Test_Interesting Flashcards
What is Benford’s law?
The law of anomalous numbers, or the first-digit law, is an observation that in many real-life sets of numerical data, the leading digit is likely to be small.[1] In sets that obey the law, the number 1 appears as the leading significant digit about 30% of the time, while 9 appears as the leading significant digit less than 5% of the time. If the digits were distributed uniformly, they would each occur about 11.1% of the time.[2] Benford’s law also makes predictions about the distribution of second digits, third digits, digit combinations, and so on.
What is Benford’s distribution?
The leading digits in such a set thus have the following distribution:
1 30.1%
2 17.6%
3 12.5%
4 9.7%
5 7.9%
6 6.7%
7 5.8%
8 5.1%
9 4.6%
Euler’s Equation?
e^iπ + 1 = 0
Gödel’s incompleteness theorems?
The first incompleteness theorem states that no consistent system of axioms whose theorems can be listed by an effective procedure (i.e., an algorithm) is capable of proving all truths about the arithmetic of natural numbers. For any such consistent formal system, there will always be statements about natural numbers that are true, but that are unprovable within the system. The second incompleteness theorem, an extension of the first, shows that the system cannot demonstrate its own consistency.
What is Euclidean geometry?
Euclidean geometry is a mathematical system attributed to ancient Greek mathematician Euclid, which he described in his textbook on geometry: the Elements. Euclid’s approach consists in assuming a small set of intuitively appealing axioms (postulates) and deducing many other propositions (theorems) from these.
Schrödinger equation?
The Schrödinger equation is a linear partial differential equation that governs the wave function of a quantum-mechanical system.[1]: 1–2 It is a key result in quantum mechanics, and its discovery was a significant landmark in the development of the subject. The equation is named after Erwin Schrödinger, who postulated the equation in 1925, and published it in 1926, forming the basis for the work that resulted in his Nobel Prize in Physics in 1933.
Who is Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck?
Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck ForMemRS[1] (English: /ˈplæŋk/,[2] German: [maks ˈplaŋk] (listen);[3] 23 April 1858 – 4 October 1947) was a German theoretical physicist whose discovery of energy quanta won him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918.[4]
Planck made many substantial contributions to theoretical physics, but his fame as a physicist rests primarily on his role as the originator of quantum theory,[5] which revolutionized human understanding of atomic and subatomic processes.
Fredonian Rebellion?
The Fredonian Rebellion (December 21, 1826 – January 31, 1827) was the first attempt by Anglo settlers in Texas to secede from Mexico. The settlers, led by Empresario Haden Edwards, declared independence from Mexican Texas and created the Republic of Fredonia near Nacogdoches. The short-lived republic encompassed the land the Mexican government had granted to Edwards in 1825 and included areas that had been previously settled. Edwards’s actions soon alienated the established residents, and the increasing hostilities between them and settlers recruited by Edwards led Víctor Blanco of the Mexican government to revoke Edwards’s contract.
What are Bach’s Inventions?
The Inventions and Sinfonias, BWV 772–801, also known as the Two- and Three-Part Inventions, are a collection of thirty short keyboard compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750): 15 inventions, which are two-part contrapuntal pieces, and 15 sinfonias, which are three-part contrapuntal pieces. They were originally written as “Praeambula” and “Fantasiae” in the Klavierbüchlein für Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, a Clavier-booklet for his eldest son, and later rewritten as musical exercises for his students.
Base-Ten System
The decimal numeral system (also called the base-ten positional numeral system and denary /ˈdiːnəri/[1] or decanary) is the standard system for denoting integer and non-integer numbers. It is the extension to non-integer numbers of the Hindu–Arabic numeral system.
Rules of counterpoint
Imaginary Numbers
Vigesimal System
A vigesimal (/vɪˈdʒɛsɪməl/) or base-20 (base-score) numeral system is based on twenty (in the same way in which the decimal numeral system is based on ten). Vigesimal is derived from the Latin adjective vicesimus, meaning ‘twentieth’.
Mayan Number System
Twenty is a base in the Maya and Aztec number systems. The Maya use the following names for the powers of twenty: kal (20), bak (202 = 400), pic (203 = 8,000), calab (204 = 160,000), kinchil (205 = 3,200,000) and alau (206 = 64,000,000).
Sexagesimal System
Sexagesimal, also known as base 60 or sexagenary,[1] is a numeral system with sixty as its base. It originated with the ancient Sumerians in the 3rd millennium BC, was passed down to the ancient Babylonians, and is still used—in a modified form—for measuring time, angles, and geographic coordinates.
asymmetric systems of cryptography - examples
Examples of asymmetric systems include Diffie–Hellman key exchange, RSA (Rivest–Shamir–Adleman), ECC (Elliptic Curve Cryptography), and Post-quantum cryptography. Secure symmetric algorithms include the commonly used AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) which replaced the older DES (Data Encryption Standard).
Symmetric-key cryptography
Symmetric-key cryptography refers to encryption methods in which both the sender and receiver share the same key (or, less commonly, in which their keys are different, but related in an easily computable way). This was the only kind of encryption publicly known until June 1976.
Symmetric key ciphers are implemented as
Symmetric key ciphers are implemented as either block ciphers or stream ciphers. A block cipher enciphers input in blocks of plaintext as opposed to individual characters, the input form used by a stream cipher.
The Data Encryption Standard (DES) and the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES)
The Data Encryption Standard (DES) and the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) are block cipher designs that have been designated cryptography standards by the US government (though DES’s designation was finally withdrawn after the AES was adopted).
asymmetric key cryptography
In a groundbreaking 1976 paper, Whitfield Diffie and Martin Hellman proposed the notion of public-key (also, more generally, called asymmetric key) cryptography in which two different but mathematically related keys are used—a public key and a private key.[46] A public key system is so constructed that calculation of one key (the ‘private key’) is computationally infeasible from the other (the ‘public key’), even though they are necessarily related.
Cryptographic hash functions
Cryptographic hash functions are cryptographic algorithms that generate and use keys to encrypt data, and such functions may be viewed as keys themselves. They take a message of any length as input, and output a short, fixed-length hash, which can be used in (for example) a digital signature
kryptós
“hidden, secret”
Semantics
In English, the study of meaning in language has been known by many names that involve the Ancient Greek word σῆμα (sema, “sign, mark, token”).
In linguistics, semantics is the subfield that studies meaning.[10] Semantics can address meaning at the levels of words, phrases, sentences, or larger units of discourse. Two of the fundamental issues in the field of semantics are that of compositional semantics (which pertains on how smaller parts, like words, combine and interact to form the meaning of larger expressions, such as sentences) and lexical semantics (the nature of the meaning of words).
Neuroscience
Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system (the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nervous system), its functions and disorders.[1][2][3] It is a multidisciplinary science that combines physiology, anatomy, molecular biology, developmental biology, cytology, psychology, physics, computer science, chemistry, medicine, statistics, and mathematical modeling to understand the fundamental and emergent properties of neurons, glia and neural circuits.
Historical study of nervous systems.
The earliest study of the nervous system dates to ancient Egypt. Trepanation, the surgical practice of either drilling or scraping a hole into the skull for the purpose of curing head injuries or mental disorders, or relieving cranial pressure, was first recorded during the Neolithic period. Manuscripts dating to 1700 BC indicate that the Egyptians had some knowledge about symptoms of brain damage.
Music Note Mathematical Relationships.
Equal temperament scales
Equal temperament scales are built by dividing an octave into intervals which are equal on a logarithmic scale, which results in perfectly evenly divided scales, but with ratios of frequencies which are irrational numbers. Just scales are built by multiplying frequencies by rational numbers, which results in simple ratios between frequencies, but with scale divisions that are uneven.
Pisistratus
Pisistratus or Peisistratus (Greek: Πεισίστρατος Peisistratos; c. 600 – 527 BC) was a politician in ancient Athens, ruling as tyrant in the late 560s, the early 550s and from 546 BC until his death. His unification of Attica, the triangular peninsula of Greece containing Athens, along with economic and cultural improvements laid the groundwork for the later preeminence of Athens in ancient Greece.[3][4] His legacy lies primarily in his institution of the Panathenaic Games, historically assigned the date of 566 BC, and the consequent first attempt at producing a definitive version of the Homeric epics. Peisistratos’ championing of the lower class of Athens is an early example of populism.[5] While in power, he did not hesitate to confront the aristocracy and greatly reduce their privileges, confiscating their lands and giving them to the poor. Peisistratos funded many religious and artistic programs,[6] in order to improve the economy and spread the wealth more equally among the Athenian people.
Peisistratids is the common family or clan name for the three tyrants, who ruled in Athens from 546 to 510 BC, referring to Peisistratos and his two sons, Hipparchos and Hippias.
The Seven Wonders of the Ancient Worlddoubt as to whether they existed at all.
The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, also known as the Seven Wonders of the World or simply the Seven Wonders, is a list of seven notable structures present during classical antiquity. The first known list of seven wonders dates back to the 2nd–1st century BC.
While the entries have varied over the centuries, the seven traditional wonders are the Great Pyramid of Giza, the Colossus of Rhodes, the Lighthouse of Alexandria, the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, the Temple of Artemis, the Statue of Zeus at Olympia, and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Using modern-day countries, two of the wonders were located in Greece, two in Turkey, two in Egypt, and one in Iraq. Of the seven wonders, only the Pyramid of Giza, which is also by far the oldest of the wonders, still remains standing, with the others being destroyed over the centuries. There is scholarly debate over the exact nature of the Hanging Gardens, and there is doubt as to whether they existed at all.
DNA
Deoxyribonucleic acid (/diːˈɒksɪˌraɪboʊnjuːˌkliːɪk, -ˌkleɪ-/ (listen);[1] DNA) is a polymer composed of two polynucleotide chains that coil around each other to form a double helix. The polymer carries genetic instructions for the development, functioning, growth and reproduction of all known organisms and many viruses. DNA and ribonucleic acid (RNA) are nucleic acids. Alongside proteins, lipids and complex carbohydrates (polysaccharides), nucleic acids are one of the four major types of macromolecules that are essential for all known forms of life.
DNA Strands Bonding
The two DNA strands are known as polynucleotides as they are composed of simpler monomeric units called nucleotides.[2][3] Each nucleotide is composed of one of four nitrogen-containing nucleobases (cytosine [C], guanine [G], adenine [A] or thymine [T]), a sugar called deoxyribose, and a phosphate group. The nucleotides are joined to one another in a chain by covalent bonds (known as the phospho-diester linkage) between the sugar of one nucleotide and the phosphate of the next, resulting in an alternating sugar-phosphate backbone.
Polymer
A polymer (/ˈpɒlɪmər/;[4][5] Greek poly-, “many” + -mer, “part”) is a substance or material consisting of very large molecules called macromolecules, composed of many repeating subunits.
The term “polymer” derives from the Greek word πολύς (polus, meaning “many, much”) and μέρος (meros, meaning “part”). The term was coined in 1833 by Jöns Jacob Berzelius, though with a definition distinct from the modern IUPAC definition.[9][10] The modern concept of polymers as covalently bonded macromolecular structures was proposed in 1920 by Hermann Staudinger,
Viruses
A virus is a submicroscopic infectious agent that replicates only inside the living cells of an organism.[1] Viruses infect all life forms, from animals and plants to microorganisms, including bacteria and archaea.[2][3] Since Dmitri Ivanovsky’s 1892 article describing a non-bacterial pathogen infecting tobacco plants and the discovery of the tobacco mosaic virus by Martinus Beijerinck in 1898,[4] more than 9,000 virus species have been described in detail[5] of the millions of types of viruses in the environment.
Evolution of Viruses
The origins of viruses in the evolutionary history of life are unclear: some may have evolved from plasmids—pieces of DNA that can move between cells—while others may have evolved from bacteria. In evolution, viruses are an important means of horizontal gene transfer, which increases genetic diversity in a way analogous to sexual reproduction.[9] Viruses are considered by some biologists to be a life form, because they carry genetic material, reproduce, and evolve through natural selection, although they lack the key characteristics, such as cell structure, that are generally considered necessary criteria for defining life. Because they possess some but not all such qualities, viruses have been described as “organisms at the edge of life”,[10] and as replicators.
DNA in Prokaryotes and Eukaryotic organisms
Eukaryotic organisms (animals, plants, fungi and protists) store most of their DNA inside the cell nucleus as nuclear DNA, and some in the mitochondria as mitochondrial DNA or in chloroplasts as chloroplast DNA.[5] In contrast, prokaryotes (bacteria and archaea) store their DNA only in the cytoplasm, in circular chromosomes. Within eukaryotic chromosomes, chromatin proteins, such as histones, compact and organize DNA. These compacting structures guide the interactions between DNA and other proteins, helping control which parts of the DNA are transcribed.
DNA Length
a DNA polymer can be very long and may contain hundreds of millions of nucleotides, such as in chromosome 1. Chromosome 1 is the largest human chromosome with approximately 220 million base pairs, and would be 85 mm long if straightened.
DNA History
DNA was first isolated by the Swiss physician Friedrich Miescher who, in 1869, discovered a microscopic substance in the pus of discarded surgical bandages. As it resided in the nuclei of cells, he called it “nuclein”.[181][182] In 1878, Albrecht Kossel isolated the non-protein component of “nuclein”, nucleic acid, and later isolated its five primary nucleobases.[183][184]
In 1909, Phoebus Levene identified the base, sugar, and phosphate nucleotide unit of the RNA (then named “yeast nucleic acid”).
Watson & Crick
In May 1952, Raymond Gosling, a graduate student working under the supervision of Rosalind Franklin, took an X-ray diffraction image, labeled as “Photo 51”,[200] at high hydration levels of DNA. This photo was given to Watson and Crick by Maurice Wilkins and was critical to their obtaining the correct structure of DNA.
The 25 April 1953 issue of the journal Nature published a series of five articles giving the Watson and Crick double-helix structure DNA and evidence supporting it.
In 1962, after Franklin’s death, Watson, Crick, and Wilkins jointly received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.[206] Nobel Prizes are awarded only to living recipients.
Vatican City
Vatican City (the smallest country in the world)[5] is an independent country inside the city boundaries of Rome, the only existing example of a country within a city.
Trigonometry Etymology
Trigonometry (from Greek Τριγωνομετρία “tri = three” + “gon = angle” + “metr[y] = to measure”)
Legal Positivism?
Legal positivism, which is the view that law depends primarily on social facts.[11] Legal positivism has traditionally been associated with three doctrines: the pedigree thesis, the separability thesis, and the discretion thesis.[2] The pedigree thesis says that the right way to determine whether a directive is law is to look at the directive’s source. The thesis claims that it is the fact that the directive was issued by the proper official within a legitimate government, for example, that determines the directive’s legal validity—not the directive’s moral or practical merits. The separability thesis states that law is conceptually distinct from morality.[2] While law might contain morality, the separability thesis states that “it is in no sense a necessary truth that laws reproduce or satisfy certain demands of morality, though in fact they have often done so.”
Indo-Aryan languages
The Indo-Aryan languages (or sometimes Indic languages[1][note 1]) are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family.
Rigveda
The Rigveda or Rig Veda (Sanskrit: ऋग्वेद ṛgveda, from ṛc “praise”[2] and veda “knowledge”) is an ancient Indian collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns (sūktas). It is one of the four sacred canonical Hindu texts (śruti) known as the Vedas.[3][4] Only one Shakha of the many survive today, namely the Śakalya Shakha. Much of the contents contained in the remaining Shakhas are now lost or are not available in the public forum.[5][6]
The Rigveda is the oldest known Vedic Sanskrit text.
Zionism
Zionism (Hebrew: צִיּוֹנוּת Tsiyyonut [tsijoˈnut] after Zion) is a nationalist[fn 1] movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is known in Jewish tradition as the Land of Israel, which corresponds in other terms to the region of Palestine, Canaan, or the Holy Land, on the basis of a long Jewish connection and attachment to that land.
The Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire,[k] also known as the Turkish Empire,[23] was an empire and caliphate[l] that controlled much of Southeast Europe, Western Asia, and Northern Africa between the 14th and early 20th centuries. It was founded at the end of the 13th century in northwestern Anatolia in the town of Söğüt (modern-day Bilecik Province) by the Turkoman[24] tribal leader Osman I.[25] After 1354, the Ottomans crossed into Europe and, with the conquest of the Balkans, the Ottoman beylik was transformed into a transcontinental empire. The Ottomans ended the Byzantine Empire with the conquest of Constantinople in 1453 by Mehmed the Conqueror.
The Jewish diaspora
The Jewish diaspora (Hebrew: תְּפוּצָה, romanized: təfūṣā) or exile (Hebrew: גָּלוּת gālūṯ; Yiddish: golus)[N 1] is the dispersion of Israelites or Jews out of their ancient ancestral homeland (the Land of Israel) and their subsequent settlement in other parts of the globe.
Nebuchadnezzar II
the second king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, ruling from the death of his father Nabopolassar in 605 BC to his own death in 562 BC. Historically known as Nebuchadnezzar the Great,[9][10] he is typically regarded as the empire’s greatest king.[8][11][12] Nebuchadnezzar remains famous for his military campaigns in the Levant, for his construction projects in his capital, Babylon, and for the important part he played in Jewish history.[8] Ruling for 43 years, Nebuchadnezzar was the longest-reigning king of the Chaldean dynasty.
complex number
In mathematics, a complex number is an element of a number system that extends the real numbers with a specific element denoted i, called the imaginary unit and satisfying the equation {\displaystyle i^{2}=-1}{\displaystyle i^{2}=-1}; every complex number can be expressed in the form a + bi, where a and b are real numbers. Because no real number satisfies the above equation, i was called an imaginary number by René Descartes. For the complex number {\displaystyle a+bi}a+bi, a is called the real part, and b is called the imaginary part.
Uncertainty Principle
In its most familiar form, this states that no preparation of a quantum particle can imply simultaneously precise predictions both for a measurement of its position and for a measurement of its momentum.
the “Copenhagen interpretation”
The views of Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg and other physicists are often grouped together as the “Copenhagen interpretation”.[44][45] According to these views, the probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics is not a temporary feature which will eventually be replaced by a deterministic theory, but is instead a final renunciation of the classical idea of “causality”. Bohr in particular emphasized that any well-defined application of the quantum mechanical formalism must always make reference to the experimental arrangement, due to the complementary nature of evidence obtained under different experimental situations. Copenhagen-type interpretations remain popular in the 21st century.
The Third Punic War
The Third Punic War was the third and last of the Punic Wars between Carthage and Rome, and lasted from 149 to 146 BC. The war was fought in what is now northern Tunisia. In 149 BC anti-Carthaginian factions in Rome manufactured a pretext for war. The Carthaginians surrendered all of their weapons, but the Romans pressed on to besiege the city of Carthage (siege engine depicted). The Romans suffered repeated setbacks. A new Roman commander took over in 148 BC, and fared equally badly. Scipio Aemilianus was appointed commander in Africa for 147 BC; he tightened the siege and prevented supplies from entering. He then destroyed Carthage’s field army and forced the remaining pro-Carthaginian towns to surrender. In spring 146 BC the Romans launched their final assault, systematically destroying the city and killing its inhabitants; 50,000 survivors were sold into slavery. The formerly Carthaginian territories became the Roman province of Africa.
The Capetian dynasty
The Capetian dynasty (/kəˈpiːʃən/; French: Capétiens), also known as the House of France, is a dynasty of Frankish origin, and a branch of the Robertians. It is among the largest and oldest royal houses in Europe and the world, and consists of Hugh Capet, the founder of the dynasty, and his male-line descendants, who ruled in France without interruption from 987 to 1792, and again from 1814 to 1848. The senior line ruled in France as the House of Capet from the election of Hugh Capet in 987 until the death of Charles IV in 1328. That line was succeeded by cadet branches, the Houses of Valois and then Bourbon, which ruled without interruption until the French Revolution abolished the monarchy in 1792. The Bourbons were restored in 1814 in the aftermath of Napoleon’s defeat, but had to vacate the throne again in 1830 in favor of the last Capetian monarch of France, Louis Philippe I, who belonged to the House of Orléans. Cadet branches of the Capetian House of Bourbon house are still ruling over Spain and Luxembourg.
Alfred Russel Wallace
Alfred Russel Wallace OM FRS (8 January 1823 – 7 November 1913) was a British[1] naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist, biologist and illustrator.[2] He is best known for independently conceiving the theory of evolution through natural selection. His 1858 paper on the subject was published that year alongside extracts from Charles Darwin’s earlier writings on the topic.[3][4] It spurred Darwin to set aside the “big species book” he was drafting, and quickly write an abstract of it, published in 1859 as On the Origin of Species.
The Punic Wars
The Punic Wars were a series of wars between 264 and 146 BC fought between Rome and Carthage.
The First Punic War broke out on the Mediterranean island of Sicily in 264 BC as a result of Rome’s expansionary attitude combined with Carthage’s proprietary approach to the island. At the start of the war Carthage was the dominant power of the western Mediterranean, with an extensive maritime empire, while Rome was a rapidly expanding power in Italy, with a strong army but no navy. The fighting took place primarily on Sicily and its surrounding waters, as well as in North Africa, Corsica and Sardinia. It lasted 23 years, until 241 BC, when the Carthaginians were defeated. By the terms of the peace treaty Carthage paid large reparations and Sicily was annexed as a Roman province. The end of the war sparked a major but eventually unsuccessful revolt within Carthaginian territory known as the Mercenary War.
The Second Punic War began in 218 BC and witnessed the Carthaginian general Hannibal’s crossing of the Alps and invasion of mainland Italy. This expedition enjoyed considerable early success and campaigned in Italy for 14 years before the survivors withdrew. There was also extensive fighting in Iberia (modern Spain and Portugal), Sicily, Sardinia and North Africa. The successful Roman invasion of the Carthaginian homeland in Africa in 204 BC led to Hannibal’s recall. He was defeated in the battle of Zama in 202 BC and Carthage sued for peace. A treaty was agreed in 201 BC which stripped Carthage of its overseas territories and some of its African ones; imposed a large indemnity; severely restricted the size of its armed forces; and prohibited Carthage from waging war without Rome’s express permission. This caused Carthage to cease to be a military threat.
In 151 BC Carthage attempted to defend itself against Numidian encroachments and Rome used this as a justification to declare war in 149 BC, starting the Third Punic War. This conflict was fought entirely on Carthage’s territories in what is now Tunisia and centred on the siege of Carthage. In 146 BC the Romans stormed the city of Carthage, sacked it, slaughtered most of its population and completely demolished it. The Carthaginian territories were taken over as the Roman province of Africa. The ruins of the city lie east of modern Tunis on the North African coast.
Blackjack Odds
Origin of Blackjack
Blackjack’s immediate precursor was the English version of twenty-one called Vingt-Un, a game of unknown (but likely Spanish) provenance. The first written reference is found in a book by the Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes. Cervantes was a gambler, and the protagonists of his “Rinconete y Cortadillo”, from Novelas Ejemplares, are card cheats in Seville.
Cool Jazz
Cool jazz is a style of modern jazz music that arose in the United States after World War II. It is characterized by relaxed tempos and lighter tone, in contrast to the fast and complex bebop style. Cool jazz often employs formal arrangements and incorporates elements of classical music. Broadly, the genre refers to a number of post-war jazz styles employing a more subdued approach than that found in other contemporaneous jazz idioms.
Bebop Jazz
Bebop or bop is a style of jazz developed in the early-to-mid-1940s in the United States. The style features compositions characterized by a fast tempo, complex chord progressions with rapid chord changes and numerous changes of key, instrumental virtuosity, and improvisation based on a combination of harmonic structure, the use of scales and occasional references to the melody.
Zipf’s law
Zipf’s law (/zɪf/, German: [ts͡ɪpf]) is an empirical law formulated using mathematical statistics that refers to the fact that for many types of data studied in the physical and social sciences, the rank-frequency distribution is an inverse relation. The Zipfian distribution is one of a family of related discrete power law probability distributions. It is related to the zeta distribution, but is not identical.
Zipf’s law was originally formulated in terms of quantitative linguistics, stating that given some corpus of natural language utterances, the frequency of any word is inversely proportional to its rank in the frequency table. Thus the most frequent word will occur approximately twice as often as the second most frequent word, three times as often as the third most frequent word, etc. For example, in the Brown Corpus of American English text, the word “the” is the most frequently occurring word, and by itself accounts for nearly 7% of all word occurrences (69,971 out of slightly over 1 million). True to Zipf’s Law, the second-place word “of” accounts for slightly over 3.5% of words (36,411 occurrences), followed by “and” (28,852). Only 135 vocabulary items are needed to account for half the Brown Corpus.[1]
The law is named after the American linguist George Kingsley Zipf, who popularized it and sought to explain it, though he did not claim to have originated it.[2] The French stenographer Jean-Baptiste Estoup appears to have noticed the regularity before Zipf.[3][4] It was also noted in 1913 by German physicist Felix Auerbach.[5][6]
The law is similar in concept, though not identical in distribution, to Benford’s law.
Piaget’s theory of cognitive development
Piaget’s theory of cognitive development is a comprehensive theory about the nature and development of human intelligence. It was originated by the Swiss developmental psychologist Jean Piaget (1896–1980). The theory deals with the nature of knowledge itself and how humans gradually come to acquire, construct, and use it.[1] Piaget’s theory is mainly known as a developmental stage theory.
In 1919, while working at the Alfred Binet Laboratory School in Paris, Piaget “was intrigued by the fact that children of different ages made different kinds of mistakes while solving problems”.[2] His experience and observations at the Alfred Binet Laboratory were the beginnings of his theory of cognitive development.[3]
He believed that children of different ages made different mistakes because of the “quality rather than quantity” of their intelligence.[4] Piaget proposed four stages to describe the development process of children: sensorimotor stage, pre-operational stage, concrete operational stage, and formal operational stage.[5] Each stage describes a specific age group. In each stage, he described how children develop their cognitive skills. For example, he believed that children experience the world through actions, representing things with words, thinking logically, and using reasoning.
To Piaget, cognitive development was a progressive reorganization of mental processes resulting from biological maturation and environmental experience. He believed that children construct an understanding of the world around them, experience discrepancies between what they already know and what they discover in their environment, then adjust their ideas accordingly.[6] Moreover, Piaget claimed that cognitive development is at the center of the human organism, and language is contingent on knowledge and understanding acquired through cognitive development.[7] Piaget’s earlier work received the greatest attention.
Freud’s personality theory
Freud’s personality theory (1923) saw the psyche structured into three parts (i.e., tripartite), the id, ego and superego, all developing at different stages in our lives. These are systems, not parts of the brain, or in any way physical.
According to Freud’s psychoanalytic theory, the id is the primitive and instinctual part of the mind that contains sexual and aggressive drives and hidden memories, the super-ego operates as a moral conscience, and the ego is the realistic part that mediates between the desires of the id and the super-ego.
The Index Librorum Prohibitorum
The Index Librorum Prohibitorum (“List of Prohibited Books”) was a list of publications deemed heretical or contrary to morality by the Sacred Congregation of the Index (a former Dicastery of the Roman Curia); Catholics were forbidden to read them.
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse[1] are figures in the Christian scriptures, first appearing in the Book of Revelation, a piece of apocalypse literature written by John of Patmos.
Revelation 6 tells of a book or scroll in God’s right hand that is sealed with seven seals. The Lamb of God/Lion of Judah opens the first four of the seven seals, which summons four beings that ride out on white, red, black, and pale horses.
In John’s revelation the first horseman rides a white horse, carries a bow, and is given a crown as a figure of conquest,[2][3] perhaps invoking pestilence, Christ, or the Antichrist. The second carries a sword and rides a red horse as the creator of (civil) war, conflict, and strife.[4] The third, a food merchant, rides a black horse symbolizing famine and carries the scales.[5] The fourth and final horse is pale, upon it rides Death, accompanied by Hades.[6] “They were given authority over a quarter of the earth, to kill with sword, famine and plague, and by means of the beasts of the earth.”[7]
Christianity sometimes interprets the Four Horsemen as a vision of harbingers of the Last Judgment, setting a divine end-time upon the world.[
mesentery
(2017) A human organ that no-one knew about has been hiding in plain sight all this time. Called mesentery, it connects the intestine to the abdomen and is believed to perform important functions for the body ranging from helping the heart to aiding the immune system.
Zealandia
The Earth appears to have a whole new underground continent called Zealandia. The discovery itself isn’t new – some geologists have been arguing for its existence for many years. However, in 2017 a team of scientists concluded Zealandia fulfils all the requirements to be considered a drowned continent.
Lungs
Lungs do more than help us breathe – a surprising discovery has found they also make blood. The organ, present in mammals, is believed to produce more than 10 million platelets (tiny blood cells) per hour.
Time Crystals
A new state of matter exists (alongside solid, liquid and gaseous states) and it is known as time crystals. Created in the lab, the outrageously hard-to-grasp time crystals are structures that repeat periodically in time rather than space, potentially defying the laws of physics.
Bees - Zero
Bees have been shown to understand the concept of zero. Scientists discovered this after training the insects to count shapes, following previous research that revealed they can count to four.
The Father Of Surgery
We know that in the Middle Ages wounds and injuries caused in battle or by accident were burnt with red iron, then greased and dressed with hot oil to avoid infection.
In 1536 the surgeon Ambroise Pare, called in to burn the wounds of some fighters, left the necessary instruments at home. Having to act quickly, he made a mixture of egg white, rose oil, and turpentine with which he dressed the wounds.
“I was worried all night,” Ambroise Pare writes in his diary.
“I feared my patients would die by blood poisoning. To my amazement, I found them the next day peaceful, and relieved, saying they slept well, unlike those whose wounds I burned and racked with pain. At that moment I made up my mind not to burn the wounds anymore.”
And so it was that one incident was the basis of a breakthrough in surgery. But the news spread very slowly, unfortunately, because the means of communication between people were poor at the time. When people learned of this discovery, they called Ambroise Pare the “father of surgery”.
The Discovery Of Penicillin
The most surprising “serendipitous” discovery is penicillin. Three hundred years ago, the English pharmacist Parkinson noted an interesting fact: “The mold found on the skulls of skeletons in various caves has the miraculous property of healing wounds without the application of any ointment”.
His observation was regarded as a mystification. But all bacteriologists agreed that mold destroys culture media.
Ian Fleming, who was looking for a substance to kill bacteria, also observed this and said that mold extract reduced the possibility of bacteria multiplying, which led to the development of penicillin.
This finding was the basis for the production of other antibiotics that have saved the lives of tens of thousands of people over the years.
The Discovery Of Bio-Currents
Bio-currents were discovered by the Italian doctor Galvani when he was experimenting with primitive electric generators. Near the source of electricity was a frog’s skinned leg.
During the experiment, a spark jumped onto the leg and it contracted. Galvani came up with the idea of tying a copper wire to the fibers of the frog’s leg and the other end to an iron object. Every time he touched the iron with a wire, the muscle reacted by contracting.
Experiments showed not only that the muscle was a good conductor of electricity, but also that when it contracted it produced current. This proved the existence of electric currents generated by the bodies of animals and humans.
The Discovery Of Saccharin
In 1879, the chemist Fahlberg studied and worked with a certain chemical. When he finished his work, he sat down at the table without washing his hands. He noticed that the bread he was eating was unusually sweet.
He returned to the lab and very cautiously tasted some of the chemicals he had been working with. This is how saccharin, which is used in medicine, was discovered.
The human stomach can dissolve razor blades
If you ever swallow a razor blade, don’t panic. The human body is more capable than you think. Acids are ranked on a scale from 0 to 14—the lower the pH level, the stronger the acid. Human stomach acid is typically 1.0 to 2.0, meaning that it has an incredibly strong pH. In a study published in the journal Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, scientists found that the “thickened back of a single-edged blade” dissolved after two hours of immersion in stomach acid.
A laser can get trapped in water
A cool thing called “total internal reflection” happens when you point a laser beam at a jet of flowing water. To demonstrate this phenomenon, PBS Learning Media released a video in which a laser is positioned on one side of a clear tank of water. When the light travels through the water, it is slowed by the heavier particles in the water, effectively “trapping” the laser beam in the water. Even as the water flow is gradually decreased, the laser beam remains contained inside the jet, until it eventually disappears when the water is turned off completely.
Earth’s oxygen is produced by the ocean
Have you ever stopped to think where oxygen comes from? Your first thought may be a rainforest, but here’s a cool science fact for you: We can thank plant-based marine organisms for all that fresh air, according to the National Oceanic Service. Plankton, seaweed, and other photosynthesizers produce more than half of the world’s oxygen.
A cloud can weigh around a million pounds
Your childhood dreams of floating on a weightless cloud may not withstand this science fact: The average cumulus cloud can weigh up to a million pounds, according to the USGS. That’s about as heavy as the world’s largest jet when it’s completely full of cargo and passengers.
Hot water freezes faster than cold water
This may seem counterintuitive, but it’s called the Mpemba effect. Scientists now believe this is because the velocities of water particles have a specific disposition while they’re hot that allows them to freeze more readily. If proven correct, this finding could also be applied to everyday things, like cooling down electronic devices, according to research out of Universidad Carlos III de Madrid.
There are more trees on Earth than stars in our galaxy
Here’s a cool space fact (and an Earth fact) we bet you didn’t know: NASA experts believe there could be anywhere from 100 billion to 400 billion stars in the Milky Way. However, a 2015 paper published in the journal Nature estimated that the number of trees around the world is much higher: 3.04 trillion.
Humans have genes from other species
We like to think of humans as being superior to other living creatures, but the reality is, our genome consists of as many as 145 genes that have jumped from bacteria, fungi, other single-celled organisms, and viruses, according to a study published in the journal Genome Biology.
Water can exist in three states at once
This is called the triple boil—or triple point—and it is a specific temperature and pressure where materials exist as a gas, a liquid, and a solid simultaneously. The triple point, which is also the only situation where all three states of matter can coexist, is different for every material, according to the University of California, Santa Cruz. Water reaches its triple point at just above freezing (0.1 degree Celsius) and at a pressure of 0.006 atm.
The Pareto Principle
The Pareto principle states that for many outcomes, roughly 80% of consequences come from 20% of causes (the “vital few”).[1] Other names for this principle are the 80/20 rule, the law of the vital few, or the principle of factor sparsity.
The Peter Principle
The Peter principle is a concept in management developed by Laurence J. Peter, which observes that people in a hierarchy tend to rise to “a level of respective incompetence”: employees are promoted based on their success in previous jobs until they reach a level at which they are no longer competent, as skills in one job do not necessarily translate to another.
The Dunning–Kruger effect
The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias[2] whereby people with low ability, expertise, or experience regarding a certain type of task or area of knowledge tend to overestimate their ability or knowledge. Some researchers also include in their definition the opposite effect for high performers: their tendency to underestimate their skills.
The Dunning–Kruger effect is usually explained in terms of metacognitive abilities. This approach is based on the idea that poor performers have not yet acquired the ability to distinguish between good and bad performances. They tend to overrate themselves because they do not see the qualitative difference between their performances and the performances of others. This has also been termed the “dual-burden account”, since the lack of skill is paired with the ignorance of this lack.
The Pygmalion effect
The Pygmalion effect, or Rosenthal effect, is a psychological phenomenon in which high expectations lead to improved performance in a given area.[1] The effect is named for the Greek myth of Pygmalion, the sculptor who fell so much in love with the perfectly beautiful statue he created that the statue came to life. The psychologists Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson, in their book Pygmalion in the Classroom, borrowed something of the myth by advancing the idea that teachers’ expectations of their students affect the students’ performance, a view that has been called into question as a result of later research findings.[2]
Rosenthal and Jacobson held that high expectations lead to better performance and low expectations lead to worse,[1] both effects leading to self-fulfilling prophecy. According to the Pygmalion effect, the targets of the expectations internalize their positive labels, and those with positive labels succeed accordingly; a similar process works in the opposite direction in the case of low expectations. The idea behind the Pygmalion effect is that increasing the leader’s expectation of the follower’s performance will result in better follower performance.
The Golem effect
The Golem effect is a psychological phenomenon in which lower expectations placed upon individuals either by supervisors or the individual themselves lead to poorer performance by the individual. This effect is mostly seen and studied in educational and organizational environments. It is a form of self-fulfilling prophecy.
The effect is named after the golem, a clay creature that was given life by Rabbi Loew of Prague in Jewish mythology. According to the legend, the golem was originally created to protect the Jews of Prague from the horrors of Blood Libel;[1] however, over time, the golem grew more and more corrupt to the point of spiraling violently out of control and had to be destroyed. The effect was named after the golem legend in 1982 by Babad, Inbar, and Rosenthal because it “represent[s] the concerns of social scientists and educators, which are focused on the negative effects of self-fulfilling prophecies”
The curse of knowledge
The curse of knowledge is a cognitive bias that occurs when an individual, who is communicating with other individuals, assumes that the other individuals have the background knowledge to understand.[1] This bias is also called by some authors the curse of expertise.
The term “curse of knowledge” was coined in a 1989 Journal of Political Economy article by economists Colin Camerer, George Loewenstein, and Martin Weber. The aim of their research was to counter the “conventional assumptions in such (economic) analyses of asymmetric information in that better-informed agents can accurately anticipate the judgement of less-informed agents”.
Sturgeon’s law
Sturgeon’s law (or Sturgeon’s revelation) is an adage stating “ninety percent of everything is crap”. It was coined by Theodore Sturgeon, an American science fiction author and critic, and was inspired by his observation that, while science fiction was often derided for its low quality by critics, most work in other fields was low-quality too, and so science fiction was thus no different.
Kolmogorov’s zero–one law
In probability theory, Kolmogorov’s zero–one law, named in honor of Andrey Nikolaevich Kolmogorov, specifies that a certain type of event, namely a tail event of independent σ-algebras, will either almost surely happen or almost surely not happen; that is, the probability of such an event occurring is zero or one.
The black swan theory
The black swan theory or theory of black swan events is a metaphor that describes an event that comes as a surprise, has a major effect, and is often inappropriately rationalized after the fact with the benefit of hindsight. The term is based on an ancient saying that presumed black swans did not exist – a saying that became reinterpreted to teach a different lesson after they were discovered in Australia.[1]
Taleb’s “black swan theory” refers only to unexpected events of large magnitude and consequence and their dominant role in history. Such events, considered extreme outliers, collectively play vastly larger roles than regular occurrences.
Swarm intelligence
Swarm intelligence (SI) is the collective behavior of decentralized, self-organized systems, natural or artificial. The concept is employed in work on artificial intelligence. The expression was introduced by Gerardo Beni and Jing Wang in 1989, in the context of cellular robotic systems.[1]
SI systems consist typically of a population of simple agents or boids interacting locally with one another and with their environment.[2] The inspiration often comes from nature, especially biological systems. The agents follow very simple rules, and although there is no centralized control structure dictating how individual agents should behave, local, and to a certain degree random, interactions between such agents lead to the emergence of “intelligent” global behavior, unknown to the individual agents.[3] Examples of swarm intelligence in natural systems include ant colonies, bee colonies, bird flocking, hawks hunting, animal herding, bacterial growth, fish schooling and microbial intelligence.
elephant flow
In computer networking, an elephant flow is an extremely large (in total bytes) continuous flow set up by a TCP (or other protocol) flow measured over a network link. Elephant flows, though not numerous, can occupy a disproportionate share of the total bandwidth over a period of time. It is not clear who coined “elephant flow”, but the term began occurring in published Internet network research in 2001 when the observations were made that a small number of flows carry the majority of Internet traffic and the remainder consists of a large number of flows that carry very little Internet traffic (mice flows).[1][2] For example, researchers Mori et al. studied the traffic flows on several Japanese universities and research networks.[3] At the WIDE network they found elephant flows were only 4.7% of all flows but occupied 41.3% of all data transmitted during the time period.
The Matthew effect
The Matthew effect of accumulated advantage, Matthew principle, or Matthew effect, is the tendency of individuals to accrue social or economic success in proportion to their initial level of popularity, friends, wealth, etc. It is sometimes summarized by the adage “the rich get richer and the poor get poorer”.[1][2] The term was coined by sociologists Robert K. Merton and Harriet Zuckerman[3] in 1968[4] and takes its name from the Parable of the Talents in the biblical Gospel of Matthew.
The Matthew effect may largely be explained by preferential attachment, whereby wealth or credit is distributed among individuals according to how much they already have. This has the net effect of making it increasingly difficult for low ranked individuals to increase their totals because they have fewer resources to risk over time, and increasingly easy for high rank individuals to preserve a large total because they have a large amount to risk.
Putt’s Law
Putt’s Law and the Successful Technocrat is a book, credited to the pseudonym Archibald Putt, published in 1981. An updated edition, subtitled How to Win in the Information Age, was published by Wiley-IEEE Press in 2006. The book is based upon a series of articles published in Research/Development Magazine in 1976 and 1977.
The book proposes Putt’s Law and Putt’s Corollary
Putt’s Law: “Technology is dominated by two types of people, those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand.”[3]
Putt’s Corollary: “Every technical hierarchy, in time, develops a competence inversion.” with incompetence being “flushed out of the lower levels” of a technocratic hierarchy, ensuring that technically competent people remain directly in charge of the actual technology while those without technical competence move into management.
Parkinson’s law
Parkinson’s law is the adage that “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”[1] It is sometimes applied to the growth of bureaucracy in an organization, but can be applicable to all forms of work.
false consensus effect
In psychology, the false consensus effect, also known as consensus bias, is a pervasive cognitive bias that causes people to “see their own behavioral choices and judgments as relatively common and appropriate to existing circumstances”.[1] In other words, they assume that their personal qualities, characteristics, beliefs, and actions are relatively widespread through the general population.
This false consensus is significant because it increases self-esteem (overconfidence effect). It can be derived from a desire to conform and be liked by others in a social environment. This bias is especially prevalent in group settings where one thinks the collective opinion of their own group matches that of the larger population. Since the members of a group reach a consensus and rarely encounter those who dispute it, they tend to believe that everybody thinks the same way. The false-consensus effect is not restricted to cases where people believe that their values are shared by the majority, but it still manifests as an overestimate of the extent of their belief.
Einstellung Effect
Einstellung (German pronunciation: [ˈaɪ̯nˌʃtɛlʊŋ]) is the development of a mechanized state of mind. Often called a problem solving set, Einstellung refers to a person’s predisposition to solve a given problem in a specific manner even though better or more appropriate methods of solving the problem exist.
The Einstellung effect is the negative effect of previous experience when solving new problems.
The winner’s curse
The winner’s curse is a phenomenon that may occur in common value auctions, where all bidders have the same (ex post) value for an item but receive different private (ex ante) signals about this value and wherein the winner is the bidder with the most optimistic evaluation of the asset and therefore will tend to overestimate and overpay. Accordingly, the winner will be “cursed” in one of two ways: either the winning bid will exceed the value of the auctioned asset making the winner worse off in absolute terms, or the value of the asset will be less than the bidder anticipated, so the bidder may garner a net gain but will be worse off than anticipated.[1][2] However, an actual overpayment will generally occur only if the winner fails to account for the winner’s curse when bidding (an outcome that, according to the revenue equivalence theorem, need never occur).[3]
A Pyrrhic victory
A Pyrrhic victory (/ˈpɪrɪk/ (listen) PIRR-ik) is a victory that inflicts such a devastating toll on the victor that it is tantamount to defeat. Such a victory negates any true sense of achievement or damages long-term progress.
The phrase originates from a quote from Pyrrhus of Epirus, whose triumph against the Romans in the Battle of Asculum in 279 BC destroyed much of his forces, forcing the end of his campaign.
“Who’s on First?”
“Who’s on First?” is a comedy routine made famous by American comedy duo Abbott and Costello. The premise of the sketch is that Abbott is identifying the players on a baseball team for Costello. However, the players’ names can simultaneously serve as the basis for questions (e.g., “Who is the first baseman?”) and responses (e.g., “The first baseman’s name is “Who.”), leading to repeated misinterpretations and growing frustration between the performers.
Shoshin
Shoshin (Japanese: 初心) is a concept from Zen Buddhism meaning beginner’s mind. It refers to having an attitude of openness, eagerness, and lack of preconceptions when studying, even at an advanced level, just as a beginner would. The term is especially used in the study of Zen Buddhism and Japanese martial arts,[1] and was popularized outside of Japan by Shunryū Suzuki’s 1970 book Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind.
The practice of shoshin acts as a counter to the hubris and closed-mindedness often associated with thinking of oneself as an expert.[2] This includes the Einstellung effect, where a person becomes so accustomed to a certain way of doing things that they do not consider or acknowledge new ideas or approaches.[3] The word shoshin is a combination of sho (Japanese: 初), meaning “beginner” or “initial”, and shin (Japanese: 心), meaning “mind”.
Kenshō
Kenshō[note 1] (見性) is a Japanese term from the Zen tradition. Ken means “seeing”, shō means “nature, essence”.[4][2] It is usually translated as “seeing one’s (true) nature”, that is, the Buddha-nature or nature of mind.
Kenshō is an initial insight or awakening, not full Buddhahood.[5] It is to be followed by further training to deepen this insight, and learn to express it in daily life.[6][7][8]
The term kenshō is often used interchangeably with satori, which is derived from the verb satoru,[9] and means “comprehension; understanding”.
First Jazz Recording
The date was 26 February 1917, and this novelty song, Livery Stable Blues by the Original Dixieland Jass Band, was the first jazz recording.
The Middle Jurassic
The Middle Jurassic is the second epoch of the Jurassic Period. It lasted from about 174.1 to 163.5 million years ago. Fossils of land-dwelling animals, such as dinosaurs, from the Middle Jurassic are relatively rare
The Jurassic
The Jurassic (/dʒʊˈræsɪk/ juu-RASS-ik[2]) is a geologic period and stratigraphic system that spanned from the end of the Triassic Period 201.4 million years ago (Mya) to the beginning of the Cretaceous Period, approximately 145 Mya. The Jurassic constitutes the middle period of the Mesozoic Era and is named after the Jura Mountains, where limestone strata from the period were first identified.
The Triassic
The Triassic (/traɪˈæsɪk/ try-ASS-ik)[8] is a geologic period and system which spans 50.6 million years from the end of the Permian Period 251.902 million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Jurassic Period 201.36 Mya.[9] The Triassic is the first and shortest period of the Mesozoic Era. Both the start and end of the period are marked by major extinction events.[10] The Triassic Period is subdivided into three epochs: Early Triassic, Middle Triassic and Late Triassic.
The Mesozoic Era
The Mesozoic Era ( /ˌmɛzəˈzoʊ.ɪk, -zoʊ-, ˌmɛs-, ˌmiːz-, ˌmiː.s-/ mez-ə-ZOH-ik, mez-oh-, mess-, mee-z-, mee-s-)[1][2], also called the Age of Reptiles and the Age of Conifers,[3] is the second-to-last era of Earth’s geological history, lasting from about 252 to 66 million years ago, comprising the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous Periods. It is characterized by the dominance of archosaurian reptiles, like the dinosaurs; an abundance of conifers and ferns; a hot greenhouse climate; and the tectonic break-up of Pangaea. The Mesozoic is the middle of the three eras since complex life evolved: the Paleozoic, the Mesozoic, and the Cenozoic.
The Cambrian Period
The Cambrian Period ( /ˈkæmbri.ən, ˈkeɪm-/ KAM-bree-ən, KAYM-; sometimes symbolized Ꞓ) was the first geological period of the Paleozoic Era, and of the Phanerozoic Eon.[5] The Cambrian lasted 53.4 million years from the end of the preceding Ediacaran Period 538.8 million years ago (mya) to the beginning of the Ordovician Period 485.4 mya.[6] Its subdivisions, and its base, are somewhat in flux.
The Cambrian marked a profound change in life on Earth: prior to the Cambrian, the majority of living organisms on the whole were small, unicellular and simple (Ediacaran fauna being notable exceptions). Complex, multicellular organisms gradually became more common in the millions of years immediately preceding the Cambrian, but it was not until this period that mineralized – hence readily fossilized – organisms became common.[11] The rapid diversification of lifeforms in the Cambrian, known as the Cambrian explosion, produced the first representatives of all modern animal phyla. Phylogenetic analysis has supported the view that before the Cambrian radiation, in the Cryogenian[12][13][14] or Tonian,[15] animals (metazoans) evolved monophyletically from a single common ancestor: flagellated colonial protists similar to modern choanoflagellates.[16] Although diverse life forms prospered in the oceans, the land is thought to have been comparatively barren – with nothing more complex than a microbial soil crust[17] and a few molluscs and arthropods (albeit not terrestrial) that emerged to browse on the microbial biofilm.[18] By the end of the Cambrian, myriapods,[19][20] arachnids,[21] and hexapods[22] started adapting to the land, along with the first plants.[23][24] Most of the continents were probably dry and rocky due to a lack of vegetation. Shallow seas flanked the margins of several continents created during the breakup of the supercontinent Pannotia. The seas were relatively warm, and polar ice was absent for much of the period.
The Permian
The Permian (/ˈpɜːrmi.ən/ PUR-mee-ən)[4] is a geologic period and stratigraphic system which spans 47 million years from the end of the Carboniferous Period 298.9 million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Triassic Period 251.9 Mya. It is the last period of the Paleozoic Era; the following Triassic Period belongs to the Mesozoic Era.
Mutualism
Mutualism is an anarchist school of thought and economic theory that advocates a socialist society based on free markets and usufructs, i.e. occupation and use property norms.[1] One implementation of this system involves the establishment of a mutual-credit bank that would lend to producers at a minimal interest rate, just high enough to cover administration.[2] Mutualism is based on a version of the labor theory of value that it uses as its basis for determining economic value.
ochlocracy
Mob rule or ochlocracy (Greek: ὀχλοκρατία, romanized: okhlokratía; Latin: ochlocratia) is the rule of government by a mob or mass of people and the intimidation of legitimate authorities. Insofar as it represents a pejorative for majoritarianism, it is akin to the Latin phrase mobile vulgus, meaning “the fickle crowd” from which the English term “mob” originally was derived in 1680s, during the Glorious Revolution.
plutocracy
A plutocracy (from Ancient Greek πλοῦτος (ploûtos) ‘wealth’, and κράτος (krátos) ‘power’) or plutarchy is a society that is ruled or controlled by people of great wealth or income. The first known use of the term in English dates from 1631.[1] Unlike most political systems, plutocracy is not rooted in any established political philosophy.
Communism
Communism (from Latin communis, ‘common, universal’)[1][2] is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement,[1] whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered around common ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange that allocates products to everyone in the society.[3][4][5] Communist society also involves the absence of private property,[1] social classes, money,[6] and the state.
The Brezhnev Doctrine
The Brezhnev Doctrine was a Soviet foreign policy that proclaimed any threat to socialist rule in any state of the Soviet Bloc in Central and Eastern Europe was a threat to them all, and therefore justified the intervention of fellow socialist states.
Fascism
Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement,[1][2][3] characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation and race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy.
Socialism
Socialism is a political philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic and social systems,[1] which are characterised by social ownership of the means of production,[2] with an emphasis on democratic control,[3][4] such as workers’ self-management, as opposed to private ownership.[5][6][7] Socialism includes the political, social, and economic philosophies and movements associated with the proposal and implementention of such systems.[8] Social ownership can be public, community, collective, cooperative,[9][10][11] or employee.[6][12] While no single definition encapsulates the many types of socialism,[13] social ownership is the one common element,[5][14] and is considered left-wing.
The first law of thermodynamics
The first law of thermodynamics states that, when energy passes into or out of a system (as work, heat, or matter), the system’s internal energy changes in accordance with the law of conservation of energy.
The zeroth law of thermodynamics
The zeroth law of thermodynamics defines thermal equilibrium and forms a basis for the definition of temperature: If two systems are each in thermal equilibrium with a third system, then they are in thermal equilibrium with each other.
The second law of thermodynamics
The second law of thermodynamics states that in a natural thermodynamic process, the sum of the entropies of the interacting thermodynamic systems never decreases. A common corollary of the statement is that heat does not spontaneously pass from a colder body to a warmer body.
The third law of thermodynamics
The third law of thermodynamics states that a system’s entropy approaches a constant value as the temperature approaches absolute zero. With the exception of non-crystalline solids (glasses), the entropy of a system at absolute zero is typically close to zero.
Absolute zero
Absolute zero is the lowest limit of the thermodynamic temperature scale, a state at which the enthalpy and entropy of a cooled ideal gas reach their minimum value, taken as zero kelvin. The fundamental particles of nature have minimum vibrational motion, retaining only quantum mechanical, zero-point energy-induced particle motion. The theoretical temperature is determined by extrapolating the ideal gas law; by international agreement, absolute zero is taken as −273.15 degrees on the Celsius scale (International System of Units),[1][2][3] which equals −459.67 degrees on the Fahrenheit scale (United States customary units or Imperial units).[4] The corresponding Kelvin and Rankine temperature scales set their zero points at absolute zero by definition.
A Bose–Einstein condensate (BEC)
A Bose–Einstein condensate (BEC) is a state of matter of a dilute gas of weakly interacting bosons confined in an external potential and cooled to temperatures very near absolute zero. Under such conditions, a large fraction of the bosons occupy the lowest quantum state of the external potential, at which point quantum effects become apparent on a macroscopic scale.[6]
This state of matter was first predicted by Satyendra Nath Bose and Albert Einstein in 1924–25.
boson
In particle physics, a boson (/ˈboʊzɒn/[1] /ˈboʊsɒn/[2]) is a subatomic particle whose spin quantum number has an integer value (0,1,2 …). Bosons form one of the two fundamental classes of subatomic particle, the other being fermions, which have odd half-integer spin (1⁄2,3⁄2,5⁄2 …). Every observed subatomic particle is either a boson or a fermion.
Some bosons are elementary particles occupying a special role in particle physics, distinct from the role of fermions (which are sometimes described as the constituents of “ordinary matter”). Certain elementary bosons (e.g. gluons) act as force carriers, which give rise to forces between other particles, while one (the Higgs boson) gives rise to the phenomenon of mass. Other bosons, such as mesons, are composite particles made up of smaller constituents.
Higgs boson
The Higgs boson, sometimes called the Higgs particle,[9][10] is an elementary particle in the Standard Model of particle physics produced by the quantum excitation of the Higgs field,[11][12] one of the fields in particle physics theory.[12] In the Standard Model, the Higgs particle is a massive scalar boson with zero spin, even (positive) parity, no electric charge, and no colour charge, that couples to (interacts with) mass.[13] It is also very unstable, decaying into other particles almost immediately.
meson
In particle physics, a meson (/ˈmiːzɒn, ˈmɛzɒn/) is a type of hadronic subatomic particle composed of an equal number of quarks and antiquarks, usually one of each, bound together by the strong interaction. Because mesons are composed of quark subparticles, they have a meaningful physical size, a diameter of roughly one femtometre (10−15 m),[1] which is about 0.6 times the size of a proton or neutron. All mesons are unstable, with the longest-lived lasting for only a few hundredths of a microsecond. Heavier mesons decay to lighter mesons and ultimately to stable electrons, neutrinos and photons.
Pedro Calderón de la Barca y Barreda González de Henao Ruiz de Blasco y Riaño
Pedro Calderón de la Barca y Barreda González de Henao Ruiz de Blasco y Riaño (UK: /ˌkældəˈrɒn ˌdeɪ læ ˈbɑːrkə/, US: /ˌkɑːldəˈroʊn ˌdeɪ lə -, - ˌdɛ lə -/; Spanish: [ˈpeðɾo kaldeˈɾon de la ˈβaɾka]; 17 January 1600 – 25 May 1681) was a Spanish dramatist, poet, writer and knight of the Order of Santiago. He is known as one of the most distinguished Baroque writers of the Spanish Golden Age, especially for his plays.
Félix Lope de Vega y Carpio
Félix Lope de Vega y Carpio (/ˌloʊpeɪ di ˈveɪɡə/ LOH-pay dee VAY-gə, Spanish: [ˈfeliɣz ˈlope ðe ˈβeɣa i ˈkaɾpjo]; 25 November 1562 – 27 August 1635) was a Spanish playwright, poet, and novelist. He was one of the key figures in the Spanish Golden Age of Baroque literature. His reputation in the world of Spanish literature is second only to that of Miguel de Cervantes,[1] while the sheer volume of his literary output is unequalled, making him one of the most prolific authors in the history of literature. He was nicknamed “The Phoenix of Wits” and “Monster of Nature” (in Spanish: Fénix de los Ingenios, Monstruo de Naturaleza) by Cervantes because of his prolific nature.
sonnet
A sonnet is a poetic form that originated in the poetry composed at the Court of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II in the Sicilian city of Palermo. The 13th-century poet and notary Giacomo da Lentini is credited with the sonnet’s invention, and the Sicilian School of poets who surrounded him then spread the form to the mainland. The earliest sonnets, however, no longer survive in the original Sicilian language, but only after being translated into Tuscan dialect.
The term “sonnet” is derived from the Italian word sonetto (lit. “little song”, derived from the Latin word sonus, meaning a sound). By the 13th century it signified a poem of fourteen lines that followed a strict rhyme scheme and structure.
The Ming dynasty
The Ming dynasty (/mɪŋ/),[7] officially the Great Ming, was an imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was the last orthodox dynasty of China ruled by the Han Chinese, the native ethnic group of China proper. Although the primary capital of Beijing fell in 1644 to a rebellion led by Li Zicheng (who established the short-lived Shun dynasty), numerous rump regimes ruled by remnants of the Ming imperial family—collectively called the Southern Ming—survived until 1662.[f]
The Ming dynasty’s founder, the Hongwu Emperor (r. 1368–1398), attempted to create a society of self-sufficient rural communities ordered in a rigid, immobile system that would guarantee and support a permanent class of soldiers for his dynasty:[8] the empire’s standing army exceeded one million troops and the navy’s dockyards in Nanjing were the largest in the world.
feoffment
In the Middle Ages, especially under the European feudal system, feoffment /ˈfɛfmənt/ or enfeoffment was the deed by which a person was given land in exchange for a pledge of service. This mechanism was later used to avoid restrictions on the passage of title in land by a system in which a landowner would give land to one person for the use of another. The common law of estates in land grew from this concept.
The word feoffment derives from the Old French feoffement or fieffement; compare with the Late Latin feoffamentum
Allodial title
Allodial title constitutes ownership of real property (land, buildings, and fixtures) that is independent of any superior landlord. Allodial title is related to the concept of land held “in allodium”, or land ownership by occupancy and defense of the land.
The French Revolution
The French Revolution (French: Révolution française [ʁevɔlysjɔ̃ fʁɑ̃sɛːz]) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considered fundamental principles of liberal democracy,[1] while phrases like liberté, égalité, fraternité reappeared in other revolts, such as the 1917 Russian Revolution,[2] and inspired campaigns for the abolition of slavery and universal suffrage.
