A Ton of Crap

by Paul Kleinman

  CHARLES DICKENS

  About Charles Dickens Charles Dickens is one of the Victorian era’s best-known writers. Dickens’s work focused on hypocrisy, injustice, and social evils, and much of his work drew upon his actual life and featured comical characters and social commentary. Dickens lived from 1812 to 1870. Like other Victorian works, his writing was often serialized, and in total, Dickens wrote fifteen novels. Some of his most famous novels include Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby, A Christmas Carol, A Tale of Two Cities, Great Expectations, and The Pickwick Papers. Dickens began his career as a journalist at the age of sixteen, and he continued working in journalism for the rest of his life.

  THE NUMBER E

  What Is e? The number e, also known as Euler’s number, is one of the most famous and important irrational numbers, and it is the base of the natural logarithms. The number was first introduced in the early 1600s by John Napier, who worked with logarithms. Napier abandoned the concept of natural logarithms, instead focusing on common logarithms that had a base of ten. Leonard Euler picked up where John Napier left off, and it is Euler who is responsible for discovering the properties of e. The number e expands infinitely, with the first values of e being:

  e = 2.71828182845904523536 …

  PLASMA

  What Is Plasma? The three most well-known phases of matter are solid, liquid, and gas. There is a fourth phase, however, known as plasma, and it is the most abundant form of matter in the entire universe even though it does not have a definite form. Plasma is matter that has a very high pressure and temperature, and stars and interstellar dust feature plasma (for example, it is found on the Sun). Plasma is a combination of free electrons (which are stripped from their orbit), neutral atoms, and charged ions. Like gas and liquid, plasma is fluid; however, due to the charged particles, it both responds to electro-magnetic forces and generates electro-magnetic forces.

  AFRIKAANS

  The Origins Spoken in South Africa and Namibia, Afrikaans is a West Germanic language and is a daughter language of Dutch. In the seventeenth century, the Dutch created colonies in Africa, and up until the nineteenth century, Afrikaans was considered to just be a dialect of Dutch. The language evolved, and in 1914, Afrikaans was considered a separate language and declared the official language of South Africa. Of the vocabulary in Afrikaans, it is believed that 90 to 95 percent has Dutch origins, and the rest has influences from Malay, the Bantu languages, and Portuguese.

  LESSON 34B

  VIETNAM WAR

  A Split in Vietnam Ngo Dinh Diem became president of the government of the Republic of Vietnam in 1956, and quickly claimed that the Communists of the North were attacking to reclaim the South. In 1957, Diem, with the aid of the U.S. military, counterattacked the North. Diem’s presidency was oppressive and corrupt and was opposed by the Vietnamese people. From 1956 to 1960, the North attempted to peacefully unite the two Vietnams; however, following Diem’s attacks, it was understood that a more violent overthrow was necessary. In 1960, the Communists created the National Liberation Front.

  CHARLES DICKENS

  A Christmas Carol Though Dickens’s A Christmas Carol is a celebration of Christmas, at its heart the novel is a social commentary on the division of the rich and poor in Victorian England. At the time of its writing, the British government enforced what were known as the Poor Laws, which made the poor labor in horrible factories and stay in debtor’s prisons. When Dickens was twelve years old, his own family was moved to a debtor’s prison, and Dickens was forced to work in a shoe polish factory.

  THE NUMBER e

  The Natural Base When looking at the graphs of the exponential functions y = f (x) = 2x and y = g (x) = 3x, we see a couple of things. The function that equals 2x begins with a higher value than the function that equals 3x, but the value of the 3x function starts to get higher than the 2x function when x = 0. As the values of the function get larger, they grow faster and the curves get steeper. When comparing the average growth rates of the functions, the average rates of f lag behind the value of the function, and the average rates for g are always slightly higher. Both curves do not coincide with the average growth rates; however, 3x is closer. This means that the base of the exponential function lies somewhere between 2 and 3, which is e. The exponential function y = ex has an equal rate of growth to its value.

  PLASMA

  Degree of Ionization In order for plasma to exist, there must be ionization, where an atom is converted into an ion by removing and adding charged particles. Even a gas that has 1 percent ionized particles will exhibit properties of plasma. The degree of ionization, which is mostly controlled by temperature, is the ratio of ions to the total number of molecules. To find the degree of ionization, the formula is:

  α = ni/(ni + na)

  ni represents the ion density and na is the density of atoms that are neutral.

  AFRIKAANS

  Phonetics and Grammar Though Afrikaans is a daughter of the Dutch language, and as such, there are many phonetic similarities between the two, Afrikaans has grown to have several differences from Dutch. Afrikaans is a phonetic language, and one of the only Germanic languages that features nasal vowels. Afrikaans is also a simpler language than Dutch. Unlike Dutch, there aren’t any long consonants or aspirations after letters p, t, and k, and there is no distinction of gender for nouns and no declensions. To indicate plural, an e or an s is added to words.

  LESSON 34C

  VIETNAM WAR

  The Kennedy Years A team sent to Vietnam by President Kennedy in 1961 to report on what was happening there stated that there was a need for military, economic, and technical aid, as well as advisors to stabilize Diem’s regime and destroy the NLF. Kennedy agreed to send advisors and machines, but not troops. The plan did not work, and the NLF was becoming more successful. Another plan, called the Strategic Hamlet Program, that would place villagers into hamlets to isolate them from the NLF, also backfired. In 1963, Diem’s brother raided a Buddhist pagoda, which led to massive protests in which Buddhist monks performed self-immolation. Pictures of the monks spread worldwide and created outrage, and the United States decided to support a coup. On November 1, 1963, Ngo Dinh Diem and his brother were captured and executed.

  CHARLES DICKENS

  Oliver Twist Oliver Twist was published serially in 1837. The story was his second novel (the first being The Pickwick Papers, which was met with great success), but it was the first of his stories that focused on social commentary and critiquing how public institutions dealt with the poor. Dickens revisited this theme again in Nicholas Nickleby. One reason Dickens wrote Oliver Twist was because of the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834, which stripped citizenship rights from the poor, who had to give up their political rights for financial aid and work in factories.

  THE NUMBER e

  Numerical Series The numerical value of e goes on for infinity. To find the values of e, you can use several different equations:

  e = 1 + 1/1! + 1/2! + 1/3! + 1/4! + 1/5! + …

  or

  1/e = 1 – 1/1! + 1/2! – 1/3! + 1/4! – …

  or

  e – 1 = 1 + 1/(1 + (1/(2 + 1/(1 + 1/(1 + 1/(4 + 1/(1 + 1/(1+ 1/(1 + 1/(6 + … ))))))))))

  or

  (e – 1)/2 = 1/(1 + (1/(6 + 1/(10 + 1/(14 + 1/(18 + … ))))))

  PLASMA

  Temperatures In order to sustain ionization, extremely high temperatures are needed. (Otherwise, electrons and ions recombine, forming an atom, and the plasma turns into a gas.) Plasmas can be categorized as thermal and nonthermal. Thermal plasma has heavy particles and electrons in thermal equilibrium (meaning at the same temperature). In nonthermal plasma, electrons are much hotter, meaning they are more ionized than the ions and neutrals. The temperature of plasma is measured in kelvins, also known as electronvolts, and is the thermal kinetic energy found in each particle.

  AFRIKAANS

  Dialects In the 1800s, there were three dialects of Afrikaans: Cape Afrikaans, Orange River Afrikaans, and Eastern Border Afrikaans. The
Malay slaves who and spoke a form of Portuguese, influenced the Cape Afrikaans dialect. Orange River Afrikaans was influenced by the Koi languages of the Griqualand West areas and Namakwaland. The Eastern Border Afrikaans dialect evolved from those traveling out of the Cape and toward Natal. When the language was standardized, it was based on the Eastern dialect.

  LESSON 34D

  VIETNAM WAR

  The Johnson Years When Kennedy was assassinated, Lyndon B. Johnson took over, and he was convinced that more needed to be done in Vietnam. In 1968, in the Gulf of Tonkin, two American ships were attacked by North Vietnam. The attack was used by the Johnson administration to get Congress to pass the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which allowed Johnson to order the bombing of North Vietnam. By 1968, North Vietnam had continued success launching attacks on southern cities, with the intention of forcing the United States to make a bargain. That year, Johnson decided not to run for re-election.

  CHARLES DICKENS

  David Copperfield Charles Dickens’s eighth novel was David Copperfield, published in 1849. The book is considered the closest Charles Dickens ever got to writing an autobiography. In July of 1948, Dickens’s sister, who was a model for Scrooge’s sister Fan in A Christmas Carol, became terminally ill and died in September. Dickens intended to write an autobiography, but the process proved too painful for him, so instead, he fabricated a character and told his story through David Copperfield. In the book, many of the events that David Copperfield (whose initials are the inverse of Dickens’s) goes through are dramatizations of Dickens’s life.

  THE NUMBER e

  Discrete Accumulation The number e is also a very important part of understanding investments and loans. Using e, one can easily compute what the limit on the effective rate would be. For example, if you invest $100 into a bank with an annual rate of 4 percent, and your bank offers a monthly compounding, by the end of the year your investment would be worth $104.08. One can use e to figure out the limit on the effective rate. For example: 100 × e0.04 = 104.08.

  PLASMA

  Differences Between Plasma and Gas Due to the fact that it has no definite volume or form, plasma is most closely related to gas, which shares this property. It is its own form of matter, however, and plasma has several differences from gas. While gas has very low electrical conductivity, plasma has extremely high electrical conductivity that can be seen as infinite. While all gas particles behave similarly, ions, electrons, neutrons, and protons all act independently in plasma. Though for gas, two-particle collisions is the general rule, for plasma, waves that are made up of an organized movement of plasma, interact over long areas.

  AFRIKAANS

  Afrikaans and Apartheid The white Afrikaans community increasingly separated itself from the English-speaking community, which eventually led to the Anglo-Boer War that lasted from 1899 to 1902. Though the Afrikaners lost, they began a campaign to promote the language. In 1948, the National Party, which was Afrikaans-oriented, won the elections, and instituted apartheid and made it so that black children would only be taught the Afrikaans language. This would link the language to apartheid and the horrible political system of the National Party, and this association still remains.

  LESSON 34E

  VIETNAM WAR

  Antiwar Movement Johnson had wished to go to war in Vietnam and have little change in terms of everyday life back home. The Vietnam War, however, was met with a great antiwar movement. In major cities and college campuses across the United States, antiwar protests erupted. One of the most famous events occurred during the 1968 Democratic National Convention, where hundreds of thousands of people came to Chicago to protest the war, leading to a police riot.

  CHARLES DICKENS

  A Tale of Two Cities Published in 1859, A Tale of Two Cities, Dickens’s twelfth novel, was a departure in many ways for the author. The story is historical, with the backdrop being the events of the French Revolution, and is less character-driven and more focused on political events. Dickens shows both the cruelty of the French aristocracy and the suffering of the poor, justifying the need to revolt, but he also depicts the heinous deeds of those revolutionaries as they come to power.

  THE NUMBER E

  Hyperbolic Trigonometry The formula for a hyperbole is x2 – y2 = 1. The x and y coordinates have hyperbolic functions known as hyperbolic cosine and hyperbolic sine, which are written as x(v) = cosh v and x(v) = sinh v, where v represents the area. An example of this in the real world would be the shape of a hanging necklace, known as a catenary (which can be expressed as y = cosh x). Another way of writing these equations are:

  PLASMA

  Magnetization When a plasma is magnetized, it features a magnetic field that is so strong it can influence the movement of the charged particles. On average, a particle completes a single gyration around the magnetic field before a collision occurs, and the electrons are often magnetized, not the ions. Magnetized plasma is known as anisotropic, meaning the direction parallel to the magnetic field has properties that are different from those that are perpendicular to the magnetic field.

  AFRIKAANS

  Afrikaans in Post-Apartheid South Africa Instead of being one of two official languages in South Africa, when the democratized republic was established in 1994, Afrikaans was downgraded. It is now one of eleven official languages, having lost its special and protected status. The language is still quite prevalent, however, in the media, and is beginning to see a revival in popularity. As time goes on, the language is no longer being directly associated with the oppression of apartheid and the National Party.

  LESSON 34F

  VIETNAM WAR

  The End of the War When Richard Nixon became president, he had plans to end the war. Nixon’s plan, known as Vietnamization, was to encourage the South Vietnamese to take control of the war and bring American troops back home, shifting the fighting to air attacks. During the Nixon years, the United States expanded the war into Laos and Cambodia, violating their international rights, in an attempt to crush Communist supply routes and sanctuaries. In December of 1972, the United States launched bombing raids in the largest cities of the DRV. The bombings were condemned by the international community, and Nixon had to reconsider his strategy. In 1973, the Nixon administration and the GVN signed a peace accord, and hostilities between the DRV and the United States ended. The war in Vietnam continued until April 30, 1975, when the Communists captured Saigon.

  CHARLES DICKENS

  The Mystery of Edwin Drood Dickens was writing a murder mystery, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, when he died, leaving the book unfinished and the mystery unsolved. Since his death, there have been numerous attempts to finish the book. Perhaps one of the most famous was Drood, a Broadway musical based on Dickens’s story that makes up for the lack of an ending by asking the audience to vote on the answers to the various mysteries. The musical debuted in 1985 and won five Tony Awards, including the Best Musical category.

  THE NUMBER e

  Derangements Derangements are related to permutations. They are solutions that are “all wrong.” For example, 10 guests are about to leave your home; if you wanted to figure out how many ways the coats could be randomly put on, it would be a permutation of 10. The derangements are the number of times that no person gets their own coat, or everything is wrong. There are 3,628,800 different permutations and 1,334,961 derangements. If you divide those two numbers, you get e. No matter how many people there are, the odds of getting the correct coat is 1 – 1/e.

  PLASMA

  Examples of Plasma Even though plasma is found in the stars and Sun, there is evidence of plasma on the Earth’s surface. Lightning, for example, is plasma, with a temperature that can reach ~28,000 Kelvin and densities of electrons that can be up to 1024 m−3. Fluorescent lights, sparks, flames, neon signs, plasma displays, and even aurora borealis are all examples of plasma. In neon signs, for example, a glass tube is filled with gas. As the light is turned on, the gas becomes charged by the electricity, creating plasma.

  A
FRIKAANS

  Useful Afrikaans Phrases Here are some helpful Afrikaans phrases to use when traveling to South Africa:

  Hello. Haai, Hallo.

  Good morning. Goeiemôre.

  Good afternoon. Goeie middag.

  Good evening. Goeienaand.

  Good night. Goeienag.

  How are you? Hoe gaan dit met jou?

  Pleased to meet you. Bly te kenne.

  Where are you from? Waarvandaan kom jy?

  What’s your name? Wat is jou naam?

  I don’t understand. Ek verstaan nie.

  Excuse me. Verskoon my.

  How much is this? Hoeveel kos dit?

  Thank you. Dankie.

  Where’s the toilet? Waar is die toilet?

  Goodbye. Totsiens.