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Showing posts with the label European history

How a Deaf Beethoven, Composed Wonderful Music That Survived Beyond His Grave

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  A composer who was deaf? That's really something to think about. Ludwig Van Beethoven gradually lost his hearing. It may have been caused by a lack of knowledge about lead poisoning at that time. The ZME Science gives this interesting detail on how Beethoven coped with his gradual hearing loss: Despite living in pain, Beethoven did not give up. However, he had a helping hand. In order to continue composing and playing music, Beethoven stumbled across a physical phenomenon that is central to hearing: bone conduction . At the time, scientists understood very little about how human hearing works. But despite the fact that his ears left him, he could still hear himself playing music by placing one end of a wooden stick onto his piano and clenching on the other end with his teeth. When notes were struck, the vibrations from the piano were transferred to his jaw, and from there directly to his inner ear. Miraculously, he could hear again! Bone conduction was born. Sound is nothing mor...

Why I Think Banning the Mention of Hitler on Facebook is STUPID

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Getty Images It's crazy how reporting a comment with the word "Hitler" can get anyone banned. For example, this is what I found on Quora : They should be allowed. there are quotes of his that are not in praise of hitler but showing how he thought so that people are critical of their current leaders . For example, here’s a quote by him “ How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don't think.” This is a perfect example of why Hitler quotes should be allowed; to show how dictators think and how people should be critical. Yes, he started a giant war and murdered people but censoring what he said will only help the next dictator start more wars and murder more people because people forgot about Hitler . This is why the First Amendment is so important: it’s about communication and freedom so that we all make better decisions in the future. I just told someone that Adolf Hitler seized the means of production and I got a strike. Like what? I wonder what ...

Learning About Archimedes of Syracuse in the History of Calculus

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It's very easy to say that Isaac Newton introduced the wondrous tool of calculus. Maybe, learning how to implement physics into calculus. However, one can think that the history of mathematics is very long. As far as history permits, we can learn about the mathematics of the Greeks. A lot of ancient structures are a testament to the usage of engineering mathematics in ancient times. From MacTutor , I would like to share this amazing fact about Archimedes of Syracuse with his amazing discovery: Archimedes was the greatest mathematician of his age. His contributions in geometry revolutionised the subject and his methods anticipated the integral calculus. He was a practical man who invented a wide variety of machines including pulleys and the Archimidean screw pumping device. At first, mathematics in the classroom feels dull and lifeless. I think it's because there's hardly any exposure to the applications. I felt that too that it was a dull mental exercise. I found in college...