google.com, pub-2829829264763437, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0

Friday, November 23, 2018

Myths and Legends

Myths and Legends

Using Air and Wind


For thousands of years, people have told stories of wondrous beings that moved through the sky with the grace and ease of the birds. The ability to fly was seen as a sign of greatness and power. The gods and the heroes of many myths and legends were set apart from ordinary people because the could fly. In Greek mythology, Icarus and Daedalus flew on wings made of feathers, twine and wax; King Kaj Kaoos of Persia harnessed eagles to his throne, while Count Twardowski of Poland flew to the moon on the back of a rooster.

Many people were inspired by visions of joining their heroes in the sky. They strapped wings to their arms and jumped off towers, high buildings and even out of balloons. Some did survive their dramatic falls. In 1507, Scotsman John Damian leapt from the walls of a castle with wings made of chicken feathers and broke only his thing. He thought he would have been more successful if he had used the feathers of a bird that could really fly.

The modern hero Superman can fly “faster than a speeding bullet”. It seems our desire to believe in flying heroes continues.

A Sky Bird


The Garuda was a giant bird that carried the Indian god Vishnu across the sky. It is also the name of Indonesia's national airline, which uses the mythical bird for its logo.

A Chariot of Wings


Alexander the Great was said to have flown by harnessing six griffins, mythical winged animals, to a basket. He placed meat on his spear and enticed them to fly after it.

A Winged Horse


According to Greek legend, Bellerophon the Valiant, son of the King of Corinth, captured a winged horse called Pegasus. He flew through the clouds to find and defeat in battle the triple-headed monster, Chimera.

Flying God. Photo by Elena.

Reaching for the Sunday


In Greek mythology, Daedalus and his son Icarus used was-and-feather wings to escape from the island of Crete. But Icarus flew too close to the sun and the was on his wings melted. He fell into the Aegean Sea and drowned.

Tower Jumpers


Through the centuries, humans have tried to copy the birds. With elaborate wings made of feathers, they jumped from towers and flapped their arms desperately as the plummeted to to ground. They did not know that humans are too heavy, and their muscles are not strong enough to fly like birds. The hearts of humans cannot pump blood fast enough to meet the demands of wing flapping, which even in a sparrow is 800 heartbeats a minute.

A Touch of Spring


The Egyptian goddess Queen Isis had wings like a falcon. Each year she flew over the Earth and brought spring to the land.

Sky Battle


In many legends, the forces of both good and evil had the power to fly. St. Michel defended islands against deadly dragons.

King Kong, a legend. Photo by Elena.


Wind Power

Wind Power

Using the elements


People have used the power of the wind for more than 5,000 years. It propelled their sailing boats over rivers, lakes and oceans; it turned the heavy blades of windmills to grind grain and pump water. Wind has energy because it is always moving in one direction or another. This energy can be caught, or harnessed, by large sails or blades.

When electricity was developed in the nineteenth century, wind power did not seem as efficient as this marvelous new source of power, and most windmills disappeared. But wind power is making a comeback. Today, modern versions of windmills called wind turbines are used to generate electricity. Groups of wind turbines with long, thin metal or plastic blades, which look like airplane propellers on top of tall thin towers, are often erected together in wind farms that stretch across the landscape. By the middle of the twenty-first century, one-tenths of the world's electricity could be powered by wind turbines.

Wind-Assisted Tanker


Some ships have stiff fiberglass sails as well as engines. They can save fuel by using sails whenever there is enough wind. Computers calculate the wind speed and indicate when it is time to unfold the sails.

The wind. Photograph by Elena.

Wind Farms


These are buit in very windy areas and are controller by computers that turn their blades into the wind. When the wind turns the blades, the spinning motion is converted into electricity.

Blades: The blades of the turbine are set at an angle that can be changed to suit the wind's speed of direction.

Gearbox: The gearbox, driven by the turbine shaft, controls the speed of the generator.

Generator: The generator converts the spinning motion into electricity.

Turbine shaft: Wind turns the blades, which turn the central turbine shaft. The speed of the shaft varies according to the strength of the wind.

Nacelle: The nacelle (the part that contains the machinery) pivots to keep the blades pointing into the wind. The angle of the blades is set automatically to suit the wind speed.

Tower: The tower holds the blades at a safe height above the ground and contains the cables that cary the electricity underground.

Times past


Windmills were used for many years to grind grain.

Cap: The cap carrying the sails could turn so that the sails faced into the wind.

Canvas-covered sails: Canvas sheeting stretched over the wooden frame of the sails caught the wind and moved the sails around.

Fantail: Wind blowing against the fantail made it spin and turned the mill cap until the sails faced the wind.

Grain hopper: Grain fell from a container, called a hopper, down to the two grindstones below.

Driveshaft: This used the turning motion of the sails to move the grindstones.

Grindstones: Two heavy stones rotated and crushed the grain beneath them.

Make Your Own Windmill


Cut one-third of the way across a square of paper from each corner, and make a small hole in each corner (Step 1). Pull the four corners into the middle of the sheet (Step 2). Fasten pa pushing a tack of drawing pin through the middle. Attach to a drinking straw at the back, making sure your windmill can spin freely (Step 3). Now blow on it or hold it in the breeze.

Tuesday, November 20, 2018

Our Games

At Play

Everyday life and our games



People are always inventing ways to have fun. The Egyptians threw stone balls at upright pins in a game similar to bowling about 5,000 years ago. The Greeks played soccer with inflated animal bladders about 2,500 years ago. Some games seem timeless – hopscotch, marbles, tick-tack-toe and rope skipping are as popular today as when they were first played.

 Dolls have delighted young and old for centuries. They have been made of many different materials, from apples and animal skins to china and plastic. In 1823, baby dolls were made to cry. Soon, they were talking as well. Today, the games industry is booming as inventors create new and exciting games that challenge all who play them. 

Checkmate


Chess was invented in about AD 500 in India. The moves we play today were first used in Europe in the mid-1900s. The winning position “checkmate” comes from shah mat, Arabic for the king is dead.

Barbie Doll


In 968, Ruth Handler invented Barbie, a dress-up doll complete with a wardrobe of clothes and a way of life. More than two billion Barbie dolls have been sold in 140 countries.

Barbie Dolls. Photo by Elena.

Did you know?


The very first roller skates invented by a Belgian musician Joseph Merlin in 1760, had wheels in one line – similar to today's rollerblades.

Lego


The Danish word leg-godt means to play well. Ole Kirk Christiansen chose the name “Lego” for his line of toys. By 1955, his toy plastic bricks that can be joined to construct things such as buildings, machines, people and animals, were known as Lego all over the world.


Name of ten pins


In 1845, nine-pin bowling had become so popular in the state of Connecticut that it encouraged heavy gambling. A law was passed that banned the game of bowling at nine pine. The eager bowlers added a tenth pin and kept on bowling.

Games, Games, Games


In 1972, American Nolan Bushnell invented the first successful computer game. It was like table tennis, and was called Pong. In 1978, Space Invaders was introduced and became a big success. Today's electronic games, such as Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?, use full color animation, speed and constantly changing tactics to outwit even the best human players. The computer game Lunicus pits players against a giant bee!

A Monastic Life

A Monastic Life


Religious communities lived in monasteries or abbeys and these were the chief centers of art and leaning in Europe between the tenth and twelfth centuries. A single community often included several hundred men called monks, or women, called nuns, who lived in a walled settlement. The monks and nuns divided each day between worship, study and work. Monasteries were often located in the frontier areas of Europe among various nomadic tribes.

Monks built churches that looked like fortress because they were seen as strongholds of God in an evil world. People came there seeking peace from the violence and wars around them. Living areas of a monastery opened off a cloister – a covered walkway built around a square garden. After the fall of the Roman Empire in the fifth century, many building techniques were forgotten. Stone,masons had to rediscover how to build arched stone vaults so the churches had fireproof roofs. These vaults were like those built by the Romans, so the style is called Romanesque.

People liked living near a monastery. It often provided the only hospital or school in an area and travelers stayed at guest houses located within the monastery.

Sleeping Quarters


Dormitories in the abbey at the cathedral in Durham, England, has a trussed roof built from thick, roughly cut timbers. Light from large windows allowed the monks to read during their afternoon rest period. In the winter, the monks sat by a fire in the warming room then went to bed in the unheated dormitory upstairs. A door in the dormitory led into the church because the monks worshiped in the middle of the night.

Feeding the community


On feast days, the monks roasted a wild boar over a fire in the center of the floor of the kitchen at Glastonbury Abbey in Somerset, England. They cooked other dishes for the large community over the four fireplaces in the corners of the room.

Refectory


Twice a day, monks sat down in the refectory to eat their simple meals.


Monastic Life. Photo by Elena.

Cellar


The monks made cheese and candles, cured hams and brewed ale to stock their cellar with all the things the community needed.

Maria Laach Abbey


The twelfth-century Romanesque abbey west of Koblenz, Germany, has six towers decorated with dark stone. This scene reconstructs a typical monastery cloister next to the abbey church.

Growing food


The monks worked in the fields of the farm outside the monastery walls. They also cultivated a small herb garden where they grew the plants used to make medicines.

Make pilgrimages


People rarely traveled in these times, but the did make a trip, or pilgrimage, to pray at the burial place of a Christian saint. Some pilgrims walked hundreds of miles to reach their goal, such as Santiago de Compostela in Spain. They slept in monastic guest houses and prayed at churches along the way. Pilgrims brought home new ideas from their travels, including new ways to build churches.

China and Japan Open Up

China and Japan Open Up


By the early 1800s, Europeans had set up trading bases in most countries except China and Japan. The Chinese hated foreign “barbarians” and allowed only Dutch and Portuguese merchants to trade in certain areas. Europeans first ventured into Japan in the 1500s, bringing Christianity with them. But in the 1600s, the ruling Tokugawa shoguns expelled all Europeans, except the Dutch. For the next 200 years, Japan was closed to the rest of the world. In the 1800s, the western powers tried to open up China and Japan for trade. In 1839, Britain went to war with China. Three years later, the Chinese signed a treaty giving Hong Kong to the British and allowing them to trade in other ports. In 1853, four American warships, led by Commodore Perry, sailed into Edo Bay (now Tokyo Bay) in Japan. Perry carried a letter from his president to the Japanese emperor, requesting trade ports. Japan and the United States signed a treaty a year later. The Japanese began to build railways and factories and soon became a major industrial nation.

Dutch Boy


From the 1600s to the 1850s, the Japanese allowed the Dutch to trade from an island in Nagasaki harbor. Japanese artists included Dutch figures in their art.

Opening up Japan


The Japanese were astonished at the sight of the stranger foreigners who sailed into Edo Bay in their black ships. Cautiously, they approached the steamships in small craft. The British, Russians and French soon followed the Americans into Japan. By the 1860s, many foreign diplomats and traders were living in Japan.

Japanese culture. Photo by Elena.

Opium Wars


The British East India Company began to bring the drug opium into into China from India to trade for Chinese tea. But it was illegal to trade in opium, and wars broke out between the Chinese government and the British.

Just like the West


After 1854, many Japanese, including the royal family, gave up their traditional costumes for western clothes. They wanted their people to be as modern as those in the West.

Boxer Rebellion


Some Chinese hated anything that was foreign. They formed a secret group called Yihequan (Righteous and Harmonious Fists), nicknamed the Boxers. In 1900, they attacked foreign factories, railways, churches and schools, and besieged diplomats in Peking for 55 days. Many Chinese and foreigners were killed in this rebellion.