Category: History & Literature

Posted in History & Literature

Halitosis

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There is a technical word for everything in medicine. A great example is halitosis. In the late 19th century, Dr. Joseph Lawrence and Jordan Wheat Lambert developed a new surgical antiseptic. Finding that the target market was too small, they distilled the new product and advertised it as a floor cleaner and also a cure for gonorrhoea. But sales were still not great and they came up with a brilliant marketing scheme. Their company Listerine began advertising the dangers of “chronic halitosis” as a serious health problem in the 1920s. People were unfamiliar with this condition and instantly associated it with some form of major illness. They were desperate to prevent themselves from getting it, or to treat it if they already had it. Lucky for them, Listerine came to the rescue with their product that treated chronic halitosis.

Of course, halitosis is simply the medical term for bad breath. Although bad breath is not an actual disease, Listerine was extremely successful in convincing the population that it was a problem and was able to market their product this way. Listerine’s campaign was so successful that bad breath is still considered extremely offensive and socially unacceptable, making mouthwash almost a “necessity”. To quote advertising scholar James B. Twitchell, “Listerine did not make mouthwash as much as it made halitosis”. They had successfully invented a problem that their product could solve – creating not only supply for the product, but also the demand. This strategy has since been employed by countless advertising schemes to help sell products.

Posted in History & Literature

The Oldest Trick

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Magic has been a great source of entertainment for the masses for thousands of years. Across the globe, under many guises, magicians have amazed audiences with seemingly impossible “miracles” using misdirection and clever trickery. The oldest recorded trick – that is to say one performed purely for entertainment and not under the guise of religion or supernatural power – dates back to ancient Egypt.

According to the Westcar Papyrus, a magician by the name of Dedi was famous for his miraculous feats. The Papyrus tells the story of how Dedi was called to put a show on for King Khufu. He proceeded to decapitate a goose, then reattach the head, bringing the bird back to life. He repeats the magic with a duck, then with a bull, wrenching its head off then bringing it back to life by reattaching the head. For his amazing performance, he is rewarded by being allowed to live in the palace. This trick is still practised by magicians to this day, thus making it the longest performed trick in history.

Posted in History & Literature

Dramatic Opening

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Shakespeare stated that “all is well that ends well”, but the opening of a story can be just as important. For example, “once upon a time” instantly transports a child (or adult) to a magical, faraway land full of wonders and adventure. So how would one open a story of drama, mystery or even horror?

One of the most infamous examples of such an opening is the line: “it was a dark and stormy night”. This opening sentence was first used by Edward Bulwer-Lytton in his 1830 novel Paul Clifford. The full opening is:

“It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents — except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.”

The phrase is effective in establishing a setting and painting a word picture.

However, this opening is considered overly florid and descriptive, overachieving its goal of establishing the setting. This kind of sentence is known as a purple prose and is mocked in the world of literature. This opening has become the poster child of purple prose, such as the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, which celebrates the worst examples of “dark and stormy night” stories.

Probably the most popular mention of “it was a dark and stormy night” is in the comic strip, Peanuts. Snoopy, the canine protagonist, is often seen starting a novel on his typewriter with the line “it was a dark and stormy night”. Perhaps it is no surprise as to why his novels were never published.

Posted in History & Literature

Prostitution

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They say that prostitution is the world’s oldest profession. The job sure lives up to its reputation – the first recorded incidence of paying money for sex is in 2400BC, where prostitution is recorded among a list of professions in ancient Sumer. Of course, there is no proof of it being literally the “oldest” profession, because the money (or any currency) to pay for sex must have come from somewhere else. Evidence of prostitution can be found in almost every other ancient civilisations, including the ancient Babylonians, Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, Jews, Aztecs, Korean, Chinese and Japanese. It is also heavily referenced in the Bible, suggesting that it was a widely spread profession.

As unnatural as the act of paying for sex may seem, prostitution has been recorded in animals as well. In 1998, a marine biologist named Fiona Hunter was studying the mating behaviour of Adélie penguins. She observed that the penguins would couple up and begin building a nest for their future offspring. The females would go out alone to look for pebbles at the beach. But then, she noticed that some female penguins would not head to the beach to collect the pebbles. Instead, they approached another male penguin (usually one that was single) and engage in courtship rituals to lure them into having sex. The female would then grab some pebbles and run off, while the male just let her go. Hunter concluded that this behaviour was indeed a material exchange for sexual pleasures.

Similar behaviour of offering food or grooming for sex has been observed in different primate species such as chimpanzees and crab-eating macaques. The most interesting study on this topic was that of training capuchin monkeys to use a currency. As soon as they learned that the silver discs could be used to purchase food, monkeys were seen “gifting” these silver discs to each other in exchange for sex. This kind of behaviour does not seem too unnatural if you consider that sex is a biological need (or at least a strong want), and sexual pleasure is, psychologically speaking, one of the strongest rewards.

Prostitution is generally deemed immoral and looked down upon, especially given the exploitation of women for their bodies and cheapening the act of making love. However, it should also be noted that throughout history, there are several cases of women using it as an opportunity to achieve something great. For example, Rahab was a harlot from Jericho in 1400BC. Back then, intelligent, independent women could not have much freedom as a married woman was treated as a slave to her husband. As a harlot, Rahab could live her own life and make her own decisions. When the city of Jericho was laid under siege by King Joshua, he sent in two spies to scout the area. Rahab hid these two men from the guards of the king of Jericho and showed them the secret passages of the city, ultimately allowing for Joshua to conquer the city with easy.

There is also the case of Theodora of Constantinople, who rose from being a harlot to an empress by seducing the Emperor Justinian, who made her a valued co-ruler of the empire. She then proceeded to use her power to crack down on the exploitation of women and protecting women’s rights.

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Posted in History & Literature

Ponzi Scheme

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Money is a human invention that acts as a medium of exchange and a store of value. It lets us easily carry around our assets in the form of paper, or nowadays, on a card. But because of its characteristics, money allows for some very intricate, complicated con schemes. One famous example is the Ponzi scheme – a type of investment scam.

In 1920, Charles Ponzi had a great idea. Back then, people would send an international reply coupon along with international mail so the receiver could send a reply using the coupon. Ponzi noted that since the value of these coupons were constant across nations, buying it cheap in one country then selling them in the United States would lead to profit. To kickstart his business idea, he began gathering investors, to whom he promised large returns that the investors could not refuse. However, when Ponzi began trading the coupons, he quickly found that it was not effective and he did not make the profit he expected. But instead of telling the investors that his plan failed and that they would not get the returns he promised, he decided to try something different.

Having not heard of Ponzi’s failure, new excited investors asked Ponzi to invest their savings too. Ponzi used the invested funds to pay off the original investors by redistributing the money. Happy that they got their promised returns, the original investors told their friends and family about the incredible opportunity. This brought more new investors to Ponzi, whose money he used to pay off the previous investors. Because Ponzi took a commission from each investment, he quickly raked in a massive amount of money – just by redistributing money around and not actually investing a single cent.

But Ponzi schemes do not last. Eventually, the amount of new investments were not enough to pay off the previous investors and people began investigating, only to discover that Ponzi was scamming them all along. 

The Ponzi scheme relies on three things: enticing investors with the promise of high returns, intricate redistribution of money to feed the previous group of investors and the good reputation built through word of mouth. Because the scheme relies on paying old investors with money taken from new investors, a larger number of new investors is needed compared to the old investors. This leads to the formation of a pyramid. When the number of new investors is not enough, for example during a recession, the pyramid’s base becomes weak and the whole scheme collapses, with everyone losing money except for the schemer and the few original investors.

(Click Read More for diagram explaining a Ponzi scheme)

(Image source: http://browse.deviantart.com/art/Support-83476199)

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Silence

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“Listen to the sound of silence.” ~ Buddhist saying

The anechoic chamber at Orfield Labs in Minneapolis is the quietest room in the world. It records a staggering sound level of -9.4 decibels (humans can only detect sound levels above 0dB), thanks to its special walls, floor and ceiling design that absorbs all sound instead of echoing it. The room is so quiet that the only sound you will hear inside is the sound of your own organs: the sound of air drifting in and out of your lungs, the blood being thumped out of your heart, the digested food gurgling in your stomach… Even your ears generate a tiny amount of noise from the tiny blood vessels in its walls. The absolute silence is so disturbing that the longest anyone has ever spent alone in the room is merely 45 minutes.

The disturbing power of silence is also demonstrated in the infamous musical piece 4’33” (4 minutes 33 seconds) by John Cage. When it was first premiered in 1952, the audience watched in anticipation as the pianist David Tudor entered the stage. Tudor calmly approached the piano and sat down with a graceful demeanour. Then, he closed the piano lid. For 4 minutes and 33 seconds, the pianist did not play a single note. His only actions were opening and closing the lid to mark the end of one movement and the start of the next one. After the 4 minutes and 33 seconds, he stood up, bowed to the (stunned) audience and exited.

The audience was confused, bewildered and angry. How dare they be mocked with such an outrageous performance? By definition, silence is the absence of music, meaning that the audience were not given the musical performance they expected. However, the audience simply did not understand the “sound of silence”. Outside of the anechoic chamber mentioned above, there is no such thing as absolute silence on Earth. For example, that concert room would have been filled with the noise of the unsettled audience shifting in their seats, the raindrops pattering on the roof and the sound of the footsteps of those who walked out in rage.

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Merlion

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It is common to see creatures in mythology that are a combination of different animals. The unicorn, griffin, chimera, basilisk, hippocampus… The list goes on and on. But perhaps the more interesting combinations are those between humans and animals. Centaurs are a cross between man and horse, harpies are a cross between woman and bird while mermaids and mermen are half-human, half-fish. Although these examples are all from ancient mythologies, there are more recent examples such as the merlion.

The merlion – top-half lion, bottom-half fish – is the national symbol of Singapore. This symbol was designed by Alec Fraser-Brunner in 1964 to promote the name of Singapore. Since then, the merlion has been used frequently in Singaporean art such as in statues and souvenirs. Although the concept of merlions have been found in certain ancient Indian and Hellenistic cultures (not to mention the “sea lion” which is an actual animal), it is almost synonymous with Singapore in modern times.

How did this bizarre combination of a lion and fish come to be? The union of the lion and fish is a symbol for Singapore’s history. Singapore originates from a small fishing village called Temasek – which means sea town in Javanese. This is symbolised by the fish tail, which forms the “root” of the icon. The lion symbolises modern Singapore, which gains its name from Singapura, which means lion city. Furthermore, Singapore is an island nation – a combination of land and water. The core culture of Singapore is descended from Asia via the land mass of South-East Asia, while its affluence and modernisation came from the sea via trade routes. Singapore is one of the most famous and important trade ports in modern history as it controls the passage from the Indian Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. This allowed the country to thrive economically from the flourishing trade, being dubbed one of the Four Asian Tigers (along with South Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan – all four countries achieved exceptionally high growth rates from the 1960s to the 1990s).

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Destroyer Of The Environment

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In the history of mankind, who could be considered to have done the most damage to the environment? Although many names may pop up, no one comes close to the destruction that resulted from one man: Thomas Midgley Jr. While working for General Motors in 1916 as a chemist, Midgley discovered that adding iodine to kerosene reduced “knocking” in engines – where pockets of air/fuel mixture explode in the engine. The effects of knocking on engines range from negligible to destructive. However, he found that the iodine only reduced knocking slightly. To improve on this, he tried adding different elements to fuel until he found the magic solution – lead. And so, the leaded petroleum was born.

Leaded petrol was an instant commercial success and it became the most popular choice of fuel. This resulted in cars, buses, planes and almost all motor vehicles pumping out billions of tons of lead into the atmosphere for over seventy years. Unfortunately, lead is a highly toxic metal that causes symptoms such as muscular weakness, pain, nausea, vomiting, fatigue and madness. Lead poisoning is particularly dangerous to children as it can cause irreversible retardation of physical and mental development. Even though the effects of lead poisoning were recognised since the late 19th century (with many workers and even Midgley himself suffering from it), it was only after the 1970s when fuel companies stopped adding lead to their fuel. Thanks to Midgley’s idea of adding lead to petrol, who knows how many children would have suffered a crippling illness due to lead poisoning.

But Midgley’s “accomplishments” did not stop there. In the late 1920s, Midgley decided to tackle the problem of using sulfur dioxide, propane and ammonia as refrigerants (possibly out of guilt over the whole lead fiasco), which were effective but prone to combusting or exploding. Within three days, he developed an alternative – dichlorofluromethane. This amazing gas was inert, non-toxic and did not have the risk of exploding. It was the first of the chlorofluorocarbons (CFC), which was named “freons”. We now know that freons are responsible for destroying the ozone layer.

In 1940, Midgley contracted polio, causing him to be disabled. Poliomyelitis causes paralysis due to the destruction of motor neurons. Being an inventor, Midgley devised a clever device that would help him off the bed using pulleys and strings. Unfortunately, one day the invention twisted in a certain way, leading him to become entangled in the ropes and being killed of strangulation.

Such was the sad life of Thomas Midgley Jr, who environmental historian J. R. McNeill dubbed “[someone who] had more impact on the atmosphere than any other single organism in Earth’s history”.

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2012

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One of the things that mankind has been fascinated with throughout history is the concept of an apocalypse or doomsday. Just in the last decade, there have been no less than fifty claims that the world would end on a certain day. The most famous of these include Nostradamus’ prediction that the world would end on July 1999, the Y2K problem that suggested that the year 2000 would cause all computers to malfunction, and many claims that a certain date would be the Rapture – the second coming of Christ and the end of the world. The latest of these doomsday predictions is the one regarding the Mayan calendar. There are claims that on the 21st of December, 2012, the Mayan calendar finishes its 5125-year cycle, leading to a cataclysmic event that will destroy the universe. But of course as usual, this theory is complete and utter nonsense.

Firstly, there are no records that the Mayans predicted that the world would be doomed when the cycle would finish. It is true that December 2012 marks the end of a b’ak’tun – a time period in the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar equating to about 394 years, much like how we measure 1000 years by 1 millennium. Essentially, it is like a “turn of the century” for the Mayans. Pretty much the entire concept of the Mayan calendar ending bringing doom to us all was fabricated by some shoddy academics and New Age believers.

Secondly, every theory about how the world might end in such a scenario has been disproven. Some of the most popular “theories” were: the collision of a Planet X or “Nibiru” with Earth, geomagnetic reversal and galactic alignments. However, to this date (20th December, 2012), there are no large rocks or planets hurtling directly towards Earth (would have been noticed by thousands of astronomers worldwide months prior), the magnetic poles are stable (even if they switched it would not cause much harm) and there are no alignments between planets, moons or stars scheduled at the time.

No matter how crazy the theories and predictions are, there will always be people claiming that the world will end soon, and that we should repent our sins or something like that. Even better, there will be a significant amount of people who believe it or at least worry enough about it to affect their lives somehow.

Perhaps the most fitting quote for this phenomenon is something that Martin Luther wrote in his diary at a young age: “Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree”. Whether the world is ending or not, live your life to the fullest, seizing every day and making the most of your chances.

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Judgement of Solomon

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The Bible tells many stories of a King Solomon, son of David. King Solomon is most famous for his wisdom, of which there are many accounts of in the Bible. The following is an example of the wisdom of Solomon.

There once lived two women living under the same roof who both gave birth to a son at similar times. One of the mothers accidentally smothered her own son while sleeping, and decided to switch the two infants, claiming the living one to be her own. The other woman instantly noticed that the dead baby was not hers and confronted the culprit, asking for her baby back. She refused, leading to a very heated argument that ultimately ended up in the court of King Solomon. The two women pleaded him to make the decision of who the real mother was. After much deliberation, King Solomon called for a sword to be brought before him. He stated that since both women were claiming the boy to be their own, there was only one solution: to split the baby in two and give each person a half of the baby. The lying woman, in bitter jealousy, urged King Solomon to cut the baby. She thought that if she could not have the baby, then no one shall. The true mother, mortified by what King Solomon planned on doing, pleaded him to just give the baby to the other women and not to kill the baby. The king then judged that she must be the true mother and gave the baby back to her, while punishing the other for her sins.

The story shows how the wisdom of King Solomon led to justice and reuniting the mother and baby by method of creating a fake situation that would instantly distinguish the actual mother from the liar. The expression “splitting the baby” is still used in legal professions to describe the act of coming to a simple compromise between two parties.

The intended moral of the story is probably to teach people that wisdom can defeat even the greatest of challenges. But perhaps the real moral of the story is: if you are insane enough to steal a baby, at least have enough acting skills to follow through with it instead of telling someone to kill the baby.