Author: Jinavie

Posted in History & Literature

Marathon

Posted on by Jinavie

In 490BC, The Greek city states were hard at war with the almighty Persian Empire. One well-known battle (out of many) is the Battle of Marathon, fought between about 10,000 Athenian soldiers (with some Plataean reinforcements) versus 26,000 Persian soldiers. Despite the Persians having superior numbers and cavalry, the battle concluded with a decisive victory to Athens thanks to a well-implemented flanking strategy and the temporary absence of the Persian cavalry at the base camp. The battle was a turning point in the First Greco-Persian War and the crushing defeat drove the Persian invasion force off Greek lands for ten years.

The popular story goes that a runner named Pheidippides was sent from Marathon to Athens after the battle to bring the good news, as the people of Athens were still gripped in fear that the Persians would directly strike the city soon. It is said that Pheidippides ran a distance of about 40 kilometres back to Athens and on arrival cried out “We have won!”, then collapsed and died from exhaustion.
When the modern Olympics was being designed at the late 19th century, the organisers decided to use this story to inspire what we now call the marathon – a 42.195km endurance run. The story was to recall the glory of ancient Greece and the heroic act of Pheidippides (also referred as Philippides in some texts).

Unfortunately, the story is a romantic amalgamation of two separate stories. But then again, the actual story is just as incredible.
Despite the decisive Athenian victory at the Battle of Marathon, the war still raged on and the Persians changed directions and headed for Athens instead. The Athenian army marched swiftly back home to pre-empt the Persian landing force. They marched 40km within a day – an amazing feat considering the fact that they just fought a massive battle and were armoured from head to toe.
The runner, Pheidippides, actually ran a distance of 225 kilometres from Athens to Sparta seeking reinforcements before the Persian army landed in Marathon (i.e. before the Battle of Marathon). He then ran back to Athens, meaning he ran roughly 450~500km within a few days. There is not much historical evidence of whether he actually ran this far in such short time but there are some anecdotal recordings.

The world record for the fastest marathon is 2 hours 3 minutes 23 seconds (as of 2014) by Wilson Kipsang of Kenya. The world record for the longest marathon ever run is set by Shiso Kanakuri, who started the marathon on July 14, 1912, during which collapsed from heat exhaustion around the 27km mark. He had to withdraw from the race, but could not bear with his “failure” all throughout his life. In 1967, he challenged himself again at the age of 75 to finish the remaining 15km, eventually setting the record time for the longest marathon ever run – 54 years, 8 months, 6 days, 5 hours, 32 minutes and 20.3 seconds.

Posted in History & Literature

Sweat Like A Pig

Posted on by Jinavie

The English idiom to describe profuse sweating is sweating like a pig. However, pigs lack the ability to sweat properly due to ineffective sweat glands, which is why they roll in mud to cool their bodies. The idiom is not wrong though, as it is not referring to the animal, but pig iron.

When refining iron, the iron ore is smelted in a furnace until it is liquid. As the liquid metal is extremely hot, it is poured into a mould where it can cool. The iron was set in a branching mould that apparently resemble many piglets suckling from a mother sow – hence the name: pig iron.

Back in the old days when technology was not as advanced, it was difficult to tell when the pig iron was cool enough to transport safely. This is where science came in handy. As the metal cools, the surrounding air reaches a dew point, causing droplets of water to form on the pig iron as condensation. The condensation made it look like the pig iron was “sweating”, hence the idiom. When the pig iron sweats, it is a sign that is cool enough to be moved safely without spilling and burning everything around it.

Posted in History & Literature

Bra Size

Posted on by Jinavie

Like most clothes, bras (brassieres) come in different sizes. But the sizing system can be quite confusing for men as it involves seemingly random digits and some “obvious” lettering grade, such as 34C.
The bra size gives away two pieces of information: band size and cup size.

Band size is the circumference of the woman’s ribcage, not accounting for the breasts. Each brand measures band size differently, but usually the measuring tape is placed around the woman’s torso under the breast where the skin folds, while some companies measure above the breasts. The number refers to the band size in inches, centimetre or dress size (e.g. 34″ = 75cm = size 10). A similar number is bust size, which includes the breasts. This is measured with the measuring tape around the torso and the fullest point of the breasts.

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The letter in the sizing refers to the cup size, which describes the breast volume. This is calculated by taking the difference between the bust size and the band size. For example, if a woman’s bust size is 36 inches and her band size is 34 inches, the difference is 2 inches and therefore, her cup size is C (UK system, in the US, it would be a B). The corollary to this is that a size “D” does not necessarily mean the woman has big breasts. A 28D will not be much bigger than a 32B, but the breasts will be bigger compared to the torso. In fact, band size will typically affect actual breast size more than the cup size. Cup size measurement differs depending on the country, with the US system being 1 inch larger. The following is a table showing what each cup size letter refers to:

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Bra size is not an exact science as there are many other factors such as physical constitution, breast shape, asymmetry and pendulousness. Some surveys show that up to 80% of store bra fittings result in poor fit, showing how difficult it is for women to even know their own proper bra size. As for men looking to buy a bra for their significant other, it will probably save you much effort and brainpower asking them instead of trying to work it out yourself.

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Posted in Life & Happiness

Movie Story

Posted on by Jinavie

Why do people enjoy movies? Although people might prefer different genres, everybody enjoys movies in one way or another. Perhaps this is because as human beings, we have an inherent love for stories. From the dawn of time, mankind has told story after story. From children listening to the elder telling a story by the fireplace, to adults telling each other funny or dramatic life stories over a glass of wine, we enjoy telling and listening to stories. This is most likely because through stories, we can relive someone’s experience as if they were our own.

The hallmark of a good story is its ability to plunge the listener into another world – overwhelming their senses and emotions. As far as we know, human beings are the only animals who possess language fluent enough to convey such detail and the imagination and creativity to reconstruct the story in our minds, converting words into a world. Storytelling is a defining characteristic of human nature and movies are a modern medium that helps us paint a more vivid world in our minds through the use of motion pictures.

If you look at the most famous movies of history, they share two common themes.

Firstly, they portray relatable, but almost fantastic life experiences. Romances that play our heartstrings like a guitar, bittersweet success stories, gripping dramas and silly comedic events that could happen to us… By playing jump ropes with the fine line between fantasy and reality, movies drench us in emotions, which induces powerful hormones such as adrenaline and endorphin to be released, giving us excitement and enjoyment.

Secondly, most successful movies show connection. Whether it be romantic love between two people or camaraderie shared between a platoon of soldiers, we like to see connection happening. Not only this, but a good movie makes us feel connected to the characters in some way, further enhancing the oxytocin-inducing emotion called happiness. Connecting to characters raises an interesting point. Perhaps it is not just the reliving of another person’s experience that we enjoy, but maybe we also feel true compassion for the characters and feel happy that they find connection and happiness at the end of the movie.

A friend once told me to “stop trying to make your life seem like a movie”. There is some truth to that, in that you should not over-idealise your experiences. However, I disagree with his view. I think the real reason people love movies is that it reminds us of our own experiences. Not everyone will admit it, but a successful businesswoman may watch an underdog movie and secretly reminisce her challenging climb to the top, while a middle-aged man may shed a tear at a romance movie because he still remembers the first time he kissed his first love.

Everyone has a story to tell. You would be surprised how many people have had experiences far greater than any movie: the dramas, the laughters, the coincidences and the twists. In fact, everyone’s life is a movie of their own. It just doesn’t always have a clear-cut introduction, middle and conclusion with a perfectly paced timeline. Instead it is tangled in the intricate fabric of life, seemingly crude and unrefined compared to a movie. The raw materials are there, but it is up to you to be the producer, director and screenwriter who edits and refines these experiences into a coherent “movie”.

Search your memories and experiences – you will find that there is a movie among there that is greater than any Oscar-winning movie out there. If you ever feel alone, hopeless or worthless, reach into your past and press the play button to that movie. You will find that your life has actually been quite awesome.

Posted in Life & Happiness

Sunset

Posted on by Jinavie

Why is the sky blue in the day, yet it becomes dyed bright red at sunset? The reason is that the atmosphere splits white light into the colours of the rainbow like a prism. Short-wavelength colours such as blue and green tend to scatter more, making the sky blue usually. But as the sun sets, the angle at which sunlight enters the atmosphere changes and the light has to travel through more atmosphere before hitting Earth. The more the light travels, the more it scatters and blue-green light is scattered so much that it can no longer be seen. At this stage, the dominant remaining colour are orange and red, which have longer wavelengths.

But this alone would only give the sky a dull red colour. The brilliant splash of red and orange across the sky every evening is thanks to the scattering of light in a certain way by cloud droplets and other particles. This is why an exceptionally bright orange sunset can suggest rain the following day.

A “perfect” sunset requires the alignment of various factors such as the angle of the sun (affected by time and season), humidity, temperature, air component and the surrounding landscape. Depending on these factors, the sunset can range in colour from a deep red to a bright orange, to a pastel yellow to baby pink or purple (or at worst, a piddly dull yellow light). This means that a perfect sunset tends to only happen at a single moment in time when these factors align to your preference.

The corollary to this is that a perfect sunset is always a fleeting moment. No matter how much you want to hold on to it, time marches on and the sunset slowly fades away. It is futile to stop the moment from passing – to cling to the beauty of the moment. All you can do is enjoy that single moment while you can. It is a time when the past day comes to a close, while the future is getting ready to start. In that moment, do not think about the past or the future – just focus on the present. Take in the brilliant colours with your eyes. Listen to the chirping of the birds returning home. Feel the cool breeze brush past you. When the sun finally sets, despair not the passing of the beautiful moment, but cherish the fact that you had such a great moment. Because as you know, another sunset awaits you tomorrow.

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Posted in Science & Nature

Sonic Boom

Posted on by Jinavie

When something moves through the air, it pushes the air in front and creates a sound. This sound spreads as a wave at the speed of 340m/s (1225km/h). As the object moves, it makes a series of pressure waves, which is why the Doppler effect happens. These pressure waves look like rings that are squashed to the side the object is moving towards. As the object moves faster, the more compressed these rings become. When the object moves at the speed of sound (340m/s), the pressure waves all overlap as the object makes a pressure wave on the same place as where the last wave reached. This is the sound barrier.

At this point, there is so much overlap of the waves that a shockwave is formed. This shockwave – made of compressed air – travels at the speed of sound (Mach 1) and originates from the front tip of the object (e.g. nose of the plane). If the object moves any faster than the speed of sound, the new wave is made even before the old wave has propagated that far. The rings are now no longer in a nice concentric pattern, but instead form a shockwave cone. Sometimes this can be seen physically if there is enough condensation in the air to create a vapour cone. The sudden change of pressure from the shockwave creates a large booming sound, which we call a sonic boom (in fact, there are two booms due to the pressure difference at the tail too).

Sound, like other waves, is a form of energy. Hence, the shockwave formed by breaking the sound barrier can cause physical damage. If a fighter jet were to fly over a building at low altitude at supersonic speeds, it may cause windows to shatter and people’s eardrums to rupture. The shockwave creates a significant problem in aircraft design, for if a plane’s wingspan is wider than the width of the shockwave cone, its wings will snap off. This is why fighter jets and the Concorde have a characteristic sleek, triangular shape. The faster the plane travels, the narrower the shockwave cone becomes and the thinner the plane’s wingspan has to be.

Then what was the first manmade object to break the sound barrier? The answer is surprisingly old and simple – a bullwhip. The crack from a whip is actually a small sonic boom made by the tip of the whip travelling beyond the speed of sound.

Posted in Life & Happiness

Juggling

Posted on by Jinavie

Imagine life is a game in which you are juggling five balls. The balls are called work, family, health, friends and integrity. You keep all of them in the air. But one day you finally come to understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. The other four balls are made of glass. If you drop one of these, it will be irrevocably scuffed, nicked, perhaps even shattered.

(from Suzanne’s Diary for Nicholas by James Patterson)

(Image source: http://atte-1.deviantart.com/art/J-for-Juggle-165261440)

Posted in Psychology & Medicine

The Centipede’s Dilemma

Posted on by Jinavie

In 1889, British zoologist E. Ray Lankester published an article on the work of the motion of animals in the prestigious journal, Nature. He concluded his article with a poem (which he admitted in not knowing the author of, but commonly attributed to Katherine Craster). The poem goes as follows:

A centipede was happy – quite!
Until a toad in fun
Said, “Pray, which leg moves after which?”
This raised her doubts to such a pitch,
She fell exhausted in the ditch
Not knowing how to run.

The allegory of the centipede illustrates a strange yet hilarious psychological phenomenon, which has been called the centipede effect to honour the poem. Most of the time, we do not put much thought into day-to-day activities such as breathing and walking. We do not have to give much thought because they have become habits – a handy mechanism nature devised to let us do more while using our brain to think about more important things. Habit automatises tasks to reduce attention, but it comes at the cost of the centipede effect, where conscious thought and attention impairs the ability to do that task, much like the centipede tripping on her own leg.

For example, even a professional golf player or violinist will make mistakes the more they thinking about their individual swings or notes they play. A simple experiment you can do is thinking about your breathing. Just by reading that sentence, you consciously divert your attention to your breathing and you will find it difficult to breathe “normally”. Similarly, you can cause considerable distress and time-wasting if you point out a tiny error in someone’s habits, making them overanalyse what they are doing wrong and hyper-reflecting.

What we can learn from The Centipede’s Dilemma is that overthinking never helps. The more we think about something, the more we look at the trees rather than the forest and we get lost in the details. This means we cannot see the overall big picture, which may turn out to be very simple. So the next time you are stuck on a problem in life, stop and take a breath. Clear your mind and let your gut feeling do its thing. Your mind can build so many roadblocks by overthinking – clouding your judgement and crippling your ability to do things. But just remember, all you have to do is drive through those roadblocks and let your heart do what it wants.

Thinking Ahead

(Image source: http://xkcd.com/439/)

Posted in Psychology & Medicine

Choice

Posted on by Jinavie

Every day, we are faced with many choices. The food we eat, the clothes we wear, the work we do, the people we love… Whether you are at work, school or home, choice is an unavoidable part of life. In fact, we put a great deal of importance in choice, stating that it is a fundamental right of a free individual to make their own choice.

So what happens when this right is taken away from us? A common reaction to this is anger and revolt. People whose freedom are taken away by a dictator will throw a revolution to choose who they want as a leader. Children throw tantrums to show that they do not want their parents to decide things in their stead. There are cases of death row inmates attempting to take their own lives because “ending my life is the one choice I have the right to”.

We like to think we are free individuals, making our own decisions in life. We mock others for being sheeple – choosing to not choose by following the mainstream decision or preference. But choice is often an illusion.
Consider how many of “your decisions” are truly from your own heart. Are you drinking Coke over Pepsi because you really appreciate the taste difference, or because of effective marketing? Are you listening to that song because you enjoy the melody, or because it is at the top of the charts and everyone is listening to it? Are you eating that menu because you were attracted to what the ingredients are, or because the waiter recommended it as “the special of the day”? You would be surprised how little choice you have sometimes, no matter how free you think you may be.

But choice has an ugly, darker side. Making a choice is often difficult, mentally taxing us as we make an internal pros and cons list to try sort things in order and determine “the best choice”. There are countless research showing that the more choice that is available to you, the harder it becomes for you to choose and the more distressed you become. It could be severe to the point that you get analysis paralysis, where you spend so long making a decision that you miss out or never take an action. Not only that, but making a choice puts the responsibility on you. For example, although medicine is moving towards a patient-oriented system where the patient makes an informed choice, the patient may feel burdened with guilt if their choice results in a poor outcome. This applies to every choice we make from day to day in the form of regret. Regret is the sinister monster that makes us think “What if?”. What if we chose differently? Regret leads to blame and blame leads to sorrow and anger at yourself.

This is the paradox of choice. It feels good to be able to express your uniqueness through choice, but at the same time, the freedom of choice can cause pain and distress just as easily. If your choice goes against the group decision, it can make you stand out and cause you to be shunned. This is why so many of us “choose to not choose” and give up our right of choice. Being social animals, we have a tendency of following groupthink while ironically shouting for the importance of free will. To fight this natural tendency and making a choice reflecting your own thoughts, beliefs and identity is a brave thing to do.

However, that is not to say that surrendering your choice is always a bad thing. A couple who met through arranged marriage may have a happier relationship than those who met through romance. People who’ve grown up in communist countries say that “it was easier when we didn’t have to choose everything”. Most importantly, reflect on your childhood where so many of your parents’ decisions – no matter how oppressive they seemed then – turned out to be the right call.

So in the end, the most important choice you can make is this: do you choose to surrender your choice or do you choose free will? Choose whatever makes you happy, because there is no point choosing something and regretting it because you are unhappy.

Posted in Philosophy

Lego House

Posted on by Jinavie

Imagine that you built a house out of Lego blocks. Now break apart the house until it is reduced to individual blocks. Where is the house now? You could say that the house is still there, except now that it is in the form of a small pile of blocks. On the other hand, you could argue that the “house” itself no longer exists – only its components. The pile of blocks does not have a roof or walls or a living room. It is not a safe, homely place Mr. Lego can return to after work to relax in. However, it has the potential to be a house again. All you need to do is arrange it in a certain way to make it a beautiful home for a nice little Lego family.

What makes the Lego house a house is the specific arrangement of the bricks in an aesthetically pleasing yet functional and practical way – crafted by a creative mind and a set of hands. Through these hands, the blocks can be crafted into a house, a car or even a space station. But without them, they will forever remain a pile of unused blocks stored away in some dark container.

Now look deep inside you and ask this question: what have you made with the Lego pieces that make up your identity? How have you pieced together your strengths, your skills, your experiences and your dreams? We are all unique in the sense that we are born with certain virtues and talents, while gaining various experiences and skills through the chaos that is life. But all of these are just Lego pieces. What kind of masterpiece these pieces will be a component of is up to you to decide, design and build.

Just like Lego, if you don’t are not truly happy with what you see inside you, feel free to tweak it, add to it or even disassemble it and rearrange it into a different final product. Try emphasising your language skills, or chasing after a lost dream. Draw from different experiences and play around with your various strengths. This is not to change who you are completely; no matter how many times you break up and reassemble them, you still have the same components. All you have to do is come up with a new design, build it and judge the product. Hopefully, you will find the right arrangement of pieces that result in a product greater than the sum of its components.

So go on, get building. 1 + 1 = 3.

(Artwork by Nathan Sawaya)