integratingreadinghshs.weebly.com · Web viewAnd never breathe a word about your loss; If you can...

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English Texts: Pages 1 - 8

If by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep you head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,

Or being hated don't give way to hating,

And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream-and not make dreams your master;

If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim,

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings,

And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them, "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,

And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

http://www.public-domain-poetry.com/rudyard-kipling/if-3275

The Seven Ages of Man by William Shakespeare

All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts, 5 His acts being seven ages. At first the infant, Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms; And then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel And shining morning face, creeping like snail Unwillingly to school. And then the lover, 10 Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier, Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard, Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel, Seeking the bubble reputation15 Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice, In fair round belly with good capon lined, With eyes severe and beard of formal cut, Full of wise saws and modern instances; And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts20 Into the lean and slippered pantaloon, With spectacles on nose and pouch on side; His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice, Turning again toward childish treble, pipes25 And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all, That ends this strange eventful history, Is second childishness and mere oblivion, Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

http://www.shakespeare-literature.com/As_You_Like_It/

Dickinson, Emily. “We Grow Accustomed to the Dark.” The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Boston: Little,Brown, 1960. (1890)

We grow accustomed to the Dark,

When Light is put away,

As when the Neighbor holds the Lamp

To witness her Goodbye.

A Moment—We uncertain step

For newness of the night,

Then fit our Vision to the Dark,

And meet the Road erect.

And so of larger Darknesses,

Those Evenings of the Brain,

When not a Moon disclose a sign,

Or Star, come out, within.

The Bravest grope a little

And sometimes hit a Tree

Directly in the Forehead,

But as they learn to see,

Either the Darkness alters

Or something in the sight

Adjusts itself to Midnight,

And Life steps almost straight.

http://www.corestandards.org/assets/Appendix_B.pdf

THE FOUR FREEDOMS

(excerpts from an address to the U.S. Congress by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, President of the United States, 1941)

...There is nothing mysterious about the foundations of a healthy and strong democracy. The basic things expected by our people of their political and economic systems are simple. They are:

Equality of opportunity for youth and for others.Jobs for those who can work.Security for those who need it.The ending of special privilege for the few.The preservation of civil liberties for all.The enjoyment of the fruits of scientific progress in a wider and constantly rising standard of living.

These are the simple and basic things that must never be lost sight of in the turmoil and unbelievable complexity of our modern world. The inner and abiding strength of our economic and political systems is dependent upon the degree to which they fulfill these expectations....

In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression -- everywhere in the world.

The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way -- everywhere in the world.

The third is freedom from want -- which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants everywhere in the world.

The fourth is freedom from fear -- which translated into world terms means a worldwide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor -- anywhere in the world.

That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. That kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called new order of tyranny which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb.

To that new order we oppose the greater conception -- the moral order. A good society is able to face schemes of world domination and foreign revolutions alike without fear.

Since the beginning of our American history we have been engaged in change -- in a perpetual peaceful revolution -- a revolution which goes on steadily, quietly adjusting itself to changing conditions -- without the concentration camp or the quicklime in the ditch. The world order which we seek is the cooperation of free countries, working together in a friendly, civilized society.

http://usinfo.org/enus/government/overview/fourfree.html


The "Spirit of Liberty" Speech

Judge Learned Hand Presented in 1944 during "I AM an American Day"

We have gathered here to affirm a faith, a faith in a common purpose, a common conviction, a common devotion.Some of us have chosen America as the land of our adoption; the rest have come from those who did the same. For this reason we have some right to consider ourselves a picked group, a group of those who had the courage to break from the past and brave the dangers and the loneliness of a strange land. What was the object that nerved us, or those who went before us, to this choice? We sought liberty - freedom from oppression, freedom from want, freedom to be ourselves. This then we sought; this we now believe that we are by way of winning. What do we mean when we say that first of all we seek liberty? I often wonder whether we do not rest our hopes too much upon constitutions, upon laws, and upon courts. These are false hopes; believe me, these are false hopes. Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it; no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it. While it lies there, it needs no constitution, no law, no court to save it. And what is this liberty which must lie in the hearts of men and women? It is not the ruthless, the unbridled will; it is not freedom to do as one likes. That is the denial of liberty, and leads straight to its overthrow. A society in which men recognize no check upon their freedom soon becomes a society where freedom is the possession of only a savage few - as we have learned to our sorrow.

What then is the spirit of liberty?I cannot define it; I can only tell you my own faith. The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which seeks to understand the minds of other men and women; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which weighs their interest alongside its own without bias; the spirit of liberty remembers that not even a sparrow falls to earth unheeded; the spirit of liberty is the spirit of him who, near two thousand years ago, taught mankind that lesson it has never learned, but has never quite forgotten - that there may be a kingdom where the least shall be heard and considered side-by-side with the greatest. And now in that spirit, that spirit of an American which has never been, and which may never be - nay, which never will be except as the conscience and courage of Americans create it - yet in the spirit of America which lies hidden in some form in the aspirations of us all; in the spirit of that America for which our young men are at this moment fighting and dying; in that spirit of liberty and of America so prosperous, and safe, and contented, we shall have failed to grasp its meaning, and shall have been truant to its promise, except as we strive to make it a signal, a beacon, a standard to which the best hopes of mankind will ever turn; In confidence that you share that belief, I now ask you to raise your hand and repeat with me this pledge: I pledge allegiance to the flag and to the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands--One nation, Indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Taken from Our Nation’s Archives: The History of the United States in Documents, edited by Erik Bruun and Jay Crosby, Black Dog & Levanthal Publishers, Inc. 1999.


ACT III of The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet (Excerpt)

SCENE I. A public place.

Enter TYBALT and others

TYBALT

Follow me close, for I will speak to them.Gentlemen, good den: a word with one of you.

MERCUTIO

And but one word with one of us? couple it withsomething; make it a word and a blow.

TYBALT

You shall find me apt enough to that, sir, an youwill give me occasion.

MERCUTIO

Could you not take some occasion without giving?

TYBALT

Mercutio, thou consort'st with Romeo,--

MERCUTIO

Consort! what, dost thou make us minstrels? anthou make minstrels of us, look to hear nothing butdiscords: here's my fiddlestick; here's that shallmake you dance. 'Zounds, consort!

BENVOLIO

We talk here in the public haunt of men:Either withdraw unto some private place,And reason coldly of your grievances,Or else depart; here all eyes gaze on us.

MERCUTIO

Men's eyes were made to look, and let them gaze;I will not budge for no man's pleasure, I.

Enter ROMEO

TYBALT

Well, peace be with you, sir: here comes my man.

MERCUTIO

But I'll be hanged, sir, if he wear your livery:Marry, go before to field, he'll be your follower;Your worship in that sense may call him 'man.'

TYBALT

Romeo, the hate I bear thee can affordNo better term than this,--thou art a villain.

ROMEO

Tybalt, the reason that I have to love theeDoth much excuse the appertaining rageTo such a greeting: villain am I none;Therefore farewell; I see thou know'st me not.

TYBALT

Boy, this shall not excuse the injuriesThat thou hast done me; therefore turn and draw.

ROMEO

I do protest, I never injured thee,But love thee better than thou canst devise,Till thou shalt know the reason of my love:And so, good Capulet,--which name I tenderAs dearly as my own,--be satisfied.

MERCUTIO

O calm, dishonourable, vile submission!Alla stoccata carries it away.

Draws

Tybalt, you rat-catcher, will you walk?

TYBALT

What wouldst thou have with me?

MERCUTIO

Good king of cats, nothing but one of your ninelives; that I mean to make bold withal, and as youshall use me hereafter, drybeat the rest of theeight. Will you pluck your sword out of his pitcherby the ears? make haste, lest mine be about yourears ere it be out.

TYBALT

I am for you.

Drawing

ROMEO

Gentle Mercutio, put thy rapier up.

MERCUTIO

Come, sir, your passado. They fight

ROMEO

Draw, Benvolio; beat down their weapons.Gentlemen, for shame, forbear this outrage!Tybalt, Mercutio, the prince expressly hathForbidden bandying in Verona streets:Hold, Tybalt! good Mercutio!

TYBALT under ROMEO's arm stabs MERCUTIO, and flies with his followers

MERCUTIO

I am hurt.A plague o' both your houses! I am sped.Is he gone, and hath nothing?

BENVOLIO

What, art thou hurt?

MERCUTIO

Ay, ay, a scratch, a scratch; marry, 'tis enough.Where is my page? Go, villain, fetch a surgeon.

Exit Page

ROMEO

Courage, man; the hurt cannot be much.

MERCUTIO

No, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as achurch-door; but 'tis enough,'twill serve: ask forme to-morrow, and you shall find me a grave man. Iam peppered, I warrant, for this world. A plague o'both your houses! 'Zounds, a dog, a rat, a mouse, acat, to scratch a man to death! a braggart, arogue, a villain, that fights by the book ofarithmetic! Why the devil came you between us? Iwas hurt under your arm.

ROMEO

I thought all for the best.

MERCUTIO

Help me into some house, Benvolio,Or I shall faint. A plague o' both your houses!They have made worms' meat of me: I have it,And soundly too: your houses!

Exeunt MERCUTIO and BENVOLIO

http://shakespeare.mit.edu/romeo_juliet/full.html

Science Texts: Pages 9 - 11

Cannon, Annie J. “Classifying the Stars.” The Universe of Stars. Edited by Harlow Shapeley and Cecilia H. Payne.

Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Observatory, 1926. (1926)

Sunlight and starlight are composed of waves of various lengths, which the eye, even aided by a telescope, is unable to separate. We must use more than a telescope. In order to sort out the component colors, the light must be dispersed by a prism, or split up by some other means. For instance, sunbeams passing through rain drops, are transformed into the myriad-tinted rainbow. The familiar rainbow spanning the sky is Nature’s most glorious demonstration that light is composed of many colors.

The very beginning of our knowledge of the nature of a star dates back to 1672, when Isaac Newton gave to the world the results of his experiments on passing sunlight through a prism. To describe the beautiful band of rainbow tints, produced when sunlight was dispersed by his three-cornered piece of glass, he took from the Latin the word spectrum, meaning an appearance. The rainbow is the spectrum of the Sun.

In 1814, more than a century after Newton, the spectrum of the Sun was obtained in such purity that an amazing detail was seen and studied by the German optician, Fraunhofer. He saw that the multiple spectral tings, ranging from delicate violet to deep red, were crossed by hundreds of fine dark lines. In other words, there were narrow gaps in the spectrum where certain shades were wholly blotted out. We must remember that the word spectrum is applied not only to sunlight, but also to the light of any glowing substance when its rays are sorted out by a prism or a grating.


Bronowski, Jacob, and Millicent Selsam. Biography of an Atom. New York: Harper, 1965. (1965)

The birth began in a young star. A young star is a mass of hydrogen nuclei. Because the star is hot (about thirteen million degrees at the center), the nuclei cannot hold on to their electrons. The electrons wander around. The nuclei of hydrogen—that is, the protons—are moving about very fast too. From time to time one proton runs headlong into another. When this happens, one of the protons loses its electric charge and changes into a neutron. The pair then cling together as a single nucleus of heavy hydrogen. This nucleus will in time capture another proton. Now there is a nucleus with two protons and one neutron, called light helium. When two of these nuclei smash into each other, two protons are expelled in the process. This creates a nucleus of helium with two protons and two neutrons.

This is the fundamental process of fusion by which the primitive hydrogen of the universe is built up into a new basic material, helium. In this process, energy is given off in the form of heat and light that make the stars shine. It is the first stage in the birth of the heavier atoms.


"Chapter 7.2 Page193." Glencoe Physical Science With Earth Science. N.p.: Glencoe/McGraw-Hill School Pub, 2008. N. pag. Print.

Social Studies Texts: Pages 12 - 16

Bonjove Jevtic Eyewitness Accountone of the leaders of the Narodna Odbrana who was arrested with Gavrilo Princip, the assassin of Archduke Ferdinand - an eyewitness account

HistoryWiz Primary Source

A tiny clipping from a newspaper, mailed without comment from a secret band of terrorists in Zagreb, capital of Croatia, to their comrades in Belgrade, was the torch which set the world afire with war in 1914. That bit of paper wrecked old, proud empires. It gave birth to new, free nations. I was one of the members of the terrorist band in Belgrade which received it.

The little clipping declared that the Austrian Archduke Francis Ferdinand would visit Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia, June 28, to direct army maneuvers in the neighboring mountains. It reached our meeting place, the cafe called Zlatna Moruna, one night the latter part of April, 1914. To understand how great a sensation that little piece of paper caused among us when it was passed from hand to hand almost in silence, and how greatly it inflamed our hearts, it is necessary to explain just why the Narodna Odbrana existed, the kind of men that were in it, and the significance of that date, June 28, on which the Archduke dared to enter Sarajevo.

As everyone knows, the old Austrio-Hungarian Empire was built by conquest and intrigues, by sales and treacheries, which held [...] men of the upper classes were ardent patriots. They were dissimilar in everything except hatred of the oppressor. Such were the men into whose hands the tiny bit of newsprint was sent by friends in Bosnia that April night in Belgrade. At a small table in a very humble cafe, beneath a flickering gas jet we sat and read it. There was no advice nor admonition sent with it. Only four letters and two numerals were sufficient to make us unanimous, without discussion, as to what we should do about it.

They were conived [sic] in Sarajevo all the twenty-two conspirators were in their allotted positions, armed and ready. They were distributed five hundred yards apart over the whole route along which the Archduke must travel from the railroad station to the town hall. When Francis Ferdinand and his retinue drove from the station they were allowed to pass the first two conspirators. The motor cars were driving too fast to make an attempt feasible and in the crowd were many Serbians; throwing a grenade would have killed many innocent people. When the car passed Gabrinovic, the compositor, he threw his grenade. It hit the side of the car, but Francis Ferdinand with presence of mind threw himself back and was uninjured. Several officers riding in his attendance were injured.

The cars sped to the Town Hall and the rest of the conspirators did not interfere with them. After the reception in the Town Hall General Potiorek, the Austrian Commander, pleaded with Francis Ferdinand to leave the city, as it was seething with rebellion. The Archduke was persuaded to drive the shortest way out of the city and to go quickly. The road to the maneuvers was shaped like the letter V, making a sharp turn at the bridge over the River Milgacka. Francis Ferdinand's car could go fast enough until it reached this spot but here it was forced to slow down for the turn. Here Princip had taken his stand. As the car came abreast he stepped forward from the curb, drew his automatic pistol from his coat and fired two shots. The first struck the wife of the Archduke, the Archduchess Sofia, in the abdomen. She was an expectant mother. She died instantly. The second bullet struck the Archduke close to the heart. He uttered only one word, 'Sofia' -- a call to his stricken wife. Then his head fell back and he collapsed. He died almost instantly.

The officers seized Princip. They beat him over the head with the flat of their swords. They knocked him down, they kicked him, scraped the skin from his neck with the edges of their swords, tortured him, all but killed him. The next day they put chains on Princip's feet, which he wore till his death.... I was placed in the cell next to Princip's, and when Princip was taken out to walk in the prison yard I was taken along as his companion... Awakened in the middle of the night and told that he was to be carried off to another prison, Princip made an appeal to the prison governor:

'There is no need to carry me to another prison. My life is already ebbing away. I suggest that you nail me to a cross and burn me alive. My flaming body will be a torch to light my people on their path to freedom.'

George Kennan and “containment” of communism

Purpose: Consider the following statement by Joseph Stalin, and then read George Kennan’s response below. Also consider the early Cold War era under President Truman. Was Kennan’s assessment accurate?

“One can ask therefore, what can be surprising in the fact that the Soviet Union, in a desire to ensure its security for the future, tries to achieve that these countries should have governments whose relations to the Soviet Union are loyal? How can one, without having lost one's reason, qualify these peaceful aspirations of the Soviet Union as "expansionist tendencies" of our Government?”

--Joseph Stalin, 1946

“It is clear that the United States cannot expect in the foreseeable future to enjoy political intimacy with the Soviet regime. It must continue to regard the Soviet Union as a rival, not a partner, in the political arena. It must continue to expect that Soviet policies will reflect no abstract love of peace and stability, no real faith in the possibility of a permanent happy coexistence of the Socialist and capitalist worlds, but rather a cautious, persistent pressure toward the disruption and, weakening of all rival influence and rival power.

Balanced against this are the facts that Russia, as opposed to the western world in general, is still by far the weaker party, that Soviet policy is highly flexible, and that Soviet society may well contain deficiencies which will eventually weaken its own total potential. This would of itself warrant the United States entering with reasonable confidence upon a policy of firm containment, designed to confront the Russians with unalterable counter-force at every point where they show signs of encroaching upon the interests of a peaceful and stable world.”

--George Kennan, from The Sources of Soviet Conduct, 1947 (published in Foreign Affairs magazine under the guise of “Mr. X.”

Modern History Sourcebook: Winston S. Churchill:"Iron Curtain Speech", March 5, 1946

Winston Churchill gave this speech at Westminster College, in Fulton, Missouri, after receiving an honorary degree. With typical oratorical skills, Church introduced the phrase "Iron Curtain" to describe the division between Western powers and the area controlled by the Soviet Union. As such the speech marks the onset of the Cold War. The speech was very long, and here excerpts are presented.

The United States stands at this time at the pinnacle of world power. It is a solemn moment for the American democracy. For with this primacy in power is also joined an awe-inspiring accountability to the future. As you look around you, you must feel not only the sense of duty done, but also you must feel anxiety lest you fall below the level of achievement. Opportunity is here now, clear and shining, for both our countries. To reject it or ignore it or fritter it away will bring upon us all the long reproaches of the aftertime. It is necessary that constancy of mind, persistency of purpose, and the grand simplicity of decision shall rule and guide the conduct of the English-speaking peoples in peace as they did in war. We must, and I believe we shall, prove ourselves equal to this severe requirement. I have a strong admiration and regard for the valiant Russian people and for my wartime comrade, Marshal Stalin. There is deep sympathy and goodwill in Britain -- and I doubt not here also -- toward the peoples of all the Russias and a resolve to persevere through many differences and rebuffs in establishing lasting friendships. It is my duty, however, to place before you certain facts about the present position in Europe. From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia; all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject, in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and in some cases increasing measure of control from Moscow. The safety of the world, ladies and gentlemen, requires a unity in Europe, from which no nation should be permanently outcast. It is from the quarrels of the strong parent races in Europe that the world wars we have witnessed, or which occurred in former times, have sprung. Twice the United States has had to send several millions of its young men across the Atlantic to fight the wars. But now we all can find any nation, wherever it may dwell, between dusk and dawn. Surely we should work with conscious purpose for a grand pacification of Europe within the structure of the United Nations and in accordance with our Charter. In a great number of countries, far from the Russian frontiers and throughout the world, Communist fifth columns are established and work in complete unity and absolute obedience to the directions they receive from the Communist center. Except in the British Commonwealth and in the United States where Communism is in its infancy, the Communist parties or fifth columns constitute a growing challenge and peril to Christian civilization. The outlook is also anxious in the Far East and especially in Manchuria. The agreement which was made at Yalta, to which I was a party, was extremely favorable to Soviet Russia, but it was made at a time when no one could say that the German war might not extend all through the summer and autumn of 1945 and when the Japanese war was expected by the best judges to last for a further eighteen months from the end of the German war. I repulse the idea that a new war is inevitable -- still more that it is imminent. It is because I am sure that our fortunes are still in our own hands and that we hold the power to save the future, that I feel the duty to speak out now that I have the occasion and the opportunity to do so. I do not believe that Soviet Russia desires war. What they desire is the fruits of war and the indefinite expansion of their power and doctrines. But what we have to consider here today while time remains, is the permanent prevention of war and the establishment of conditions of freedom and democracy as rapidly as possible in all countries. Our difficulties and dangers will not be removed by closing our eyes to them. They will not be removed by mere waiting to see what happens; nor will they be removed by a policy of appeasement. What is needed is a settlement, and the longer this is delayed, the more difficult it will be and the greater our dangers will become. From what I have seen of our Russian friends and allies during the war, I am convinced that there is nothing they admire so much as strength, and there is nothing for which they have less respect than for weakness, especially military weakness. For that reason the old doctrine of a balance of power is unsound. We cannot afford, if we can help it, to work on narrow margins, offering temptations to a trial of strength. Last time I saw it all coming and I cried aloud to my own fellow countrymen and to the world, but no one paid any attention. Up till the year 1933 or even 1935, Germany might have been saved from the awful fate which has overtaken her and we might all have been spared the miseries Hitler let loose upon mankind. There never was a war in history easier to prevent by timely action than the one which has just desolated such great areas of the globe. It could have been prevented, in my belief, without the firing of a single shot, and Germany might be powerful, prosperous and honored today; but no one would listen and one by one we were all sucked into the awful whirlpool. We must not let it happen again. This can only be achieved by reaching now, in 1946, a good understanding on all points with Russia under the general authority of the United Nations Organization and by the maintenance of that good understanding through many peaceful years, by the whole strength of the English-speaking world and all its connections. If the population of the English-speaking Commonwealth be added to that of the United States, with all that such cooperation implies in the air, on the sea, all over the globe, and in science and in industry, and in moral force, there will be no quivering, precarious balance of power to offer its temptation to ambition or adventure. On the contrary there will be an overwhelming assurance of security. If we adhere faithfully to the Charter of the United Nations and walk forward in sedate and sober strength, seeking no one's land or treasure, seeking to lay no arbitrary control upon the thoughts of men, if all British moral and material forces and convictions are joined with your own in fraternal association, the high roads of the future will be clear, not only for us but for all, not only for our time but for a century to come. Winston Churchill - March 5, 1946

This text is part of the Internet Modern History Sourcebook. The Sourcebook is a collection of public domain and copy-permitted texts for introductory level classes in modern European and World history. Permission is granted for electronic copying, distribution in print form for educational purposes and personal use. If you do reduplicate the document, indicate the source. No permission is granted for commercial use of the Sourcebook. (c)Paul Halsall Aug 1997 [email protected]

Math Texts: Pages 17 - 19

Hakim, Joy. The Story of Science: Newton at the Center. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Books, 2005. (2005)

Probability, a branch of mathematics, began with gambling. Pierre de Fermat (of the famous Last Theorem),

Blaise Pascal, and the Bernoullis wanted to know the mathematical odds of winning at the card table. Probability didn’t tell them for certain that they would or wouldn’t draw an ace; it just told them how likely it was. A deck of 52 cards has 4

aces, so the odds of the first drawn card being an ace are 4 in 52 (or 1in 13).

If 20 cards have been played and not an ace among them, those odds improve to 4 in 32 (1in 8). Always keep in mind that probability is about the likelihood of outcomes, not the certainty. If there are only 4 cards left in the deck, and no aces have been played, you can predict with certainty that the next card will be an ace—but you’re not using probability; you’re using fact. Probability is central to the physics that deals with the complex world inside atoms. We can’t determine the action of an individual particle, but with a large number of atoms, predictions based on probability become very accurate.


Nicastro, Nicholas. Circumference: Eratosthenes and the Ancient Quest to Measure the Globe. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2008. (2008) From “The Astrolabe”

Nicastro, Nicholas. Circumference: Eratosthenes and the Ancient Quest to Measure the Globe. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2008. (2008)

From “The Astrolabe”

The astrolabe (in Greek, “star reckoner”) is a manual computing and observation device with myriad uses in astronomy, time keeping, surveying, navigation, and astrology. The principles behind the most common variety, the planispheric astrolabe, were first laid down in antiquity by the Greeks, who pioneered the notion of projecting three dimensional images on flat surfaces. The device reached a high degree of refinement in the medieval Islamic world, where it was invaluable for determining prayer times and the direction of Mecca from anywhere in the Muslim world. The astrolabe was introduced to Europe by the eleventh century, where is saw wide use until the Renaissance.

The fundamental innovation underlying the astrolabe was the projection of an image of the sky (usually the northern hemisphere, centered on Polaris) on a plane corresponding to the earth’s equator. This image, which was typically etched on a brass plate, was inserted into a round frame (the mater) whose circumference was marked in degrees or hours. Over the plate was fitted a lattice-work disk, the rete, with pointers to indicate the positions of major stars. A metal hand, similar to those on a clock, was hinged with the rete at the center of the instrument, as was a sighting vane (the alidade) for determining the angular height of the stars or other features, such as mountaintops. The entire device was usually not more than six to eight inches in diameter and half an inch thick.

One common use of the astrolabe was to determine the time of day, even after dark.

Other uses included determination of sunrise, and sunset times for any date past or future, predicting eclipses, finding important stars or constellations, and measuring the height of earthbound objects and the circumference of the earth. For this and other reasons, the astrolabe has been called “the world’s first personal computer.”


Devlin, Keith. Life by the Numbers. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1999. (1999)

From Chapter 3: “Patterns of Nature”

Though animals come in many shapes and sizes, there are definite limits on the possible size of an animal of a particular shape. King Kong simply could not exist, for instance. As Labarbara has calculated, if you were to take a gorilla and blow it up to the size of King Kong, its weight would increase by more than 14,000 times but the size of its bones would increase by only a few hundred times. Kong’s bones would simply not be able to support his body. He would collapse under his own weight!

And the same is true for all those giant locusts, giant ants, and the like. Imagining giants—giant people, giant animals, or giant insects—might prove the basis for an entertaining story, but the rules of science say that giants could not happen. You can’t have a giant anything. If you want to change size, you have to change to overall design. The reason is quite simple. Suppose you double the height (or length) of any creature, say, a gorilla. The weight will increase 8 times (i.e., 2 cubed), but the cross section of the bones will increase only fourfold (2 squared). Or, if you increase the height of the gorilla 10 times, the weight will increase, 1,000 times (10 cubed), but the cross-sectional area of the bones will increase only 100 times (10 squared). In general, when you increase the height by a certain factor, the weight will increase by the cube of that factor but the cross section of the bone will increase only by the square of that factor.


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8

If

by

Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep you head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait

and not be tired by waiting,

Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,

Or being hated don't give way to hating,

And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream

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and not make dreams your master;

If you can think

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and not mak

e thoughts your aim,

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build 'em up with worn

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out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch

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and

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toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings,

And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can

force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them, "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with Kings

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nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that's

in it,

And

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which is more

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you'll be a Man, my son!

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