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Thoughts for the pessimists
What makes your brain tick?
According to researchers,
any part of your body, if you don't use it you lose it, and particularly your
brain, the more you use it the more brainy you become.
Here's some of the
amazing people who use their brain:
Do you know why we choose to use 'clockwise' to tell the
time?
If you put a stick vertically in the ground on a sunny morning, and mark where
the shadow of the stick points at hourly intervals - 10am, 11am, 12 Noon, 1pm,
2pm, 3pm etc.
You will notice something interesting when you stand south of the
stick and look at the stick shadow movements.
Where is the mark at 12 Noon?
How about the marks for 1pm or 2pm and 3pm?
Then you will realize that the sun's daily motion across the southern sky
determines the 'clockwise' motion of the shadow.
And did you know that the Greek philosopher Eratosthenes (back in ca.194 B.C.E.)
did just that so many centuries ago?
And even more amazing, Eratosthenes was able to calculate the circumference and
the diameter of the earth from the angles (degrees) of the stick shadows, almost
as accurate as the satellite measured figures of today.
(Well, to be exact, Eratosthenes was 4% off what we know today
as the earth's circumference, 24,887.64 miles and its diameter, 7926 miles).
Sundials:
And did you know that a sundial designed for London will work
in Australia, but the numbers run counter-clockwise.
In the southern Hemisphere,
where the sun is always to the north, clockwise would have been in the opposite
direction.
At noon, the shadow would point due south, but still move eastwards
as the day drew on.
Mantra: ‘You can't cure brain death but you can prevent it.
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