Tag: ark

Posted in History & Literature

Economics

Posted on by Jinavie

Early economists believed that a growing economy was a sound economy. Growth was used as a ruler to measure the health of the nation, corporations, markets and all social constructs. But it is impossible to always move forwards. In reality, a growing economy goes through cycles of growth and depression, showing a waveform on a graph. An economy without depression forms a bubble that will burst in the future, bringing a greater economic crisis. Simply put, “sound economic growth” is only achieved by the concept of two steps forward, one step back.

We have reached a point where we cannot grow despite having the potential to. Perhaps there will be no further economic growth. Only a continuous state of balancing powers will remain. A sound society, a sound nation, a sound worker… those are things that do not damage the surrounding environment or become damaged by it. We should no longer try to conquer nature and space. Instead, we must integrate with nature and the universe. Our only slogan is harmony. There should be an entwining of the external and internal world and we must live with modesty not violence. Human beings will become one with the universe. Mankind will meet an age of stability where we do not strive for the future or reach for faraway goals. Mankind will live a simple life in the present. Only then will mankind finally attain happiness.

1 + 1 = 3

image

(from The Encyclopaedia of Relative and Absolute Knowledge by Bernard Werber)

Posted in Psychology & Medicine

Birthday Cake

Posted on by Jinavie

The ritual of blowing out candles on one’s birthday is interesting as it shows the characteristics of human beings very well. This ritual shows that the person can make fire while reminding themselves they can extinguish it with one breath. It is a ritual that helps a baby develop into a responsible, social being that is capable of controlling fire. On the other hand, an old person being so breathless that they cannot even blow out a candle signifies that it is time for them to be socially excluded by the active population.

Posted in Science & Nature

Lemming

Posted on by Jinavie

When you think of lemmings, you are bound to think of two things: a small, round rodent and mass suicide. The reason being, we have been taught as children that lemmings often commit mass suicide. This theory originates from the late 19th century when scientists could not figure out why lemming populations seemed to spike rapidly and then fall just as fast. In 1908, a man named Arthur Mee proposed that they kill themselves, writing so in the Children’s Encyclopaedia. He posited that as an overpopulation of lemmings could devastate the European ecosystem, the lemmings were naturally controlling their own population count. His theory was backed by a documentary made in 1958 called White Wilderness that showed a footage of a herd of lemmings leaping off a cliff to their death.

However, this “fact” has a severe flaw. Lemmings do not commit mass suicide. If you think about it for even a second, the thought of an animal that commits mass suicide (other than human beings) is preposterous as the species would die out. The reason why the lemming population spikes is the same as for mice and rabbits: they pride themselves in extreme reproductive abilities. A female lemming can have up to 80 babies in one year. If the population grows at such an alarming rate, then as explained above, the environment would not be able to support it. This causes the lemming population to plateau, not rising or falling, as there is not enough food to feed all the lemmings. However, due to the shortage of food, the lemmings become desperate and hungry. To find more food, the lemmings begin a migration, but the combination of hunger and being in heat causes them to act irrationally and wild. The result is a massive herd of hungry, stupid lemmings frantically running around all over the place. This leads to some lemmings accidentally slipping off cliffs and drowning in the river while swimming. This is not suicide.

Then what was the strange phenomenon of mass suicide depicted in White Wilderness? The answer is simple: it was staged. The producers tried to replicate Mee’s theory by importing a dozen lemmings and filming them running around the place. Then why did these lemmings commit suicide? Because the producers launched them off a cliff from a turntable.

Posted in Psychology & Medicine

Six Degrees Of Separation

Posted on by Jinavie

It is said that through a chain of five people, we can be acquainted to anyone in the world. In other words, an Eskimo man can be no less than six steps away from a Parisian lady. This is the concept of the six degrees of separation.

The concept can be explained mathematically. We all know hundreds of different people each. If we assume that we each have 100 friends, then in the first stage we only know the 100 friends. However, at the second stage we know the 100 friends of each of our friends, meaning we know 10000 people. At the third stage we know 1 million people, fourth stage 100 million and fifth stage 10 billion people. As the world population is 7 billion, by the fifth stage we should theoretically know every person on the world. This means that crossing four metaphorical bridges lets us shake the hands of anyone we want. The concept of the degrees of separation came from the idea of the small world phenomenon.

The first person to properly study the small world phenomenon was Harvard social psychologist Stanley Milgram. In 1967, Milgram asked 296 people in the Midwest (USA) to help him send a package to someone in Boston. To complete the experiment, the participants had to send the package to one of their friends they thought would know this stranger in Boston. Milgram found that in half of the cases, the package was delivered to the target in Boston through five people (5.5 exactly), thus giving birth to the concept that we are at six degrees of separation from another human being. 

Of course since 1967 our societies have undergone many changes. One of the most noticeable changes has been the development of technology – specifically the development of the internet and social networking. Nowadays, the younger generations use the internet to communicate with friends and make connections. Knowing this, what degrees of separation exists in modern societies? According to a recently finished study (2011) using data from the social networking site, Facebook, the average number of “bridges” for the world is 4.7. In countries such as the US where there is a bigger proportion of Facebook users, this number fell to 4.4. Ergo, in the past 40 years we have developed more connections to other people, making our world even smaller.

The theory of six degrees of separation reminds us how small a world we live in and how interconnected we are to each other.

image

Posted in Science & Nature

Umami

Posted on by Jinavie

Normally when people think of “tastes”, they think of sweet, salty, sour and bitter (“spicy”, or piquance is not a taste). However, in 1985 the family of four basic tastes were introduced to a new member: umami. Umami, commonly known as “savouriness” is a taste that has had its own word in Asian countries (e.g. 감칠맛, or gamchilmaht in Korean) for thousands of years but has not had a proper English word until very recently (much like piquance). Umami is a portmanteau of two Japanese words: うまい(umai) and 味(mi), which means “delicious” and “taste” respectively.

Sweetness comes from glucose, saltiness from sodium and sourness from acids. Then where does umami come from? Umami is the taste born from glutamates, which is found in high concentrations in meat products, thus leading to the association between umami and the taste of meat. For example, bacon is known to have six different types of umami flavours, creating a unique and addictive taste. Another product high in glutamate is monosodium glutamate, or MSG. MSG is essentially glutamate plus a sodium ion and thus brings out the full taste of umami when added to food. As umami has a powerful effect of boosting appetite and having a slightly addictive property means that chefs like putting MSG in foods to boost sales. Contrary to popular belief that MSG is detrimental to your health, recent researches have shown that unless you have an allergy to it, MSG is safe to consume even in high concentrations.

image

Posted in History & Literature

Helepolis

Posted on by Jinavie

In 305 BC, Demetrius I of Macedon waged war with the island of Rhodes, now known as the siege of Rhodes. During this siege, Demetrius utilised a superweapon that is, to this day, the largest siege tower ever built – the Helepolis. Helepolis loosely translates to “destroyer of cities”, which is interesting as Demetrius’ nickname was Poliorcetes, or “The Besieger” in ancient Greek. In short, Demetrius was set to raze Rhodes or wipe it off the map.

The Helepolis lived up to its name: designed by Polyidus of Thessaly, it was 40m high (about 13 stories), 20m wide, weighed 160 tons and had a crew of 3400 people. It had eight wheels, each 3.7m high, and had compound wheels that allowed it to move side-to-side. The 3400 men both pushed the tower and worked a belt system that moved the wheels forward. The entire structure was clad in iron plates, making it completely arrowproof and fireproof. 

Its armament was just as impressive. One face of the tower was covered in windows, with each concealing a catapult that could hurl heavy objects at the target. The first floor had a pair of catapults that could hurl 80kg projectiles (about the weight of a refrigerator) and one that launched 30kg projectiles. The second floor had three 30kg catapults and the third to eighth floor had ten 15kg catapults in total. Lastly, the roof had four dart throwers which could clear any defenders on the top of castle walls. Essentially, the tower had both the ultimate defensive and offensive capabilities.

Of course, there was no chance the Rhodians could stand a face-off with such a behemoth. So instead, they came up with a cunning plan that exploited the huge size of the Helepolis. The night before the siege began, the Rhodians channelled the water and sewage coming out of the city into the area they expected the attack to come from to create a vast area of mud and bog. When the Helepolis stormed in for the offensive, it immediately started sinking in the mire. Knowing that no amount of horses and men could pull the structure out of the mud, the soldiers abandoned the superweapon without even using it once. 

Ultimately, the siege of Rhodes failed (largely due to the failure of Helepolis) and the Rhodians took apart the Helepolis, melted the iron plates and used it to build the Colossus of Rhodes (one of the Seven Ancient Wonders).

Posted in Science & Nature

Monty Hall Problem

Posted on by Jinavie

Imagine that you are on a game show and you are given the choice of three doors, where you will win what is behind the chosen door. Behind one door is a car; behind the others are goats, which you do not want. The car and the goats were placed randomly behind the doors before the show.

The rules of the game show are as follows: 

  • After you have chosen a door, the door remains closed for the time being. 
  • The game show host, Monty Hall, who knows what is behind the doors, opens one of the two remaining doors and the door he opens must have a goat behind it. 
  • If both remaining doors have goats behind them, he chooses one at random. 
  • After Monty Hall opens a door with a goat, he will ask you to decide whether you want to stay with your first choice or to switch to the last remaining door. 

Imagine that you chose Door 1 and the host opens Door 3, which has a goat. He then asks you: “Do you want to switch to Door 2?”

Is it to your advantage to change your choice?

image

Most people believe that as an incorrect option (goat) is ruled out, their odds of winning the car go up from 1/3 to ½ even by staying on the same Door 1 and there is no benefit to switching. However, it is better to switch doors as this will double your odds of winning the car. To illustrate this point, the following three scenarios (with the car being behind Door 1, 2 or 3) can be imagined, using the above rules of the game:

image

In Scenario 1, you have already chosen the car (Door 1) so Monty Hall will randomly open Door 2 or 3. Switching will obviously lead you to losing the car. The chance of you losing after switching, therefore, is 1/6 + 1/6 = 1/3 (as either Door 2 or 3 could be opened)

In Scenario 2 and 3, because you chose the wrong door (goat) and Monty Hall will open the door with the goat behind it, switching will lead you to choosing the car (no other choices). As the odd of either scenario happening is 1/3 each, your odds of winning after a switch is 2/3 – double the odds of winning after not switching (1/3, the odd of your first guess being right).

Of course, this is only under the assumption that the rules of the game were followed and that Monty Hall will always open a door with a goat behind it. This problem and the answer suggested was extremely controversial as tens of thousands of readers refused to believe that switching could be a better choice. However, as the above illustration shows, the Monty Hall problem is a veridical paradox – a problem with a solution that appears ludicrous but is actually proven true by induction.

Posted in Science & Nature

Cordyceps sinensis

Posted on by Jinavie

Cordyceps sinensis is a fungus known as dongchoong-hacho(동충하초, 冬蟲夏草) in Korea, with the same characters used in China and Japan. It literally translates to “worm in the winter, herb in the summer”. It is a peculiar fungus with an interesting life cycle. In the summer when the weather is warm, the fungus infects its host (usually ghost moth larvae) through spores. The infected caterpillar is slowly filled with mycelium (thready part of fungi), until it becomes mummified with only the shell remaining. The fungus keeps replicating until it bursts out of the caterpillar’s head with a club-like fruit body (which holds the fungus’ spores). This makes it look as if the caterpillar, which was an insect in the winter, turned into a fungus in the summer (technically it is at this stage, but the caterpillar is long dead). In English, it is also called caterpillar fungus or vegetable worm (which is a misnomer as fungi are not vegetables).

Cordyceps sinensis is an important ingredient in traditional Eastern medicine as it is believed to be a perfect balance between yin and yang due to it possessing both animal and plant (actually a fungus) properties. It is used to treat many diseases from fatigue to cancer.

Although Western medicine usually looks down on and ignores Eastern medicine, research shows that Cordyceps sinensis actually has medicinal properties. Cordycepin, a chemical extracted from the fungus, has been shown to inhibit the growth of viruses, fungi and tumours through its inhibitory actions on a certain protein. There is also research that suggests it can protect the body against radiation poisoning.

Posted in History & Literature

Sandwich

Posted on by Jinavie

Although the concept of eating two pieces of bread with meat and vegetables in between has existed since the invention of bread, the word “sandwich” is a much more recent invention. 

During the 18th century, there was an aristocrat called John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich who loved to gamble. He loved gambling so much that he barely had time to eat a proper meal, so he frequently ordered simple foods from his servants.

His favourite was two pieces of bread with sliced meat in between. Every time he gambled with his friends, he would order this snack from his servants and his friends would say “the same as Sandwich!” when ordering. This playful comment stuck over time and people began officially naming the type of food a “sandwich”.

A sandwich is the perfect snack invented just for those who have no time or are too lazy.