Tag: history

Posted in Psychology & Medicine

Trepanation

Posted on by Jinavie

When and what was the first surgery performed by mankind? Many would believe it to be a simple procedure such as suturing a wound. But would you believe that the earliest surgical procedure was brain surgery in 6500BC? Surprisingly, this is true.

Archaeologists have found a large amount of skulls with a large, round hole in them. Some of the oldest skulls with holes were found in France, where 40 skulls from the Neolithic era were excavated. Archaeologists believed these holes to be from a battle leading to a dent in the skull. However, these holes were actually the results of a surgery (signs of bone recovery can be seen around the edges of the hole, suggesting the patients were alive for some time even after the operation). These skulls all belonged to trepanation patients.

Trepanation is the surgical opening of the skull by drilling a hole in it. This is an ancient surgery that can be found throughout history. Hippocrates and Galen from ancient Greece both recorded detailed instructions on trepanation, ancient Incans performed the surgery and it was also common during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance in Europe. These surgeries were most likely indicated for skull fractures where fragments were embedded in the brain. During the Middle Ages when it was better known that the brain was the seat of the soul, trepanation was used for psychiatric treatments too. For example, in 15th century Netherlands, trepanation was used to excise a so-called stone of madness that was supposedly the cause of insanity. Like this, it was believed that trepanation could release the demons and insanity trapped in the skull.

Although this operation sounds hilariously misled, it is still used in modern medicine. Of course, it is not known to treat insanity, but rather to treat brain bleeds. Extradural and subdural haemorrhages occur when a rupture of an artery in the brain causes a collection of blood in the skull, compressing the brain. This is a dangerous situation which can lead to a stroke or even death. One treatment of this condition is trepanation, or a burr hole, where a small hole is drilled in the skull to relieve the pressure, lowering intracranial pressure and stabilising the patient. Trepanation is an excellent example of how we can learn from the past and how medical knowledge from ancient times is sometimes still valid.

Posted in Science & Nature

Bird Strike

Posted on by Jinavie

An airplane flying across the sky faces many dangers. But a very common yet not well-known type of accident is the bird strike. Just as the name suggests, a bird strike is when a plane collides with a flying bird. This may not sound so dangerous, but considering a plane typically flies at 800~900km/h, the energy from the collision is quite significant. If a plane flying at 800km/h collides with a 5kg bird, the energy generated is 92 tonnes. This is not only enough to instantly kill the bird, but also enough to damage the plane.

The most common type of bird strikes is when a bird collides head-on with the windshield or gets sucked into the engine. The latter can cause severe damage to the engine and even cause it to fail. For example, in 1960 a plane flying above Boston collided with a flock of starlings, leading to all four of its engines failing and causing it to crash, killing 62 passengers. Since birds typically fly below an altitude of 9000m, bird strikes most often occur during take-off and landing. However, there are case reports of much higher altitude crashes, with the record being held at 11300m.

According to statistics, the most common type of bird involved are waterfowls and gulls, with 15% of bird strikes being severe. Bird strikes cause $1.2 billion worth of damage annually worldwide and has cost 200 lives since 1988. The first bird strike occurred with the invention of the airplane, as recorded by the Wright brothers (inventors of the modern airplane). As bird strikes cause so much damage, airports place many countermeasures to prevent them. The most frequently used methods are driving away birds from runways by using scarecrows and other methods, or modifying the plane and engines to be more bird-resistant.

Posted in Science & Nature

Cryptography: Pigpen Cipher

Posted on by Jinavie

Another well-known substitution cipher is the “pigpen cipher” or “Freemason’s cipher”. As the name suggests, it was often used by Freemasons to encrypt their messages. However, as time has passed, it has become so well-known that it is not a very secure cipher at all.

The pigpen cipher does not substitute the letter for another letter, but instead uses a symbol that is derived from a grid-shaped key. The key is made of two 3×3 grids (#)(one without dots, one with dots) and two 2×2 grids (X)(one without dots, one with dots). The letters are filled in systematically so that each shape represents a certain letter (e.g. v=s, >=t, <=u, ^=v)

The cipher has many variations that attempt to throw off an attacker by rearranging the order of the grids or the letters. Thus, even if a cunning attacker picks up on the fact that the cipher is a pigpen cipher, they may use the wrong key and get a completely wrong message. Nonetheless, it is a useful skill to recognise the unique symbols of the pigpen cipher as it is a popular cipher used commonly in puzzles.

As with any substitution ciphers, frequency analysis and pattern recognition is the key to cracking the pigpen cipher.

Posted in History & Literature

Taegeukgi

Posted on by Jinavie

The Taegeukgi is the official flag of the Republic of Korea. It was chosen as the official flag of Joseon by Emperor Gojong in 1883 and has been used as the flag for South Korea since 1948. The Taegeukgi is an extremely symbolic flag that expresses the values and ideals of the Korean people while also containing the sorrow caused by the great tragedies in modern Korean history: the 36 years of Japanese colonisation and the Korean War. Even before Korea was founded, the flag was used in protest of the Japanese Empire and for the independence of Korea (especially in the famous March 1st movement). Much like Hangul (the Korean alphabet), the Taegeukgi, designed by Park Young-hyo and commissioned by Gojong, is a very scientific and mathematical flag. Let us analyse each part of the Taegeukgi.

The Taegeukgi is composed of a red and blue taegeuk symbol (“yin(eum)-yang symbol” is technically a misnomer) on a white background, surrounded by four black trigrams (4괘, sa-gwe). The white background symbolises brilliance and purity and the Korean people’s traditional love for peace. The taegeuk symbol symbolises the harmony of eum (blue) and yang (red), an imagery of the interaction between the two extremes and the natural rule of continuous generation and progress seen in the universe.

The trigrams in each of the four corners is called geun gon ri gam (건곤리감, 乾坤離坎) in order and each trigram symbolises a certain characteristic of everything in the universe.

Geun (three lines) symbolises the sky, spring, metal (geum, 금, 金) and humanity (yin, 인, 仁). Gon (six lines) symbolises the earth, summer, earth (toh, 토, 土) and righteousness (eui, 의, 義). Ri (four lines) symbolises the sun, autumn, fire (hwa, 화, 火) and courtesy (ye, 예, 禮). Gam (five lines) symbolises the moon, winter, water (su, 수, 水) and intelligence (ji, 지, 智). The taegeuk lies in the centre of the four extremes in each each corner to establish an infinite harmony and balance.

As you can see, the taegeuk is far more scientific and deeply philosophical than simpler flags such as those symbolising the Sun God (Japan), the number of states (USA) or a composite of three different flags (UK). It is the ultimate flag that prides the Korean people’s wisdom and advanced culture.

Posted in History & Literature

Valentine’s Day

Posted on by Jinavie

Valentine’s day is the one day put aside every year, on the 14th of February, to celebrate the love between a couple. It is a rather controversial(?) holiday with many people contesting that it is the result of chocolate and flower companies conspiring to increase sales and that people should love equally on every day. The day is full of hearts and cupids and chocolate, making it the perfect day for couples to show off to the world just how much they adore each other, while single people put up a nonchalant face while desperately trying to distract themselves from the fact that they alone (there is also a statistic that states suicide rates peak during Valentine’s day).

February 14th was not always associated with romantic love. Originally it was a day honouring Saint Valentine of Rome (it is debated whether day honours him or another Saint Valentine – Valentine of Terni). In 1st century Rome, it was illegal for Christians to marry. Saint Valentine secretly performed weddings for Christians under threat of death (helping Christians was illegal too). He was eventually caught, imprisoned, tortured and killed.

As one can see, the story (and its ending) is not the most romantic one and Valentine was honoured for helping Christians rather than being involved in marrying people. It appears that the romantic association started around the 14th century in Parlement of Foules by Chaucer. Up until the 19th century, the only custom for Valentine’s Day was the giving of cards (or “valentines”) between loved ones. It was in the mid-1900’s when the practice of giving roses and chocolates arose (most likely due to advertising campaigns by companies for the commercialisation of the day), with the diamond industry promoting a custom of giving jewellery on Valentine’s Day.

Another not-so-lovely story related to Valentine’s Day is the infamous Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre of Chicago in 1929. In a conflict related to gangs and bootlegging, the South Side Italian gang led by Al Capone initiated a deadly attack resulting in the death of seven deaths.

Posted in Science & Nature

Diamond

Posted on by Jinavie

The hardest object on the Earth is diamond. A diamond is famous not only for its hardness but also its luxuriousness and unique lustre. One might call it the king of all jewels. Would you believe then that such a beautiful, tough gemstone is made of the same thing as charcoal and graphite? Diamond is crystallised carbon where the carbon atoms are neatly arranged in a pyramid lattice. Charcoal and graphite are also made of carbon but the carbon atoms are placed in a different configuration, giving them a different look and characteristics. This unique lattice shape can only be achieved under extreme pressure (such as in the mantle of the Earth or in a meteorite). Thus, a diamond is just carbon that has endured stress well.

If diamond is the hardest material, then how can one cut it? The answer is simple – use a diamond. As it is near impossible to polish or cut without knowing this, diamonds were only used in the form of ores until the modern age. In 1919, a mathematician named Marcel Tolkowsky calculated the optimum proportions of a diamond cut to obtain the best lustre. The first time he struck the diamond with a nail, he fainted from the shock. He succeeded the second time and devised the round brilliant cut used most popularly nowadays.

Diamond is especially used in engagement rings. About 80% of all engagement rings sold in the United States are diamond rings. This may be because the toughness of diamond symbolises undying love, but another key reason is due to diamond syndicates and their marketing campaign. Even until the 1930’s, there was a tradition of women keeping their virginity until their engagement. Thus, if a man proposed to a woman, took her virginity and broke off the engagement, the woman had a legal right to sue the man. Diamond syndicate De Beers thought that this tradition was an excellent money-making scheme. They planted the idea that offering a diamond ring when proposing put a price on the woman’s virginity and encouraged men to buy more expensive rings to show their love and respect for the woman. This manipulative advertising campaign was a great success and the price of diamond skyrocketed very quickly. Now, a diamond ring is almost an essential item when proposing. Thanks to these companies, there are still many African children who are being slaved in diamond mines.

Posted in Psychology & Medicine

Muslin Disease

Posted on by Jinavie

The French Revolution that occurred in the late 18th century had a significant impact on not only politics, but French society as a whole. Even after the revolution, there was much hatred against the nobility and especially the luxurious and extravagant lifestyle they lead. Men and women wearing too much clothes and jewellery were punished heavily. There was even a law stating that the weight of your clothes and accessories combined must not exceed 3.5kg. In the early 19th century, the fashion trend changed from the fancy dresses of the past with many decorations to a much more simple, clean and frugal type of dress. A point of interest is that women wearing petticoats (an undergarment worn to puff out skirts) – a key point of the Rococo style – were executed on the guillotine, causing women to quickly throw away their petticoats and try to look as slim as possible. To look thin, women did not even wear underwear. There was a fabric that suited this new fashion trend very well and that was the extremely thin cloth, muslin.

But to follow the fashion of then, it is not enough to simply wear a muslin dress. In early 19th century France, the trend was to douse your dress in water. Why did the women drench themselves in water? The reason being, muslin is a very thin and light cloth that becomes half transparent when wet, while clinging to your body. Women dampened their muslin dress to prove that they were wearing nothing underneath. Also, the ideal, beautiful woman of the time was an intellectual woman who looked fatigued from reading books all night long. Drenching yourself in water adds to this gaunt image, accentuating your fatigue and by extension, your beauty. The woman probably also intended to make the clothing cling to their body to show off their figure (much like the modern day wet t-shirt contests).

The problem was that muslin is an extremely thin material that is unsuitable in the winter or in Northern regions. Considering that women were wearing such a thin dress and even pouring water on themselves, one can imagine how cold they must have been. In fact, France suffered a heavy epidemic of pneumonia in the early 19th century with as much as 60,000 patients turning up with pneumonia every day. A high proportion of these patients were women who liked to wear wet muslin dresses. Thus, the pneumonia was nicknamed muslin disease.

Posted in History & Literature

The Courteous Country Of The East

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The Chinese have always deemed Korea as the country of courteous and well-mannered people (동방예의지국, 東邦禮義之國). An ancient Chinese historical text called Shanhaijing(山海經) states that the people of China referred Korea as The Courteous Country Of The Rising Sun In The East or The Country Of Gentlemen. Confucius once said that it was his dream to even take a raft to Korea to learn more about etiquette. They always held Korean people in high regard, complimenting to no end with descriptions such as “righteous people (仁人)” and “they like to decline politely and do not fight”, or “as they do not steal from each other they do not keep doors locked, and the women are virtuous and trustworthy and not lewd”. In short, Korea was respected as a civilised, advanced culture throughout the ages.

Posted in History & Literature

Elements: Four Elements Of The West

Posted on by Jinavie

Human beings have believed that all matter can be divided into basic elements for a very long time. Although we now know that the basic building block of the universe is atoms, what did ancient people believe matter was made of?

In ancient Greece, the seat of Western culture, it was believed that everything was made from the four elements: earth, fire, water and air. According to Aristotle, every element has a primary and secondary characteristic, with the four characteristics being hot, cold, dry and wet. Air is primarily wet and secondarily hot, fire is primarily hot and secondarily dry, earth is primarily dry and secondarily cold and water is primarily cold and secondarily wet. He also spoke of a fifth element (quintessence) beyond the four elements. The name of the fifth element is aether and it is a pure and heavenly element that cannot be corrupted like the earthly four elements. Furthermore, it was thought that aether was the element of the sky and stars were composed of it as they were heavenly, not earthly.

The four classic elements of ancient Greece had an impact not only on physics and chemistry, but also on philosophy and culture (the concept of the four elements is popular in modern games too). The most interesting example of these is a theory by Hippocrates, the father of Western medicine, that states that the human body is composed of four bodily fluids (humours) and an imbalance between the humours caused diseases. The four humours are yellow bile (fire), black bile (earth), blood (air) and phlegm (water). Furthermore, he believed that the four humours affected personalities too. For example, an excess of black bile (“melan chole” in Greek) would cause a person to become introspective and think negatively, leading to depression or “melancholy”. This is quite possibly the first medical records on clinical depression.

The four classic elements of ancient Greece can also be found in ancient Egypt and many other ancient civilisations. It also had a significant influence on alchemy in the Middle Ages.

(Image source: http://y3rk0.deviantart.com/art/The-Four-Elements-87598175)

Posted in History & Literature

We Didn’t Start The Fire

Posted on by Jinavie

We Didn’t Start The Fire is a song by Billy Joel outlining key historical events between 1949 and 1989. The “fire” refers to the criticism that the Baby Boomer generation (those born between 1946 and 1964), with Billy Joel rebutting that there has been turmoil and crises in world history forever and one generation cannot be blamed for it all.

Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnnie Ray 
South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio 
Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, television 
North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe 

Rosenbergs, H-Bomb, Sugar Ray, Panmunjom 
Brando, “The King and I”, and “The Catcher in the Rye" 
Eisenhower, vaccine, England’s got a new queen 
Marciano, Liberace, Santayana goodbye

CHORUS
We didn’t start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world’s been turning
We didn’t start the fire
No we didn’t light it
But we tried to fight it

Josef Stalin, Malenkov, Nasser and Prokofiev 
Rockefeller, Campanella, Communist Bloc 
Roy Cohn, Juan Peron, Toscanini, Dacron
Dien Bien Phu Falls, Rock Around the Clock 

Einstein, James Dean, Brooklyn’s got a winning team
Davy Crockett, Peter Pan, Elvis Presley, Disneyland 
Bardot, Budapest, Alabama, Khrushchev
Princess Grace, Peyton Place, Trouble in the Suez 

CHORUS

Little Rock, Pasternak, Mickey Mantle, Kerouac
Sputnik, Zhou Enlai, Bridge On The River Kwai 
Lebanon, Charles de Gaulle, California Baseball 
Starkweather homicide, Children of Thalidomide

Buddy Holly, Ben Hur, Space Monkey, Mafia
Hula Hoops, Castro, Edsel is a no-go 
U2, Syngman Rhee, payola and Kennedy
Chubby Checker, Psycho, Belgians in the Congo 

CHORUS

Hemingway, Eichmann, Stranger in a Strange Land
Dylan, Berlin, Bay of Pigs invasion 
Lawrence of Arabia, British Beatlemania
Ole Miss, John Glenn, Liston beats Patterson 

Pope Paul, Malcolm X, British Politician sex
J.F.K. blown away, what else do I have to say 

CHORUS

Birth control, Ho Chi Minh, Richard Nixon back again
Moonshot, Woodstock, Watergate, punk rock
Begin, Reagan, Palestine, Terror on the airline
Ayatollah’s in Iran, Russians in Afghanistan 

Wheel of Fortune, Sally Ride, heavy metal suicide
Foreign debts, homeless Vets, AIDS, Crack, Bernie Goetz
Hypodermics on the shores, China’s under martial law
Rock and Roller cola wars, I can’t take it anymore 

CHORUS x 4