, reflective strips with the family. Then again, some of us had to pick the strands off one by one to save for the next year. The Cunningham's Christmas tree on Happy Days was covered in the silvery tinsel.  Perhaps you nostalgists out there still use the stuff. However, it is not the same material of our youth. In fact, it has changed often over the centuries. Yes, it's that old.

 

Tinsel is mainly used to decorate Christmas trees, although its also used for ceilings, walls or anything festive. Tinsel is usually flexible which makes it easy to wrap around anything such as posts, picture frames or ornaments.  We decorate our house and trees with tinsel every Christmas, but why? And where did tinsel originate from?

 

It should come as no surprise that Germany, Nuremberg specifically, the country that created the Christmas tree, also dreamt up tinsel as an adornment. What might surprise you is just how long ago it was. Tinsel dates back to the Renaissance, the word itself coming from the French estincelle ("spark"). The Oxford English Dictionary dates the usage of "tinsel" as "very thin strips of shiny metal" back to the 1590s. It's unknown which genius thought to drape some on a fir tree. Some other historical accounts only trace Xmas tinsel back to the 1840s.

 

Those 17th-century Germans certainly did not skimp when it came to tinsel. While using real silver to make tinsel sounds fancy, anyone with silverware will tell you there is a downside, especially when you put the stuff near candle flame — it tarnishes, turns black. As rubbing strands of tinsel with Tarn-X is time consuming, if not impossible, eventually the material was switched to aluminum. Those purists out there can still buy vintage silver tinsel from its homeland on Etsy.

 

As you can see in a newspaper article from November 1972, the FDA deemed tinsel an "unnecessary risk to children with symptoms of lead poisoning" in August 1971. Manufacturers had switched to lead foil in the 20th century for tarnish-proof sparkle and weight. However, it was off the shelves by Christmas 1972. Today, the stuff is made from far lighter plastic or mylar, if you're wondering why it hardly hangs like it used to.

 

Oddly, the nickname "Tinseltown" only dates back four decades, not to the silver age of Hollywood. Some etymology sites trace the moniker back to 1972, while others claim 1975. For what it's worth, we were able to find a usage of the term in a 1972 issue of The Chicago Tribune, in an article about The Who's rock opera Tommy. Is it only coincidence this coincides with lead tinsel being deemed a health hazard? In modern usage, we tend to forget that "Tinseltown" was meant to be derogatory. Now that we have warm and fuzzy nostalgia feelings for tinsel, the term does not seem so cruel.

 

Philadelphia-based Brite Star is responsible for about 80% of the tinsel on the market in U.S., according to The Wall Street Journal, and started making the strands in the mid-1950s. The Brite Star tinsel is 1/16th of an inch wide and 18 inches long. The Kinderman family, which owns the company, claims to have churned out enough tinsel to reach the moon and back, which is about 1.6 billion strands by the math.

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - ORNAMENTS

 

Did you know... that the traditional spherical ornaments you see on a multitude of Christmas trees are called baubles? They were created in Lauscha, Germany by a man named Hans Greiner (1550-1609), who made them from glass. Baubles were based on the original decoration material for Christmas trees- fruits and nuts.

 

In the eleventh century, religious plays called "mystery plays" became popular throughout Europe. One of the most prevalent plays was the annual Christmas "Paradise Play" This play told of the Biblical account of Adam and Eve and the partaking of the forbidden fruit. The only prop on the stage was the "Paradise tree", a fir tree adorned with apples, which represented their sin. Later, wafers were added to the tree which stood for Christ's atoning sacrifice. Red and White flowers later adorned many of these trees. Red symbolized knowledge, and the White flowers represented innocence. Many credit the common Christmas ornament colors of Red, Green and White to the Paradise Tree.

 

The first account we have of a tree decorated with Christmas ornaments in a home dates from 1605 in Strasbourg, Germany. The use of Christmas ornaments spread in Germany with cookies, bread, nuts and the like serving as decorations. So many sweets decorated the German Christmas tree it was nicknamed the "sugar tree." Small gifts also made their way to the branches of the Christmas tree.

 

German immigrants brought their Christmas tree decorating habits to America, where the tradition spread.

 

The Christmas ornaments that caught the public's eye were the glass-blown ornaments hand-crafted in Lauscha, Germany. Besides their visual appeal, their lightweight design may have been equally appealing. With all the Christmas candles and the food, wood and metal ornaments, Christmas trees became rather heavy. The light glass-blown ornaments may have been a welcome replacement for some of the heavier ornaments.

 

There are several legends behind using tinsel to decorate the Christmas tree. The primary one tells of a woman whose husband had died. She needed to bring up a large family of children herself. She worked hard and was determined to make a happy time for them at Christmas. She prepared a Christmas tree to surprise them on Christmas Day. Unfortunately spiders visited the tree, and crawled from branch to branch, making webs all over it.  The Christ Child saw the tree and knew she would be devastated to find this on Christmas morning. He changed the spiders' webs to shining silver.

 

In the 1860s and 70s, the first commercial Christmas tree ornaments began to emerge. Some of these commercial Christmas ornaments were crafted out of embossed and painted cardboard. These were Dresden ornaments, named for the German city where they were produced. In Germany in the 1600's, Christmas Trees were decorated with colored paper, small toys, food, and sometimes candles.

 

Later, tinsel, silver wire ornaments, candles and small beads became common. The custom was to have several small trees on tables, one for each family member, with their gifts stacked on the table under the tree.

Electric Christmas tree lights were first used just 3 years after Thomas Edison had his first public demonstration of electric lights in 1879. The early Christmas tree lights were handmade and rather expensive.

 

In the 1900's, popular decorations included strings of popcorn, homemade cards, pictures, cotton to look like snow, candy, and eventually glass balls and figurines. Some people used candles, but they often caused devastating fires.

 

In the 1930's, common Christmas tree decorations included bells, balls, and tinsel, and with a beautiful golden haired angel at the top. Commercial Christmas ornaments took off in America when F.W. Woolworth, of five-and-dime store fame reluctantly began selling German glass ornaments and they sold out in two days. That convinced him and he began his buying trips to Germany. Translucent plastic shapes, honeycomb paper angels, and glow-in-the-dark icicles became popular items.

 

Not until WWII did an American company succeed in manufacturing Christmas ornaments. Using a machine designed to make lightbulbs, the Corning Glass company was able to produce more than 2,000 Christmas ornaments a minute.

 

The mid-1960's saw another major change. The world was changing and modernist ideas were everywhere. Silver aluminum artificial trees were so popular that they were imported from America throughout the world. Colored lights placed below the tree made decorations unnecessary.

 

In the 1970's, America made a return to Victorian nostalgia and the trees had a refreshing new look. Some American companies specialized in making antique replicas, but others found the original makers in Europe to recreate wonderful glass ornaments and real silver tinsels.

 

Real Christmas trees were popular. However, several manufacturers starting creating artificial trees that looked real. Many homemakers preferred the convenience of a real looking artificial Christmas tree. If your room was big enough, you could have a 14-foot artificial spruce right in your living room-with no dropped needles! The new pine scented sprays claimed to give your artificial Christmas tree that "real tree smell"!

 

In the 1990's, "theme trees" gain in popularity. For example, popular Christmas ornaments helped complete the decorations for the "Starry Night tree", the "Twilight tree", and even pop culture trees.

 

In the 2000's, personalized ornaments lead in popularity.

 

Today, you can find Christmas ornaments in nearly every size, color, and shape imaginable. From handmade ornaments to limited edition and collector's edition Christmas ornaments, thousands of styles exist to decorate your Christmas tree.

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - CANDLES

 

Did you know... that tallow (a byproduct of beef fat) was popular in Europe in the Middle Ages to make candles? Candles have also been made out of wax made out of insects and seeds. It was even made of spermaceti from sperm whales and various plants. Candles are now mostly made from paraffin, beeswax, soy and many types of waxes.

 

Candles have been around since the days of the ancient Egyptians and still remain a household item. From a revolutionary and very vital light source, to a decorative way of spreading fragrance and dim light around our homes for a change of atmosphere. 

 

A chandlery was originally the office in a medieval household responsible for wax and candles, as well as the room in which the candles were kept. It could be headed by a chandler. Whether a separate office or not, the function was naturally an important one, in a time before electric light, and when production of candles was often done privately. Today, a chandlery can refer to a candle business; as such, a "chandler" is a person who sells candles.

 

 

In 1709, the chandlers (candle maker) guild persuaded the parliament to ban candle making in the home, therefore monopolizing the candle industry. 

 

The ancient Greeks would bring cakes covered with candles, representing the glowing moon, to the temple of Artemis, the Goddess of the hunt and the moon. This tradition is still seen today anytime someone sticks a candle on top of a birthday cake.

 

Over the last thousand+ years, candles have been made from a wide range of mediums. From animal fat, to oils from plants and insects, and everywhere in between. 

 

When there were no clocks, candle clocks were used that burned a set amount of hours. If you wanted an alarm, you pushed a nail at the desired time length in the candle and when it melted to that point, the nail would fall and clank on the metal holder, alerting you.

 

 

• 1. The Candle industry is growing; more so because of our society’s stressful lives and everyone’s quest for relief.
• 2. Candles are used in 7 out of 10 U.S. households. The majority of consumers also burn candles between 1-3 times per week, with half of these consumers burning 1-2 candles at a time.
• 3. Candle industry research findings indicate that the most important factor affecting candle sales is Fragrance, with Color and Shape taking a distant second, in the consumer selection of a candle for the home.
• 4. Overall candle sales are growing faster than the United States economy as a whole. The past few years have seen remarkable growth and strength in the candle industry as a whole.
• 5. The U.S. market is typically separated into seasonal business at roughly 35%, and Non-seasonal 65% of the annual market.
• 6. Consumers say they typically burn candles for just under 3 hours. 9 out of 10 candle users say they use candles to make a room feel comfortable and cozy.
• 7. Candle users say they most frequently burn candles in the living room (42%), by the kitchen (18%), and the bedroom (13%).
• 8. Candle purchasers view candles as an appropriate gift for the holidays (76%), house-warming gifts (74%), a hostess/dinner party gift (66%) a thank you gift (61%), adult birthday gift (58%).
• 9. US retail sales of candles are estimated at approximately $2 billion annually, excluding the sales of candle accessories.
• 10. There are more than 350 commercial, religious and institutional manufacturers of candles in the United States, as well as scores of small craft producers for local, non-commercial use.
• 11. Candles are sold principally in three types of retail outlets: department stores, specialty shops, and mass merchants, including drug store chains, supermarkets, and discount stores.
• 12. Candle manufacturers’ surveys show that 96% of all candles purchased are bought by women. Two thirds of candle purchasers say they use candles once a week or more often. Women are more frequent users than men, and younger people tend to use candles more often than older adults.

 

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - KITES

 

Did you know... that though the exact origin of kites are not known, it is known that they were flown in China and the Malay Archipelago two to three thousand years ago? The earliest written accounts of kite flying were the exploits of the Chinese general Han Hsin, Han Dynasty (206 B.C.-220 A.D.).  During one military campaign, the general was said to have had a kite flown above a besieged town to calculate the distance his army would have to tunnel to reach under the city wall. Knowing the exact measurement, his troops surprised their enemy and were victorious.

 

The popularity of kite flying spread from China along trade routes to Korea, India, and Japan. They arrived in Korea in the period of the Three Kingdoms (4-645 A.D.). During the Silla dynasty (595-673 A.D.), General Gim Yu-sin was ordered to subdue a revolt. However, his troops refused to fight after a large shooting star appeared to have fallen from the sky. It was believed that this was a bad omen. To regain control, the next night the general had a kite carry a fire ball into the sky where it disintegrated. His troops, seeing the shooting star returning to the sky, rallied and routed the rebels.

 

Kites were brought to Japan around the 7th century by Buddhist monks. They were used as magical figures or “talismans” to avert evil spirits and as invocations for a rich harvest. In the Edo Period (1603-1868), kite flying became very popular when, for the first time, Japanese people below the samurai class could fly kites. The Edo (now Tokyo) government tried unsuccessfully, to discourage this pastime because “too many people became unmindful of their work.”

 

In 1712, a thief named Kakinoki Kinsuke is said to have used a large kite to carry himself to the top of Nagoya Castle. There, under the cover of darkness, Kinsuke stole the scales from a pair of golden dolphin. The luckless Kinsuke boasted of his exploits and was captured and boiled in oil.  The first lighter-than-air balloon was flown in 1783 and the first powered aircraft took flight in 1903. These are very recent when compared with the age of kites.

 

The earliest evidence of Indian kite flying can be seen in miniature paintings from the Mogul Period (1483-1530). A favorite theme was of a young lover skillfully dropping his message-bearing kite onto a roof top and into the hands of his waiting love, where his fair maiden was held in strict seclusion from the outside world.

 

We know from early accounts that the people of Micronesia had known about kite fishing for centuries. A leaf kite allowed bait, made from a thick loop of spider’s web, to be placed on the surface of the water where the gar-fish fed. A fish was snared when its long snout became entrapped by the loop.

 

The Polynesians also have a long kite history. One of their myths tells of two brother gods, Tan and Rango, who introduced kites to man when they challenged each other to a kite duel. The bout was short lived because young Tan’s kite became entangled in a tree while Rango’s flew free and high. Today, in celebration of the event, the person whose kite flies the highest is honored by having his kite dedicated to Rango.
 

The earliest Malay reference to kite flying comes from the 15th century Malay Annals. Rajah Ahmad, the eldest son of Malacca’s Sultan Mahmud, once cut all the kites from the sky with a large kite, flown from strong fishing twine. The next day the Rajah went through the same process until he found Hang Isa Pantas’s smaller kite. Unknown to the Rajah, Hang had applied jungle gum and powdered glass to his twine. When the two lines crossed, the Rajah’s parted and his kite tumbled to the ground.

 

Around the end of the 13th century, stories of kites reached Europe via Marco Polo. European illustrations of the period show dragon or pennant-shaped kites based on non-flying, three dimensional, Roman military banners.

 

Later, in the 16th and 17th century, Europeans, most prominently the Dutch, found a sea route around the Cape of Good Hope and began trading throughout the East Indies. It was through their contacts with the Malay Peninsula that the fore-runner of today’s diamond kite was introduced to the west.  Because they were regarded as curiosities, kites at first had little impact on European culture.

 

In the 18th and 19th centuries, kites were used as vehicles for discovery. Men like Ben Franklin and Alexander Wilson applied their knowledge of kite flying to gain a greater understanding of the elements such as electricity.

 

Others, such as Sir George Cayley, Samuel Langley, Lawrence Hargrave, the Wright Brothers, and Alexander Graham Bell experimented with kites and contributed to the evolution of the airplane.  The U.S. Weather Bureau flew kites designed by William Eddy and Lawrence Hargrave to raise meteorological instruments.

 

One of the strangest uses of kite power was developed in 1822 by George Pocock, a U.K. schoolmaster. Pocock created a carriage pulled by a pair of arch top kites. His “char-volant” was capable of speeds of up to 20 miles per hour. The kites were flown in tandem and steered by four independent lines. Since the road toll was based on the number of horses pulling a carriage, this horseless rig was ruled exempt from road tolls because no animals were used.

 

After years of research and experimentation, the Wright Brothers tested their flying-machine as a kite before they flew it as the first manned airplane in 1903.  As the airplane became firmly established, there is little evidence to show that kites were used other than for recreational flying.  The main styles of kites flown for the next fifty years were the 3-stick Barn Door, the Diamond, and the Box kite.

 

The doldrums in kite development were broken for short periods by World War I (1914-1918) and World War II (1939-1945). World War I created a practical use for trains of man-lifting kites. The British, French, Italian, and Russian armies all had kite units for enemy observations and signal corps.

 

The introduction of military airplanes quickly made these units obsolete. The German Navy also used man-lifting box kites to increase their viewing range from surface cruising submarines.

 

In World War II the U.S. Navy found uses for kites such as Harry Saul’s Barriage Kite (anti-aircraft), the Gibson-Girl Box Kite (air rescue), and Paul Garber’s Target Kite (target practice and aircraft recognition).  As in World War I, the German Navy sent observers aloft from surfaced submarines, but this time they used highly maneuverable rotating, gyroplane kites.

 

Since World War II there has been renewed interest in kiting. For example, two of this century’s greatest kite innovations, Rogallo’s flexi-wing (1948) and Jalbert’s parafoil (1964) kites, helped develop the modern hang-gliders and sports parachutes, respectively.

 

In 1972, Peter Powell from England made the dual line stunt kite popular. This led to the public’s awareness that kiting could be a “sport” and not just “child’s play.” With the “kites are for kids” stigma removed, many adults (and children) are again enjoying this healthy, active pastime.

 

The renaissance in the west has led a number of Asian countries to revive their own kiting heritage. Today Kite flying is a worldwide sport, recreation, and pastime for thousands of people – from the very young to the eldest, in almost every culture. There are regular kite festivals celebrated annually. There are national and international kite competitions for single-line, dual-line, and quad-line kites.  Kites are used for traction on snow, ice, water, and land reaching speeds of more than 40mph. Kites are regularly used for science, artistic expression, celebration, and decoration.

 

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - YULE LOG

 

Did you know... that the tradition of yule logs has its roots in pagan rituals? In fact, the word "yule" is old English for a festival known to take place in December and January. Northern Europeans, like Vikings, celebrated the Festival of Yule to honor the winter solstice by journeying into the woods in search of a hearty oak tree.  The event was a family affair, with family members venturing out in search of a choice cut of wood. They would return with the most robust log they could find and burn it in deference to various gods as well as in celebration of life and prosperity.

 

Ultimately, the yule log was thought to determine a person's good or bad luck, and there are many variations on this superstition. One European belief held that the log had to catch fire on the first attempt to light it, lest all the inhabitants of the home where it burned suffer bad luck. Another stated that the remains of a log must be kept for the following year's ceremony for good luck, which would extend across successive generations. The ashes were sometimes stored under a bed in order to make a home immune to evil spirits and lightning strikes. English Christmas traditions called for the yule log to burn as a sign of goodwill through all 12 days of Christmas, during which time family members would refrain from labor to celebrate the season.

 

While a proper yule log isn't a common sight in 21st-century fireplaces, it can be found in holiday kitchens -- in the form of a dessert. Bûche de Nöel is of French origin and is a sponge cake replica of a yule log. It comes in flavors like chocolate and gingerbread and is frosted in a wood-grain pattern.

 

It's believed that the dessert was created in response to French families who didn't have a fireplace for a real yule log in their homes but wanted to share in the holiday tradition [source: Jaworski]. Yule log cakes are readily available in French bakeries, but many residents in the United States must make their own version of the delicacy from scratch.

 

But France isn't the only place that has adapted the concept of the yule log. Urban areas like New York City have high-density populations, and, as a result, space is at a minimum. Therefore, fireplaces are a rare commodity in apartments and condominiums. In 1966, New York City television programming director Fred Thrower had an idea for log-deprived New Yorkers. Thrower had his local station, WPIX-TV, broadcast a looping video of a blazing fireplace -- with Christmas music playing in the background -- beginning on Christmas Eve. The broadcast, designed to provide city-dwellers with holiday ambience they might otherwise lack, was an instant success and became a Christmas morning mainstay on the New York station. It began airing on national cable networks, and in high-definition, in 2004.

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - BOXING

 

Did you know.... that Boxing was introduced for the first time in Ancient Greece and it was a part of the Olympic Games in 688 B. C?  Wilfred Benitez was able to win the title of the winner when he was only 17 years old and he is considered to be the youngest boxer in the history of this sport.

 

Boxing is a sport in which two opponents fight each other with their fists. A boxer tries to score more points than his or her opponent by the use of skills in which the boxer has been trained. In amateur boxing, especially, skill is more important than strength.

 

Boxers wear gloves made of soft leather padded with sponge rubber. Gloves usually weigh from 8 to 10 ounces (230 to 280 grams). A boxer's hands are wrapped in soft cotton or linen for protection from the impact of his or her own blows. Amateur boxers wear headgear to protect their heads and ears from injuries. All boxers use a rubber mouthpiece that helps prevent injuries to the teeth.

 

The space in which a boxing match (bout) takes place is called a ring. It is generally 18 to 20 feet (5 to 6 meters) square, closed in by lengths of muslin-wrapped rope. The ropes are 2, 3, and 4 feet (0.6 meter, 0.9 meter, and 1.2 meters) above the floor of a platform on which the ring is mounted. A canvas floor covering is laid over thick padding. The cornerposts and turnbuckles that hold the ropes are also heavily padded.

 

The length of a round in men's amateur and professional boxing is 2 or 3 minutes. There is a 1-minute rest period between rounds. During this period the fighters go to corners of the ring opposite one another and are tended by their cornermen. Amateur matches are three, four, or six rounds. Professional championship bouts can be as many as twelve rounds. A timekeeper marks the beginning and end of each round by sounding a bell.

 

The referee is a very important third person in the ring during a bout, seeing that the rules are obeyed and separating the boxers if they clinch one another. Blows below the beltline, on the kidneys, or on the back of the neck (rabbit punches) are fouls. So too are pushing, head-butting, or hitting an opponent when he or she is down (on the floor; getting up; or outside, between, or hanging helpless over the ropes).

 

If a fighter is knocked down, the other fighter must go to a neutral corner—a corner of the ring not occupied by either fighter between rounds. The fighter who is down must get back up within the ring before the referee counts to 10 at 1-second intervals. If the fighter does not do this, the opponent is declared the winner by a knockout (KO). Until 1963, if a round ended before the count reached 10, the boxer who was down was said to have been "saved by the bell" because he or she could recover between rounds and continue. In 1963, though, the rules were changed. The count continues despite the bell, and the fight can end if the count is completed. In some bouts, the count may continue even after the bell has sounded, ending the final round. If a downed boxer gets up before the count of 10, both fighters are usually forced to wait for a count of 8 before action can continue.

 

The referee can stop a fight if it appears that a boxer is too hurt to continue. This is called a technical knockout (TKO). A physician must be on hand to determine whether an injured fighter should continue. It is also a TKO if a fighter is knocked down three times in one round. But this rule does not apply to professional championship bouts.

 

If there is no knockout or technical knockout in a professional bout, three judges decide the winner based on points awarded. They note the effectiveness of the fighters' punches, how well they defend themselves, and how aggressive they are. Points are deducted for repeated fouls such as low blows or holding. In case of a tie, a bout is declared a draw. In amateur boxing (under Olympic rules), five judges determine the winner by registering scoring blows on a computer.

 

Amateur and Professional Boxing

In boxing, as in any physical contact sport, there are bound to be injuries. In 1938 the Society of State Directors of Physical and Health Education adopted an official policy disapproving of boxing as an interscholastic sport. A few years later boxing was dropped from collegiate competition.

 

Supporters of amateur boxing claim that when it is conducted under proper rules and supervision, it is a safe competitive sport.

 

Many youth and athletic clubs provide instruction in basic boxing skills. They stress sound body condition, proper training, knowledge of the rules, and principles of fair play. They match only opponents of nearly equal size and experience.

 

Olympic and other international amateur boxing is governed by the International Amateur Boxing Association (IABA). In the United States, USA Boxing is the chief governing organization.

 

Men's professional boxing—fighting for cash prizes (purses)—is regulated mainly by the World Boxing Association (WBA), the World Boxing Council (WBC), and the International Boxing Federation (IBF). However, these organizations often disagree on which boxer is champion of his division. Professional boxing in Canada is regulated by the Canadian Boxing Federation (CBF) and by various provincial and local boards.

 

Boxing Past and Present

Boxing has a very long history. Archaeologists have found an ancient Sumerian stone carving that shows two boxers in combat. Greek and Roman athletes fought with their hands wrapped in a kind of leather covering called a cestus. To this the ancient gladiators attached metal studs or spikes. A Roman boxer was called a pugil, from which we get the word "pugilism," another name for boxing.

 

Revival in England

Little more is known about fistfighting until the 1600's. Then in England the name "boxing" was given to a contest in which men boxed, or beat, one another with their bare fists. In 1719, James Figg became the first British champion. Figg opened a boxing school in London, and interest in the sport spread quickly. Men often fought for prizes, hence the term "prizefighting." Jack Broughton, a champion from 1743 to 1750, drew up the first London Prize Ring Rules.

 

Boxers of the bareknuckle era stood toe to toe and wrestled, shoved, or struck each other until one man was knocked down. That marked the end of a round. After a brief rest the fight began again. When one man could no longer fight, his opponent was the victor.

 

In 1865 the Marquis of Queensberry drew up rules that are the basis for those in use today. The rules provided for 3-minute rounds with a 1-minute rest period between rounds. They required fighters to wear "fair-sized" boxing gloves, banned wrestling holds, and set the 10-second count for a knockout. With the adoption of the Queensberry rules, boxing gradually became acceptable in the United States, where it had been illegal. Heavyweight bouts were the most popular.

 

The Modern Era

In 1892, John L. Sullivan, the last of the bareknuckle champions, was defeated by James J. (Gentleman Jim) Corbett in the first heavyweight title bout fought with gloves under the Queensberry rules. Three other great heavyweight champions of the early modern era were James J. Jeffries, who retired undefeated in 1905; Jack Johnson, who became the first black champion in 1908; and Robert Fitzsimmons, who was also a middleweight and light heavyweight champion during his career.

 

As the 1900's progressed, boxing began drawing huge crowds. The heavyweight division produced some of the greatest names in the sport, beginning with William Harrison (Jack) Dempsey and James J. (Gene) Tunney in the 1920's. From the late 1930's to the late 1940's, Joe Louis was the heavyweight champion. The 1950's saw the emergence of Rocky Marciano (who retired undefeated in 1956), Floyd Patterson, and Ingemar Johansson  Foremost among the greats of the 1960's and 1970's was Muhammad Ali. He won his first heavyweight crown in 1964, and he would go on to become the first boxer to win the title three different times. Two other top champions during the 1970's were Joe Frazier and George Foreman.

 

During the 1980's, Larry Holmes, Michael Spinks, and Mike Tyson dominated the heavyweight division.

 

In the 1990's, Evander Holyfield held the heavyweight crown three different times. Riddick Bowe, George Foreman, Mike Tyson, and Lennox Lewis also held the title.

 

There have been notable champions in other weight classes too. Lightweights Joe Gans, who held the title from 1902 to 1908, and Benny Leonard, who held the title from 1917 to 1925, are two of boxing's greats. Henry Armstrong was the first boxer to win three different titles—featherweight (1937–38), lightweight (1938–39), and welterweight (1938–40). Sugar Ray Robinson held the middleweight title five times (1951–58) and he was also a welterweight champ (1946–51). Rivals Willie Pep and Sandy Saddler ruled the featherweight class (1946–57). Roberto Duran won lightweight, welterweight, and junior middleweight titles between 1972 and 1984. Sugar Ray Leonard held welterweight, junior middleweight, middleweight, super middleweight, and light heavyweight titles. (To learn more about some of boxing's greatest stars, see the Profiles accompanying this article.)

 

Women and Boxing

Women have been boxing since the 1720's in England. Until recently, however, women's bouts did not receive much attention, acceptance, or respect.

 

A women's boxing match was televised for the first time in 1954, featuring the famed boxer Barbara Buttrick. It was not until 1988, however, that a national boxing association (Sweden's) sanctioned, or gave official approval to, women's boxing. During the 1990's, interest in women's boxing grew. USA Boxing developed guidelines in 1993 for the inclusion of women's boxing in its organization. The Amateur International Boxing Association (AIBA), the governing body of international amateur boxing, officially recognized women's boxing in 1994.

 

Professional organizations include the International Female Boxers Association (IFBA) and the Women's International Boxing Federation (WIBF). The same weight divisions used in men's boxing, except the superheavyweight, are used in women's. The rules for women's bouts differ slightly from those of men's bouts. Women's boxing became an official Olympic sport at the 2012 Summer Games in London, United Kingdom.

Much publicity has surrounded former champions' daughters, such as Laila Ali, Jacqui Frazier-Lyde, and Freeda Foreman. But other women have established themselves as champions in the sport. They have included Christy Martin, Lucia Rijker, Deirdre Gogarty, Valerie Mahfood, Mia St. John, Kathy Collins, and Katie Taylor.

 

Rocky Marciano
Former World Heavyweight Boxing Champion

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - STAR WARS

 

Did you know... that Luke Skywalker was almost a girl?

 

A long time ago (January 1975, to be exact) a fledgling screenwriter named George Lucas was working on the second draft of an epic sci-fi space opera he called “Adventures of the Starkiller, Episode One: The Star Wars.”  Of the many, many problems (and one of little-known Star Wars facts) with this clunky script that would eventually become Star Wars: A New Hope, one that seemed easily fixed to Lucas was the serious lack of female characters. So, Lucas did something radical: rewrote his story’s main character, Luke Starkiller, as an 18-year-old girl. At least one concept drawing by artist Ralph McQuarrie exists of this short-lived gender swap, but a few months later, with Lucas’ next draft, Starkiller was a boy again. Star Wars wouldn’t get a female lead until nearly forty years later.

 

Yoda was almost a monkey in a mask

Next time you complain about the goofy CG Yoda from the prequels, consider one of these Star Wars facts: the spiritual center of the Jedi order was almost a real-life monkey in a green mask carrying a cane.  Luckily, there was a monkey expert on set to throw a banana peel in this plan’s tracks. One of the crew who worked with apes in 2001: A Space Odyssey quickly pointed out, “Look, the monkey’s just going to pull off the mask over and over again. It’s never going to work.” The team soon enlisted Muppet master-crafter Jim Henson, who suggested casting Frank Oz (formerly the voice of Miss Piggy) to bring Yoda to life. Love Yoda’s quotes? These are our favorite Star Wars quotes of all time. 

Bonus Star Wars fact: According to the early “Starkiller” drafts of the movie, Lucas wanted to call Yoda “Buffy.”

 

Han Solo died in the original script

The original ending of Return of The Jedi has Luke assuming Darth Vader’s role as evil Galactic enforcer, and Han Solo dying in his heroic raid on the Death Star. Harrison Ford probably would have been fine with this. Ford was famously snippy about Lucas’ script (“George, you can type this ****, but you can’t say it.”) and in a 2010 interview he waved off his iconic character as “Ham Yoyo,” stating he was officially “done with him.” Time makes fools of us all.

 

The Emperor was married to King Kong

Well, in a manner of speaking. When Emperor Palpatine first appears as a hologram in The Empire Strikes Back, the person under the black mantle and facial prosthetics is not Ian McDiarmid, who played Palpatine on screen in Return of The Jedi. It’s not a man at all: the first Emperor we see is actually Elaine Baker, then-wife of Star Wars makeup designer Rick Baker. As Gizmodo points out, Rick Baker once donned the monkey suit in the 1976 King Kong remake, so we can technically say that Emperor Palpatine and King Kong were legally wed. (Just try not to imagine their children.) 

 

The opening text crawl took 3 hours to shoot

The famous floating text that opens A New Hope may have been one of the greatest special effects achievements in the film. As Mental Floss points out, the text was filmed practically “by carefully placing 2-foot-wide die cut yellow letters over a 6-foot-long black paper background with a camera making a slow pass over them to mimic the crawl.” What’s now a default option on filmmaking software took LucasArts three hours to capture.

Bonus Star Wars fact: That “revolutionary” text effect? Flash Gordon did it first.

 

The trash in the Death Star garbage compactor scene was REAL

Apparently, the smell was so bad that Mark Hamill burst a blood vessel from trying to hold his breath, and the camera angle had to be adjusted for the rest of the scene so as not to show his injury. As for Peter Mayhew’s yak-hair Chewbacca suit? It reeked for the rest of production.

Bonus Star Wars fact: At the start of A New Hope, Chewbacca is 200 years old.

 

It took four men to portray one Vader

How do you capture a presence as big as Darth Vader? Cast four men. The on-screen body of Vader is six-foot-five bodybuilder David Prowse; his stunt double for action scenes is professional fencer Bob Anderson; the voice of Vader is the great James Earl Jones; and the de-helmeted face of Vader in Return of The Jedi is Sebastian Shaw. Love movie trivia?

 

“I am your father” was the best-kept secret in film

Get a load of one of these Star Wars facts: Lucas kept the twist ending of Empire so well guarded, he even wrote fake text in the script to throw the actors off. During filming, David Prowse (whose voice was later dubbed by James Earl Jones reciting the actual line) yelled to Mark Hamill: “Obi-Wan killed your father!” The cast and crew thought this was the real line—only Hamill, who had been told the truth about Vader moments before filming the scene, knew otherwise. If the secret leaked, it would all come back to Luke.

Bonus Star Wars fact: Of course, if you spoke Dutch or German, you’d already know by A New Hope that Darth Vader literally translates to “Darth Father.”

 

It took seven men to portray one Jabba the Hutt

Named by some as the most expensive puppet in the world, the $500,000 Jabba the Hutt model required seven people to bring to life: “Three puppeteers were inside: one controlled the right arm and jaw, another handled the left hand and jaw, tongue, and head movements, and both of them moved the body; a third person was in the tail. Outside, there were one or two people on radio controllers for the eyes, someone under the stage to blow cigar smoke up a tube, and another working bellows for the lungs.”

 

Well, it just took one man to portray R2D2 and an Ewok

In less expensive news (but another one of these rare Star Wars facts), Kenny Baker, the man destined to live inside R2D2, also donned the bear suit to play an Ewok in Return of The Jedi. He plays Paploo—the enterprising Ewok who steals an imperial speeder bike.

Bonus Star Wars fact: The word “Ewok” is never mentioned once in the original trilogy (though they do get a credit at the end.)

 

The Ewok’s anthem has a classic rock connection

The final victory song sung by the Ewoks at the end of Jedi was written by the same dude who wrote “Africa”: Joseph Williams, lead singer of Toto and son of legendary composer John Williams. I guess it rains down in Eeeendoooooore…

Bonus Star Wars fact: In other surprising composition news, the new Cantina music featured in The Force Awakens was written by Lin-Manuel Miranda—the creator and original star of current Broadway smash hit Hamilton.

 

Other notable noises: bears, walruses, and all the cell doors on Alcatraz

Kids should thank sound designer Ben Burtt for some of the most memorable noises of their childhood. Want to know how he did it? The sound of Darth Vader’s breathing was recorded by putting a microphone inside a scuba tank regulator; Chewbacca’s signature Wookie gargle is a combination of bear, walrus, lion, and badger sounds. The sound of Vader’s pod door closing in Empire is reportedly the sound of a whole block of Alcatraz cell doors slamming shut.

 

George Lucas lost a $40 million bet to Steven Spielberg

Another one of these little-known Star Wars facts? In the late ‘70s, Lucas was working on A New Hope at the same time his buddy Steven Spielberg was working on Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Visiting the Close Encounters set one day, Lucas reportedly fell into a panic, Spielberg says:

 

“He said, ‘Oh my God, your movie is going to be so much more successful than Star Wars! This is gonna be the biggest hit of all time. I can’t believe this set.’ He said, ‘All right, I’ll tell you what. I’ll trade some points with you. I’ll give you 2.5 percent of Star Wars if you give me 2.5 percent of Close Encounters.’ So I said, ‘Sure, I’ll gamble with that.’”

Gamble is right. Star Wars made $775 million at the global box office compared with Close Encounters’ $304 million. Adjusted for inflation, TIME reports, “Spielberg’s edge could come out to as much as $40 million.”

 

The kicker? Lucas actually made good on his bet. (Doesn’t hurt when you’re a billionaire.)

 

 

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - STARFISH

 

Did you know... that starfish or sea stars are star-shaped echinoderms belonging to the class Asteroidea? Common usage frequently finds these names being also applied to ophiuroids, which are correctly referred to as brittle stars or basket stars.

 

Starfish (or sea stars) are beautiful marine animals found in a variety of colors, shapes, and sizes. All starfish resemble stars, and though the most common have only five arms, some of these animals can grow up to 40 arms. The amazing sea creatures—part of a group of animals known as echinoderms—travel using their tube feet. They can regenerate lost limbs, and they can swallow large prey using their unusual stomachs.  Although sea stars live underwater and are commonly called "starfish," they are not true fish. They do not have gills, scales, or fins like fish do. Sea stars also move quite differently from fish. While fish propel themselves with their tails, sea stars have tiny tube feet to help them move along. Because they are not classified as fish, scientists prefer to call starfish "sea stars."

 

Sea stars belong to the phylum Echinodermata. That means they are related to sand dollars, sea urchins, sea cucumbers, and sea lilies. Overall, this phylum contains over 6,000 species.  Many echinoderms exhibit radial symmetry, meaning their body parts are arranged around a central axis. Many sea stars have five-point radial symmetry because their body has five sections. This means that they do not have an obvious left and right half, only a top side and a bottom side. Echinoderms also usually have spines, which are less pronounced in sea stars than they are in other organisms such as sea urchins.

 

There are about 2,000 species of sea stars. Some live in the intertidal zone, while others live in the deep water of the ocean. While many species live in tropical areas, sea stars can also be found in cold areas—even the polar regions. While many people are most familiar with the five-armed species of sea stars, not all sea stars have just five arms. Some species have many more, such as the sun star, which can have up to 40 arms.  Amazingly, sea stars can regenerate lost arms, which is useful if the sea star is injured by a predator. It can lose an arm, escape, and grow a new arm later. Sea stars house most of their vital organs in their arms. This means that some species can even regenerate an entirely new sea star from just one arm and a portion of the star's central disc. It won't happen too quickly, though. It takes about a year for an arm to grow back.

 

Depending on the species, a sea star's skin may feel leathery or slightly prickly. Sea stars have a tough covering on their upper side, which is made up of plates of calcium carbonate with tiny spines on their surface.  A sea star's spines are used for protection from predators, which include birds, fish, and sea otters. One very spiny sea star is the aptly named crown-of-thorns starfish. Instead of blood, sea stars have a circulatory system made up primarily of sea water. Seawater is pumped into the animal's water vascular system through its sieve plate. This is a sort of trap door called a madreporite, which is often visible as a light-colored spot on the top of the starfish. From the madreporite, the sea water moves into the sea star's tube feet, causing the arm to extend. Muscles within the tube feet are used to retract the limb.

 

Sea stars move using hundreds of tube feet, which are located on their underside. The tube feet are filled with sea water, which the sea star brings in through the madreporite on its top side. Sea stars can move quicker than you might expect. If you get a chance, visit a tide pool or aquarium and take a moment to watch a sea star moving around. It is one of the most amazing sights in the ocean. Tube feet also help the sea star hold its prey, including clams and mussels.

 

Sea stars prey on bivalves like mussels and clams, as well as small fish, snails, and barnacles. If you've ever tried to pry the shell of a clam or mussel open, you know how difficult it is. However, sea stars have a unique way of eating these creatures.  A sea star's mouth is on its underside. When it catches its food, the sea star will wrap its arms around the animal's shell and pull it open just slightly. Then it does something amazing. The sea star pushes its stomach through its mouth and into the bivalve's shell. It then digests the animal and slides its stomach back into its own body.  This unique feeding mechanism allows the sea star to eat larger prey than it would otherwise be able to fit into its tiny mouth.

 

Many people are surprised to learn that starfish have eyes. It's true. The eyes are there—just not in the place you would expect.  Sea stars have an eye spot at the end of each arm. This means that a five-armed sea star has five eyes, while the 40-armed sun star has 40 eyes.  Each sea star eye is very simple and looks like a red spot. It doesn't see much detail but it can sense light and dark, which is just enough for the environments the animals live in.

 

Starfish belong to the animal class Asteroidea. These echinoderms all have several arms arranged around a central disk.  Asteroidea is the classification for "true stars." These animals are in a separate class from brittle stars and basket stars, which have a more defined separation between their arms and their central disk. 

 

Male and female sea stars are hard to tell apart because they look identical. While many animal species reproduce using only one method, sea stars are a little different.  Sea stars can reproduce sexually. They do this by releasing sperm and eggs (called gametes) into the water. The sperm fertilizes the gametes and produces swimming larvae, which eventually settle on the ocean floor, growing into adult sea stars.  Sea stars can also reproduce asexually through regeneration, which is what happens when the animals lose an arm.

Edited December 28, 2019 by DarkRavie

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - ICE SCULPTURE

 

Did you know... that ice sculpture is a form of sculpture that uses ice as the raw material?  Sculptures from ice can be abstract or realistic and can be functional or purely decorative. Ice sculptures are generally associated with special or extravagant events because of their limited lifetime.  It's the art of carving shapes out of ice. It ranges in size from small table decorations to entire towns of ice seen in winter festivals all over the world. The beginnings of ice sculpture are credited to both China and Russia, and go back centuries.

 

There are two ways to make ice sculpture: You can carve into a block of ice or make a mold. Blocks of ice are obtained from frozen rivers and lakes. Typically water that freezes slowly makes clear ice and is preferred by artists to make ice sculptures. In some places, artificial blocks of ice are made for this purpose. Sculpting ice presents a number of difficulties due to the variability and volatility of the material. Ice may be sculpted in a wide range of temperatures and the characteristics of the ice will change according to its temperature as well as the surrounding temperatures. Sculptures are generally carved from blocks of ice and these blocks must be carefully selected to be suitable for the sculptor's purposes and should be free of undesired impurities.

 

Typically, ideal carving ice is made from pure, clean water. However, clear, transparent ice is a result of the freezing process and not necessarily related to the purity of the water. Clouded ice is often the result of finely trapped air molecules that tend to bind to the impurities while naturally freezing. Mechanically clear ice is usually made as the result of controlling the freezing process by the circulation of the water in the freezing chamber. This process hopes to eliminate any trapped air from binding to the impurities in the freezing process.

 

Certain machines and processes allow for slow freezing and the removal of impurities and therefore are able to produce the clear blocks of ice that are favored by ice carvers. However, not all blocks that are carved are clear ice. White ice blocks look like snow and are sometimes carved. Colored ice blocks are produced by adding dyes to the ice and can be carved as well. In some instances, clear ice and colored ice are combined to create a desired effect.

 

There are various sizes of ice blocks that are produced artificially. Naturally made blocks can be cut to almost any size from frozen rivers or from "ice quarries," which are essentially lakes or ponds that have frozen over. Large ice blocks must be moved by heavy machinery and are used for large ice sculpting events or as part of an ice hotel.

 

The temperature of the environment affects how quickly the piece must be completed to avoid the effects of melting; if the sculpting does not take place in a cold environment, then the sculptor must work quickly to finish the piece. Some sculptures can be completed in as little as ten minutes if the carver is using power tools such as chainsaws and specialty bits fitted to a die grinder.

 

Ice sculptors also use razor-sharp chisels and hand saws that are specifically designed for cutting ice.  As various technologies are adapted for use with ice carving, many sculptures are now created largely by machine. CNC machines and molding systems are now commonly used to create ice sculptures and complicated logos from ice. Color effects are also possible by a number of techniques, including the addition of colored gels or sand to the ice.

 

This art form is traditionally taught in culinary schools using text books such as Ice Sculpting the Modern Way, Joseph Amendola's Ice Carving Made Easy and Mac Winker's Ice Sculpture: The Art of Ice Carving in 12 Systematic Steps. There are also small schools that teach ice carving.

 

The ice may be turned clear after carving by applying heat from a Propane or Mapp Gas cylinder. This alters the opaque effect that is obtained when carving. The ice turns clear after the outside is melted. Caution is to be used as the ice melts very quickly and could soften edges and contours. Sometimes distilled water is used for enhanced clarity.

 

Ice sculptures feature decoratively in some cuisines and may be used to enhance the presentation of foods, especially cold foods such as seafood or sorbets. The story of the creation of the dish Peach Melba recounts that Chef Auguste Escoffier used an ice swan to present the dish.[2] At holiday buffets and Sunday brunches some large restaurants and hotels will use ice sculptures to decorate the buffet tables. Cruise ship buffets are also famous for their use of ice sculptures.

 

Ice sculptures are often used at wedding receptions, usually as some form of decoration. Popular subjects for ice sculptures at weddings are hearts, doves, and swans. Swans have a reputation for monogamy, partly accounting for their popularity.  They may be used at a bar, in the form of an ice luge, or even the entire bar may be made of ice. Ice sculptures with high surface area like in a radiator can be use to cool air to blow on people during heat wave events when air conditioning is not available.

 

Ice sculptures, ice walls for fire fighting, property protection and cooling stations may be cast by a process in which ice water (one part), crushed ice or ice cubes (three parts) and tiny, floating, dry ice pellets (one part) are placed in a cement mixer. The tiny dry ice pellets super cool the ice water so that the ice water acts like glue to cement or freeze the crushed ice or ice cubes together within several seconds once the mixture stops moving within the mold. The ice water component of the mixture will expand 9% on freezing, so rubber, foam or foam lined casting materials work best to combat the water to ice expansion problem not encountered with wax, cement, casting plaster or metal casting materials.

 

Ice sculpture or ice walls may be stopped from melting by placing and keeping vertical voids in the ice sculpture or ice wall filled with the same type of tiny dry ice pellets used to make ice walls by the Icecrete process previously called Cryocrete in a 2014 U.S. provisional patent.

 

You can order custom or pre-designed ice sculptures to serve as centerpieces for celebrations such as weddings, birthdays and bar mitzvahs. Depending on the weather and the structure of the sculpture, ice art can melt in just a few hours or months. The Harbin International Ice festival, for example, runs for two months. Artists enter elaborate ice sculptures at competitions and festivals held annually all over the world.

 

Ice festivals are typically seen in places that get very cold. Festivals in Sapporo, Japan, for instance, feature sculpture on an architectural scale such as ice castles and pagodas. The winter carnival in Alaska has participants from over 100 teams annually, including teams from countries such as China and the United States. In Sweden an ice hotel complete with bedrooms and a bar is built every year.

 

In China

In the 1600s, native hunters and fishermen of the Chinese province of Heilongjiang, on the border of Russia, designed ice lanterns for dark winter nights. They filled buckets with water to make ice, then slid it out, dug a hole in it and put a candle in the hole to make a lantern. The trend spread, and people started hanging decorated lanterns from homes and parading them in carnivals. In 1897, the Trans Siberian Railway was extended through the small Chinese fishing town of Harbin in Heilongjiang, once occupied by Russia. As a result of the traffic, Harbin grew into a cosmopolitan city. With below freezing winds from Siberia, and ice from the frozen Songhua river, Harbin became the home of the annual International Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival. Currently, this festival features the work of thousands of artists from all over the world.

 

In Russia

In 1740, the first monumental scale ice palace was commissioned by the Empress Anna in Russia. Designed by Piotr Eropkin, this palace featured, among other things, ice cannons that fired ice cannon balls, and an ice elephant linked to a canal through pipes that sprayed water out of its trunk. Since then, complete ice towns have been built in the northern cities of Russia. In 2000, a replica of Anna's ice palace was built in the first International Sand and Ice festival at St. Petersburg. Nine hundred and eighty square feet and 21 feet tall, the palace was built by fusing together blocks of ice from the Neva river. Russians claim that St. Petersburg was where ice sculpture began.

 

In Canada

In Canada, Quebec City, Quebec holds an ice sculpture festival each year during the Quebec City Winter Carnival. The sculpture festival lasts about three weeks. For the sheer variety of ice sculptures and the number of visitors, the Quebec festival is regarded by some as the best in the world. Each year, about twenty teams are chosen to participate in the competition. Half of these teams come from Canada and the others come from other countries. Ice sculpting started to become important in Quebec in the 1880s, as traditional sculptors, like Louis Jobin, turned their skills on this less permanent medium.

 

Each year Lake Louise, located in Banff National Park, holds a three-day event called Ice Magic in the 3rd weekend of January. Sanctioned by the National Ice Carving Association, Professional carvers are invited to compete in this event staged in the shadow of the glacier-clad Mt. Victoria. Twelve teams of three carvers are given 15 blocks of ice, weighing 300 lb each, which they must transform into ice sculptures in three days. Weather permitting; the sculptures will remain on display through March.

 

The annual Deep Freeze Festival in Edmonton, Alberta hosts a chisel-and-chainsaw ice carving competition the second weekend of January.[4] Sculptures are created by professionals and amateurs using three blocks of ice. Every year a theme is chosen, in 2013 the theme was "The Wild West".

 

In the National Capital Region of Canada the Crystal Garden international invitational ice-carving competition starts every February, as part of the Winterlude winter festival of Ottawa. The competition site has been located in Confederation Park in Ottawa and also on the shores of Leamy lake in Gatineau, across the Ottawa River. There is a solo category, a pairs category and a one-bloc challenge. In addition to the sculptures done in the competition many ice sculptures are made to decorate the many Winterlude sites.

 

In Kingston, Ontario, the annual FebFest snow sculpture competition in Confederation Park in features snow forts by Royal Military College of Canada and Queen's University. The snow fort must not only be pleasing to look at but also safe for children to play on. In 2008, Royal Military College of Canada's snow fort was modelled after the MacKenzie Building in the Second Empire style with a Mansard roof and a central tower incorporating a working clock, flanked by projecting end towers and a slide. Both teams worked through the night, filling rectangular recycling bins with snow. In addition, ice sculptures of hockey players were made in memory of the first hockey game between Royal Military College of Canada and Queen's University.

 

About 10 km East of Quebec city, near Montmorency Falls and within the grounds of the Duchesnay winter resort the first Ice hotel in North America is erected each January. Small and medium-sized ice sculptures are used to decorate the interiors.

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - WEATHER BALLOONS

 

Did you know... that A weather or sounding balloon is a balloon that carries instruments aloft to send back information on atmospheric pressure, temperature, humidity and wind speed by means of a small, expendable measuring device called a radiosonde.

 

A weather balloon is a balloon that carries certain instruments high into the air to record or send information back to be used for research and weather information. One of the first recorded times a weather balloon was used was in the late 1800s when Leon Teisserenc de Bort - a French meteorologist - launched several weather balloons that resulted in the discovery of the tropopause and stratosphere. The balloon of a weather balloon provides the lift for the apparatus while the recording instrument hangs below. This hanging portion of the weather balloon is called the radiosonde as it transmits via radio transmission. Weather balloons can be filled with hydrogen or helium but hydrogen is less expensive.

 

The balloon itself is usually made with very flexible latex or chloroprene, which is usually filled with hydrogen, which costs less, or helium, if it can be obtained. Speed by which the balloon is rising is controlled by the amount of gas with which the balloon is filled. Radiosonde, which measures atmospheric parameters and sends them by means of radio transmissions, is tied bellow the balloon and it hangs at the lower end of the string. Different radiosondes measure different parameters. Weather balloons can rise 40 km in the air. If higher altitude is needed, radiosondes are sent into the air with “sounding rockets”, rockets designed to take measurements and perform scientific experiments during sub-orbital flights. For heights greater than 1,500 kilometers, weather measurements are carried by satellites.

 

Some of measuring instruments that weather balloons usually carry in its radiosonde are: thermistor (ceramic-covered metal rod that works as a simple thermometer); hygristor (a slide coated with film of lithium chloride that works as a humidity sensor whose electrical resistance changes based on the humidity); and aneroid barometer (small metal canister that has air inside and a membrane that reacts to the outside pressure). If the weather balloon bursts because of too low atmospheric pressure, radiosonde will start falling to Earth. Because of that, radiosonde is equipped with a parachute which will bring it safely to the ground.

Zhuzhou Research & Design Institute of China, Totex and Cosmoprene of Japan and Pawan Rubber Products of India are the greatest manufacturers of weather balloons.

 

Weather balloons can be used to determine current weather conditions as well as to provide data for forecasting and for research.  They can also be used for purposes outside of the weather field including for aviation purposes, monitoring of pollution, video creation, photography, and research.

 

• In 1958 weather balloons called transosondes were experimented with to record debris from atomic fallout. These were meant to stay in place for a long period of time.
• Both civilian and military governments use weather balloons. The National Weather Service is a meteorological agency in the U.S. that launches weather balloons on a regular basis and shares the data with countries around the world.

The first meteorologist known to launch weather balloons, Leon Teisserenc de Bort, subsequently had a moon crater and a crater on Mars named after him because of his work. He started using them in 1896 and since then he launched hundreds of weather balloons from his observatory in Trappes, France. These balloons helped him conduct experiments that lead to his discovery of the tropopause and stratosphere. Tropopause is the boundary in the Earth's atmosphere between the troposphere and the stratosphere where air ceases to cool with height, and becomes almost completely dry. Stratosphere is the next layer of the atmosphere which has a characteristic that it is cooler as further it is from the Earth. Transosondes were invented in 1958 as an experiment in measuring of radioactive debris from atomic fallout. Early weather balloons had to be retrieved in order to collect the data while today’s can send back the information. These data gathering and transmitting devices were developed in the 1930s.

 

• The Continental Drift Theory, discovered by Alfred Wegener in the early 20th century, was a result of his use of weather balloons. Although he published his theory in 1912 nobody really accepted it until 30 years after his death, in the 1960s. He also had a moon crater and Mars crater named after him.
• Weather balloons come in a variety of sizes from 350 grams to as much as 1500 grams. Weather balloons are listed by their weight not their physical size as this varies somewhat.
• Weather balloons can reach tremendous heights, with some high altitude balloons reaching as high as 32 miles high into the stratosphere namely the BU60-1, in 2002 which reached 32.9 miles.
• Heavier weather balloons cost more to launch because more gas must be used.
• A balloonist named Jean-Pierre Blanchard launched from Paris in 1785 with American John Jeffries to cross the English Channel in an attempt to measure the upper atmosphere for the first time but a near crash caused Jeffries to throw his equipment overboard. The mission was scrapped.
• Some companies have begun to offer a funeral service that scatters human ashes at high altitudes with weather balloons. This service would benefit those people that wish their ashes to be scattered at a high level above the earth, possibly because they spent part of their lives high above the earth which would be the case with pilots and skydivers.

 

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - NEW YEARS EVE

 

Did you know... that In the Gregorian calendar, New Year's Eve, the last day of the year, is on 31 December. In many countries, New Year's Eve is celebrated at evening social gatherings, where many people dance, eat, drink, and watch or light fireworks. Some Christians attend a watchnight service.

 

New Year’s Eve is all about numbers. Indeed, we spend the entire day counting down the hours until 11 p.m., when we start counting the minutes, which we do until 11:59 p.m., when we start counting the seconds.  December 31, 2017 and January 1, 2018 – New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day are on a Sunday and Monday.  The International Date Line, located at 180 degrees longitude and on the exact opposite side of the Earth of the prime meridian, denotes the passage of a calendar date from the day before. The countries west of the line move into a new day first, and other countries (moving westward) follow.  Samoa and parts of Kiribati are the first places to welcome the New Year while American Samoa and Baker Island in the United States, are among the last.

 

Many cultures celebrate the event in some manner.  Common traditions include attending parties, eating special New Year’s foods, making resolutions for the new year and watching fireworks displays.  The earliest recording of a new year celebration is believed to have been in Mesopotamia, c. 2000 B.C. and was celebrated around the time of the vernal equinox, in mid-March.

 

A variety of other dates tied to the seasons were also used by various ancient cultures. The Egyptians, Phoenicians, and Persians began their new year with the fall equinox, and the Greeks celebrated it on the winter solstice.

The early Roman calendar designated March 1 as the new year. The calendar had just ten months, beginning with March.

 

In 1582, the Gregorian calendar reform restored January 1 as New Year’s Day. 

 

In present day, with most countries now using the Gregorian calendar as their de facto calendar, New Year’s Day is probably the most celebrated public holiday, often observed with fireworks at the stroke of midnight as the new year starts in each time zone.

 

A New Year’s resolution is a tradition, most common in the Western Hemisphere but also found in the Eastern Hemisphere, in which a person resolves to change an undesired trait or behavior.

 

“Auld Lang Syne” is traditionally sung at midnight on New Year’s Eve. It was written by Scottish poet Robert Burns in 1788. He may have based it on a folk song. The words auld lang syne mean “times gone by”.  Popping champagne corks at the stroke of midnight is a mainstay on New Year’s Eve, whether at swanky parties or home celebrations.  Each New Year’s Eve 1 million people gather in New York City’s Times Square to watch famous ball drop. Another 1 billion people from around the world will watch the famed ball drop on TV.

 

Every year Berlin hosts one of the largest New Year’s Eve celebrations in all of Europe, attended by over a million people. The focal point is the Brandenburg Gate, where midnight fireworks are centered. Germans toast the New Year with a glass of Sekt (German sparkling wine) or Champagne.

 

The celebration in London focuses on Big Ben (Westminster Clock Tower) the bell and by association the clock housed in the clock tower at the Palace of Westminster. These celebrations are aired by the BBC and other networks.

 

The largest celebration in Australia is held in its largest city: Sydney. The “Midnight Fireworks” are regularly watched by approximately 1.5–2 million people at Sydney Harbour. As one of the first major New Year’s celebrations globally each year, Sydney’s Midnight Fireworks are often broadcast throughout the world during the day of 31 December.

 

In Dubai, United Arab Emirates, New Year’s fireworks are set off from Jumeirah Beach (including Burj Al Arab) and the world’s tallest building, Burj Khalifa. The New Year fireworks display at Burj Khalifa is among the world’s most expensive.

 

At midnight on December 31, Buddhist temples all over Japan ring their bells a total of 108 times to symbolize the 108 human sins in Buddhist belief, and to get rid of the 108 worldly desires regarding sense and feeling in every Japanese citizen. A major attraction is The Watched Night bell, in Tokyo.

 

Mexicans celebrate New Year’s Eve, by eating a grape with each of the twelve chimes of a clock’s bell during the midnight countdown, while making a wish with each one.

 

In some cities of Colombia, Cuba and Puerto Rico, there is a tradition of making a male doll that is stuffed with memories from the past year, all dressed with the clothes of the outgoing year and is called Mr. Old Year. At midnight, the doll is set on fire symbolizing erasing of the bad memories.

 

There is a music festival every New Year’s eve in the Antarctic called ‘Icestock’

 

In Italy, people wear red underwear on New Year’s Day to bring good luck all year long.

 

Until 2006, the Space Shuttle never flew on New Year’s day or eve because its computers couldn’t handle a year rollover.

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - SOLAR ECLIPSES

 

Did you know... that An eclipse is an astronomical event that occurs when an astronomical object is temporarily obscured, by passing into the shadow of another body or by having another body pass between it and the viewer? This alignment of three celestial objects is known as a syzygy.  

 

A solar eclipse is a natural event that takes place on Earth when the Moon moves in its orbit between Earth and the Sun (this is also known as an occultation). It happens at New Moon, when the Sun and Moon are in conjunction with each other. If the Moon was only slightly closer to Earth, and orbited in the same plane and its orbit was circular, we would see eclipses each month. The lunar orbit is elliptical and tilted with respect to Earth’s orbit, so we can only see up to 5 eclipses per year. Depending on the geometry of the Sun, Moon and Earth, the Sun can be totally blocked, or it can be partially blocked.

 

During an eclipse, the Moon’s shadow (which is divided into two parts: the dark umbra and the lighter penumbra) moves across Earth’s surface. Safety note: do NOT ever look at the Sun directly during an eclipse unless it is during a total solar eclipse. The bright light of the Sun can damage your eyes very quickly.

 

• Depending on the geometry of the Sun, Moon, and Earth, there can be between 2 and 5 solar eclipses each year.
• Totality occurs when the Moon completely obscures Sun so only the solar corona is showing.
• A total solar eclipse can happen once every 1-2 years. This makes them very rare events.s.
• The longest a total solar eclipse can last is 7.5 minutes.
• The width of the path of totality is usually about 160 km across and can sweep across an area of Earth’s surface about 10,000 miles long.
• Almost identical eclipses occur after 18 years and 11 days. This period of 223 synodic months is called a saros.
• During a total solar eclipse, conditions in the path of totality can change quickly. Air temperatures drop and the immediate area becomes dark.
• If any planets are in the sky at the time of a total solar eclipse, they can be seen as points of light.

Solar Eclipse Types

 

Total Solar Eclipse

A total solar eclipse occurs when the Moon completely blocks the solar disk. In a total solar eclipse, the narrowest part of the path (where the Sun is completely blocked and the Moon casts its darkest shadow (called the umbra)) is called the “zone of totality”.

 

Observers in this path see a darkened Sun (often described as a “hole in the sky”) with the ghostly glow of the solar corona extending out to space. A phenomenon called “Bailey’s Beads” often appears as sunlight shines out through valleys on the lunar surface. If the Sun is active, observers can also see solar prominences, loops, and flares during totality. A total solar eclipse is the ONLY time when it is safe to look directly at the Sun. ALL other solar observations (even in partial phases) require special solar filters so that you do not harm your eyes.

 

Total solar eclipses have not always been visible from Earth. In the past, the Moon was too close to Earth and during eclipses it completely blotted out the Sun’s disk. Over time, the lunar orbit has changed at the rate of just over 2 cm per year and in the current epoch, the alignment is nearly perfect at times. However, the Moon’s orbit will continue to widen, and in perhaps 600 million years, total solar eclipses will no longer occur. Instead, future observers will see partial and annular eclipses only.

 

Annular Solar Eclipse

Not every solar eclipse is a total one. When the Moon is farther away in its orbit than usual, it appears too small to completely cover the Sun’s disk. During such an event, a bright ring of sunlight shines around the Moon. This type of eclipse is a called an “annular” eclipse. It comes from the Latin word “annulus” which means “ring”.

 

The period of annularity during such an eclipse can last anywhere from 5 or 6 minutes to up to 12 minutes. However, even though the Sun is mostly covered by the Moon, enough bright sunlight escapes during annularity that observers cannot ever look at the Sun directly. These events require eye protection throughout the entire eclipse.

 

Partial Solar Eclipse

A partial solar eclipse occurs when Earth moves through the lunar penumbra (the lighter part of the Moon’s shadow) as the Moon moves between Earth and the Sun. The Moon does not block the entire solar disk, as seen from Earth. Depending on your location during a partial eclipse, you might see anything from a small sliver of the Sun being blotted out to a nearly total eclipse.

 

To view any eclipse safely, use approved filters or use an indirect method of viewing, such as projecting sunlight through a telescope and onto a white piece of paper or cardboard. NEVER look at the Sun through a telescope unless it has the appropriate filter. Blindness and severe eye damage can result due to improper observation technique.

 

When is the next Solar Eclipse?

Eclipses can occur each year, and they are predictable. There are several places online where you can get up-to-date calendars for all the types of solar eclipses.

mreclipse.com – MrEclipse.com is the page of retired NASA astrophysicist Fred Espenak. He provides a wealth of information about both solar and lunar eclipses.

eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov – The NASA Eclipse Web Site is the official NASA site for eclipse information.

timeanddate.com – Timeanddate is a reliable source of eclipse calendars for both solar and lunar eclipses.

[DarkRavie]

Fact of the Day - CELESTIAL SPHERE

 

Did you know... that in astronomy and navigation, the celestial sphere is an imaginary sphere of arbitrarily large radius, concentric with Earth? All objects in the observer’s sky can be thought of as projected upon the inside surface of the celestial sphere, as if it were the underside of a dome. The celestial sphere is a practical tool for spherical astronomy, allowing observers to plot positions of objects in the sky when their distances are unknown or unimportant.

 

The Earth rotates … giving it the appearance that the stars are the ones that rotate:

Because astronomical objects are at such remote distances, casual observation of the sky offers no information on the actual distances. All objects seem equally far away, as if fixed to the inside of a sphere of large but unknown radius, which rotates from east to west overhead while underfoot, the Earth seems to stand still. For purposes of spherical astronomy, which is concerned only with the directions to objects, it makes no difference whether this is actually the case, or if it is the Earth which rotates while the celestial sphere stands still.

 

The celestial sphere can be considered to be infinite in radius. This means any point within it, including that occupied by the observer, can be considered the center. It also means that all parallel lines, be they millimetres apart or across the Solar System from each other, will seem to intersect the sphere at a single point, analogous to the vanishing point of graphical perspective. All parallel planes will seem to intersect the sphere in a coincident great circle (a “vanishing circle”). Conversely, observers looking toward the same point on an infinite-radius celestial sphere will be looking along parallel lines, and observers looking toward the same great circle, along parallel planes. On an infinite-radius celestial sphere, all observers see the same things in the same direction.

 

Parallax:

Objects which are relatively near to the observer (for instance, the Moon) will seem to change position against the distant celestial sphere if the observer moves far enough, say, from one side of the Earth to the other. This effect, known as parallax, can be represented as a small offset from a mean position. The celestial sphere can be considered to be centered at the Earth’s center, The Sun’s center, or any other convenient location, and offsets from positions referred to these centers can be calculated. In this way, astronomers can predict geocentric or heliocentric positions of objects on the celestial sphere, without the need to calculate the individual geometry of any particular observer, and the utility of the celestial sphere is maintained. Individual observers can work out their own small offsets from the mean positions, if necessary. In many cases in astronomy, the offsets are insignificant.

 

How to find Objects in the Sky:

The equatorial coordinate system is a widely-used celestial coordinate system used to specify the positions of celestial objects. It may be implemented in spherical or rectangular coordinates, both defined by an origin at the center of the Earth, a fundamental plane consisting of the projection of the Earth’s equator onto the celestial sphere (forming the celestial equator), a primary direction towards the vernal equinox, and a right-handed convention.

 

The origin at the center of the Earth means the coordinates are geocentric, that is, as seen from the center of the Earth as if it were transparent and nonrefracting. The fundamental plane and the primary direction mean that the coordinate system, while aligned with the Earth’s equator and pole, does not rotate with the Earth, but remains relatively fixed against the background stars. A right-handed convention means that coordinates are positive toward the north and toward the east in the fundamental plane.

 

A star’s spherical coordinates are often expressed as a pair, right ascension and declination, without a distance coordinate. Because of the great distances to most celestial objects, astronomers often have little or no information on their exact distances, and hence use only the direction. The direction of sufficiently distant objects is the same for all observers, and it is convenient to specify this direction with the same coordinates for all. In contrast, in the horizontal coordinate system, a star’s position differs from observer to observer based on their positions on the Earth’s surface, and is continuously changing with the Earth’s rotation. Telescopes equipped with equatorial mounts and setting circles employ the equatorial coordinate system to find objects. Setting circles in conjunction with a star chart or ephemeris allow the telescope to be easily pointed at known objects on the celestial sphere.

 

 

Declination

Declination (symbol δ, abbreviated dec) measures the angular distance of an object perpendicular to the celestial equator, positive to the north, negative to the south. For example, the north celestial pole has a declination of +90°. Declination is analogous to terrestrial latitude.

 

Right ascension

Right ascension (symbol α, abbreviated RA) measures the angular distance of an object eastward along the celestial equator from the vernal equinox to the hour circle passing through the object. The vernal equinox point is one of the two where the ecliptic intersects the celestial equator. Analogous to terrestrial longitude, right ascension is usually measured in sidereal hours, minutes and seconds instead of degrees, a result of the method of measuring right ascensions by timing the passage of objects across the meridian as the Earth rotates. There are (360° / 24h) = 15° in one hour of right ascension, 24h of right ascension around the entire celestial equator.

 

When used together, right ascension and declination are usually abbreviated RA/Dec.