A Ton of Crap
Page 32
HINDI
Sanskritization By 1950, the Constitution of India declared Hindi, more specifically the Khari Boli dialect, and the use of Devanagari as the official language and writing system (and that Hindi and English would be the two official languages used by the Central Government). The government encouraged a Sanskritization of the language (in which Sanskrit vocabulary is introduced and used). This was done in an attempt to unite the different regions and appeal to the pride Indians had in their ancient culture.
LESSON 29C
THE HOLOCAUST
Ghettos Following the invasion of Poland in 1939, all Polish Jews were to be put in ghettos, areas of cities that were surrounded by guards, brick walls, and barbed wire. Jewish people were forced to leave their homes and belongings and were put into these ghettos. By October, Jewish people from Czechoslovakia and Austria were being deported to Poland to be put in these ghettos as well. The largest ghettos were those of Warsaw and Lodz. The conditions in Warsaw were so horrible that from 1940 to 1942, around 100,000 Jews died from disease and starvation.
FAIRYTALES
Hans Christian Andersen Hans Christian Andersen was a Danish author who lived from 1805 to 1875 and is considered the father of modern fairytales. Andersen wrote over 150 fairytales, of which his most famous include “The Little Mermaid,” “The Ugly Duckling,” “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” and “Thumbelina.” Not only did Andersen’s work break through previous traditions of Danish literature by using idioms and spoken language, but only 12 of his 156 fairytales were based on folklore. The rest were completely original. His work came to influence authors such as Charles Dickens (whom he had a friendship with) and Oscar Wilde.
CHAOS THEORY
Fractals A major part of chaos theory involves understanding fractals. Fractals are the shapes we see in everyday life, and they are complex patterns that never end and are self-similar on other scales. A fractal can be created by repeating a process in a continual loop. Fractal patterns can be seen throughout the natural world, in mountains, trees, rivers, seashells, clouds, and hurricanes. In nature, we do not see a right triangle. We see shapes the mountains and rocks create. Using chaos theory and fractals, scientists try to uncover what makes these shapes.
GEOLOGIC PERIODS
Jurassic The Jurassic period occurred 206 to 144 million years ago, and it is considered the middle of the Mesozoic era. In the early part of the Jurassic Period, Pangaea broke up into northern and southern supercontinents. It is during this time that the most commonly known dinosaurs, such as stegosaurus, brachiosaurus, and allosaurus, lived. The dinosaurs that were herbivores were quite large in size, while the carnivores were smaller. Mammals were still relatively small (around the size of dogs), and the first bird, which resembled a dinosaur but had feathers, appeared.
HINDI
Hindi Vocabulary The formal vocabulary in Standard Hindi comes from Sanskrit. This is the language used in radio, TV, literature, and public addresses. The language spoken by the people, however, is based on the vernacular of the various regions. This vocabulary is largely influenced by Arabic, Persian, and even English. Vocabulary can be broken down into five categories: Ardhātatsam (words that were borrowed from Sanskrit), Tatsam (words that are spelled the same way in Hindi and Sanskrit), Tadbhav (words derived from Sanskrit but spelled differently), Videshī (words that are borrowed from languages that are not Indo-Aryan), and Deshaj (words that were neither borrowed nor derived from other Indo-Aryan words).
LESSON 29D
THE HOLOCAUST
Pogroms Pogroms, or violent attacks on Jewish populations, began in Russia in the 1800s. During the Holocaust, with the increasing resentment toward the Jewish people growing, pogroms began appearing once again. Pogroms were encouraged by the Nazi regime, leading to entire communities killing all of the Jewish people in their towns. Even when the war ended, pogroms still persisted. The most famous postwar pogrom was the Kielce Pogrom of July 4, 1946, in Poland. The surviving Jewish were met with angry mobs and forty-two Jews were killed, and fifty injured.
FAIRYTALES
The Brothers Grimm Jakob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm were born in 1785 and 1786, respectively. Intrigued by the Romantic movement occurring in Germany, the two brothers began collecting fairytales in the early 1800s. In 1812, the first volume, consisting of eighty-six stories, was published, and two years later, another volume of seventy stories was published. The stories were told to the brothers by peasants and villagers, and the brothers edited these stories and added footnotes to many. The work of Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm brought stories like “Cinderella,” “The Frog Prince,” “Hansel and Gretel,” and “Rapunzel” to the masses, and their work became incredibly popular.
CHAOS THEORY
Strange Attractors When there is a long-term pattern within a bounded chaotic system, and it is not a simple orbit or periodic oscillation, it is known as a strange attractor. With strange attractors, patterns that are not obvious will appear. The Lorenz Attractor is an example of a system that is nonlinear and dynamic, and it corresponds to the Lorenz oscillator, a three-dimensional system that evolves over a pattern that doesn’t repeat.
GEOLOGIC PERIODS
Cretaceous The Cretaceous period occurred 144 to 65 million years ago. It is the longest period found in the current eon, the Phanerozoic eon. While dinosaurs still thrived, and Pangaea continued to separate, it is during this time that flowering plants and new kinds of birds (which still could not fly) and mammals began to appear, as well as the first lizards and snakes. This period ended with the K-T extinction, one of the largest mass extinctions, in which all of the dinosaurs and large marine reptiles died off.
HINDI
Dialects There are currently eighteen languages recognized by the Indian Constitution, and each of these languages features a wide array of dialects. There are more than ten variations of Hindi, and the dialects can be divided into two main categories: Western Hindi and Eastern Hindi. Khari Boli, which became the standard language, is a Western Hindi dialect. The dialect spoken in Mumbai (or Bombay), known as Bambaiya Hindi, is a vernacular language that is associated with the poor or young. However, due to Mumbai’s role in the Indian film industry, Bambaiya Hindi appears in many of the films that come from India.
LESSON 29E
THE HOLOCAUST
The “Final Solution” In June of 1941, Germany began to enact the “Final Solution.” Mobile killing groups were created, and they gathered up all of the Jews of towns, lined them up, and shot them one by one. By 1942, six death camps, or killing centers, were established near railway lines so that the Jewish people from concentration camps could be easily transported. The Jewish people, who at this point were forced to wear yellow stars on their clothing so they could be identified as Jewish, were gathered up and taken to these death camps, where they would be gassed to death. Around 3.5 million Jewish people were killed in these camps. The largest of these camps was Auschwitz.
FAIRYTALES
Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve was a French author who lived from 1695 to 1755. She is most widely recognized as the author of “Beauty and the Beast,” which was featured in a collection called La jeune américaine, et les contes marins (told by an old woman during a long sea voyage), published in 1740. Her story was much longer (a total of 362 pages), and the Beast was much more ferocious. A French aristocrat, Madame Jeanne-Marie Le Prince de Beaumont, took the story and rewrote it, dramatically cutting it down to size and creating the “Beauty and the Beast” that we know today.
CHAOS THEORY
Misconceptions of Chaos Theory There are several misconceptions related to chaos theory. Chaos theory is not about proving disorder or disproving determinism. Chaos theory is not used to show ordered systems are not possible. While chaos theory shows that slight changes can have dramatic impacts, and that prediction of a state is not possible, chaos theory still states that it is plausible and possible to create a model of a system based o
n the behavior overall. While systems might be unpredictable, the only way to express this is with representations of a system’s behaviors.
GEOLOGIC PERIODS
Tertiary The Tertiary period occurred 65 to 1.6 million years ago. This period is divided into five epochs. During the first epoch, the Paleocene epoch, the first primates started appearing. In the Eocene epoch, aquatic mammals and modern birds started to appear. The Oligocene epoch featured toothed whales, cats, and dogs. During the Miocene epoch, primates, horses, camels, rhinos, and beaver-like animals started to appear. During the Pliocene epoch, the first ancestors of modern humans, hominids, appeared and the geography of the planet was similar to what is found today.
HINDI
Hindi Today Hindi is one of the official languages of the Republic of India, and it is spoken as a second language in places like Fiji, Mauritius, Guyana, Trinidad, and Surinam. Around 500 to 600 million people speak Hindi, and it is believed to be the fifth most-spoken language in the world. Hindi is the native language for 40 percent of India’s population, and this area is referred to as the Hindi belt.
LESSON 29F
THE HOLOCAUST
Liberation As the Allies advanced through Germany, the concentration camps were gradually liberated. In total, an estimated 5 to 7 million Jewish people were killed as a result of the Holocaust. Around 50,000 to 100,000 remained in the Allies’ zones of occupation, many refusing to ever go back to their homes, later being transported to the United States, Israel, and Palestine. The Nuremberg Trials began in October of 1945 and were presided over by American, British, French, and Russian judges. The first trial prosecuted twenty-one members of the Third Reich, including many of those responsible for the Holocaust.
FAIRYTALES
Carlo Collodi Carlo Lorenzini, who would come to be known as Carlo Collodi, was an Italian author who lived from 1826 to 1890. Originally working as a satirical journalist, Collodi left journalism and began working as a magazine editor and theatrical censor. It is during this time that he began translating the works of Charles Perrault. Inspired by Perrault, Collodi started working on his own fairytales, and began writing “The Story of a Puppet.” His story, which would later be retitled as “The Adventures of Pinocchio,” was very popular. Two years after his death, the story was translated into English.
CHAOS THEORY
Applications of Chaos Theory Chaos theory has many real-world applications, and has even been exploited by companies. In 1993, Goldstar Co. created a washing machine that used chaos theory and made clothing cleaner and less tangled. As one large pulsator rotated, another smaller pulsator would rise and fall at random times, stirring the water. Chaos theory is also applied to understanding the stock market, in predicting weather, and even understanding how the solar system works. Chaos theory has also been applied to learning more about the body, and can be used in attempting to control brain seizures and cardiac arrhythmias.
GEOLOGIC PERIODS
Quaternary The Quaternary period, which continues to the present, started 1.8 million years ago and began with a great Ice Age. This is the age dominated by human beings and mammals. During this time, the wooly mammoth, saber-tooth tiger, and other giant mammals (known as megafauna) roamed. Today, much of the remaining megafauna are found in Africa, such as the elephant and hippopotamus. It is during the Quaternary period that the hominids evolved into modern humans (who evolved into their current form around 190,000 years ago.)
HINDI
Useful Hindi Phrases Here are some helpful phrases to use when traveling to India. Note that these are spelled out phonetically:
Hello. Namaste (this can also be used for good morning, good afternoon, good evening, good night, and goodbye).
Good morning. Suprabhāt.
Good afternoon/evening. Śubh dhin.
Good night. Śubh rātrī.
How are you? Āp kaise hain˙?
Excuse me. Kshama kījie.
I don’t understand. Maim˙ samajhā nahī (said from a man); Maim˙ samajhī nahī (said from a woman).
How much is this? Kitane kā hai?
Where’s the toilet? Tāyalet kahan hain˙?
Thank you. Ābhārī hōn˙.
LESSON 29 QUIZ
Which of the following did Hitler use as propaganda to elicit anti-Semitism?
Newspapers
Film
Art
All of the above
The largest ghettos in Poland were:
Warsaw and Lodz
Warsaw and Auschwitz
Auschwitz and Lodz
Auschwitz and Pogrom
Which of the following is one of Aesop’s Fables?
“The Adventures of Pinocchio”
“Cinderella”
“The Tortoise and the Hare”
“Sleeping Beauty”
Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve’s story was altered by Madame Jeanne-Marie Le Prince de Beaumont, and the resulting story was:
“Beauty and the Beast”
“The Ugly Duckling”
“Hansel and Gretel”
“Little Red Riding Hood”
Shapes that we see in everyday life, that are complex patterns that never end, and self-similar on other scales are known as:
Butterflies
Fractals
Chaotics
Strange attractors
Which of the following can chaos theory be applied to?
Weather
Stock market
Migration patterns of birds
All of the above
The K-T extinction, in which all dinosaurs and large marine reptiles died off, occurred after the:
Cretaceous
Tertiary
Quaternary
Jurassic
In what period did the first dinosaurs appear?
Cambrian
Triassic
Jurassic
Quaternary
Much of the vocabulary and grammar of Hindi and Urdu are the same, with the exception that:
Urdu is written in Devanagari and Hindi is written in Persian.
Urdu is written in Devanagari and Hindi is written in Sanskrit.
Urdu is written in Persian and Hindi is written in Devanagari.
Urdu is written in Persian and Hindi is written in Suprabhāt.
Which of the following describes words borrowed from Sanskrit?
Ardhātatsam
Tatsam
Tadbhav
Videshī
ANSWER KEY: d, a, c, a, b, d, a, b, c, a
Lesson 30
HISTORY: The Cold War
The Iron Curtain, The Marshall Plan, The Cuban Missile Crisis, The Space Race, The Berlin Wall, The Dissolution of the USSR
LANGUAGE ARTS: Biographies
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks; Into the Wild; Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy; The Diving Bell and the Butterfly; A Beautiful Mind: The Life of Mathematical Genius and Nobel Laureate John Nash; The Autobiography of Malcolm X
MATH: Applied Mathematics
What Is Applied Mathematics?, Computer Science, Scientific Computing, Operations Research, Actuarial Science, Statistics
SCIENCE: Biomes
Freshwater, Marine, Desert, Forest, Grassland, Tundra
FOREIGN LANGUAGE: Mayan Languages
Yucatec Maya, Huasteco, Ch’ol, Q’eqchi’, Mam, Poqomchi
LESSON 30A
THE COLD WAR
The Iron Curtain The Warsaw Pact of 1955 was a military treaty between the Soviet Union, Poland, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Romania, Albania, Bulgaria, and Hungary in which the countries agreed that should any of them be attacked, military aid would be provided by the other countries. The Warsaw Pact was initiated by the Soviet Union as a counter to the formation of NATO. The term Iron Curtain was used in reference to this division within Europe, both literally and figuratively. An actual metal fence separated the West from the East in some areas, cutting off all contact.
BIOGRAPHIES
; The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Henrietta Lacks, an African American woman who was a poor tobacco farmer, died in 1951 at the age of thirty-one from cervical cancer. Though Lacks has been dead for more than sixty years, her cancer cells (which were the first cells to reproduce on their own, known as “immortal” cells) are still alive today, and are considered one of the most important tools that exist in the medical world. Lacks’s cells were removed from her body during a biopsy and cultured, without her permission. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot tells the story of Henrietta’s suffering, the celebrity of her cells, the birth of a multimillion dollar industry, and the Lacks family, who up until twenty years ago, never knew about Henrietta’s cells.