Category: Topography

The Origin of the Piggy Bank

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During the 15th century, the English would often store coins within pygg pots or containers. During the 18th century these vessels became referred to as “piggy banks” which is where the modern day term is derived from. Piggy banks were called as such because of the pygg they were comprised of which is a type of clay, an inexpensive, orange colored earthenware clay used to produce everyday vessels within England from the 15th century onward (e.g. pitchers, cups, pots etc.). The primary reason for this is that metal has been costly all throughout history, due to the difficulty of sourcing and producing it from ore, and because of this expense, alongside the fact that pygg is more commonly available and found in larger quantities throughout England, the English public relied upon pygg containers to hold not only food and liquids but also spare coins and other small treasures

The Fallacy of Airplane Mode Disabling the Global Positioning System Tracking of Smartphones

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Even when Airplane Mode is activated, the Apple iPhone still receives signals from the global positioning system because this apparatus is a passive, receive only system which does not rely upon a cellular connection, WiFi connection, and/or Bluetooth connection to function. The iPhone scans and listens for satellites orbiting the Earth and calculates its relative position based upon this timing data, which means the iPhone can still determine a users location even without an internet connection, however if this is not desirable by the end user, Location Services can be disabled which theoretically turns this function off. This information is true for most modern smartphones including Android, however not all (e.g. smartphones manufactured prior to 2010, minimalistic/budget conscious smartphone designs, smartphones with custom firmware and/or enterprise restrictions like those managed by corporate information technology teams or running custom read only memory etc.)

The First Person to Publish an Encyclopedia

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Naturalis Historia was the first compiled collection of writing, which during the modern day would be referred to as an “encyclopedia.” Written by Pliny the Elder in the 1st century A.D., Naturalis Historia was divided into 37 unique books and contained more than 20,000 individual facts. Naturalis Historia was comprised of a vast array of subjects including astronomy, geography, zoology, botany, medicine, and even artwork, making it one of the most ambitious attempts in history to catalog and consolidate the entirety of human knowledge. Unlike earlier publications which often focused upon a singular discipline (e.g. medicine but not science or law but not ethics etc.), Pliny the Elder’s Naturalis Historia compilation sought to collect and streamline the entirety of the natural world and the human understanding of it into a single reference point. Pliny the Elder’s encyclopedic vision influenced scholars for centuries after his death, and his work served as one of the main pillars of Medieval and Renaissance education in the centuries which followed. Shortly after completing this compendium in 77 A.D., Pliny the Elder died during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 A.D. at age 55 whilst attempting to rescue those who could not escape from the volcano’s clutch. Fortunately, the entirety of his Naturalis Historia work survived this natural disaster

The Reason the Earth Becomes Colder When Closest to the Sun

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The Earth orbits the Sun in an elliptical path, meaning the distance between each body constantly fluctuates. Perihelion is the specific point in this orbit at which the Earth is closest to the Sun with this phenomena occurring near January 3rd annually. In contrast to this, aphelion, is when the Sun is at its farthest distance from the Earth, which occurs in July each year. Interestingly and counterintuitively, the Earth is coldest during its perihelion phase (when the sun is closest to the Earth) and warmest during aphelion (when the sun is furthest from the Earth). This paradox occurs because of the struggle between orbital distance and the 23.5 degree axial tilt of the Earth. Whilst the Earth is slightly closer to the Sun during the perihelion phase in early January, receiving 6% – 7% more solar energy than in July, the Northern Hemisphere is tilted away from the Sun which forces sunlight to strike the Earth’s ground at a more shallow angle, therefore spreading the light over a larger surface area and filtering it through more of the atmosphere. This reduction in heat overrides the slight shift of the Earth and Sun being closer or further away, as it is the tilt of the Earth, not the orbital proximity of the Sun which dictates both the 4 seasons as well as the perihelion/aphelion paradox. It should be noted, global temperatures peak in July because the Northern Hemisphere Continental Crust heats more rapidly than the Southern Hemispheres oceans

The Number of Gifts Santa Claus and the Elves Must Build and Deliver Each Christmas Eve

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Assuming Santa Claus delivers at least 1 gift to each child worldwide, this would equate to 2,100,000,000 (2.1 billion) gifts. With an average of 2.5 children per household worldwide, Claus would have to visit 840,000,000 (840 million) homes to accomplish this task. To finish this job in 24 hours (12 for each side of the world), Claus would need to visit 35,000,000 (35 million) homes per hour which would be 580,000 per minute, or nearly 10,000 every second! Because there are so many homes and so very many children, the elves of the North Pole face an equally grueling pace. Assuming each child receives 1 toy, and the build time is spread across 364 days, these elves would need to craft approximately 5,750,000 (5.75 million) toys per day. This would mean 240,000 toys per hour, 4,000 per minute, or nearly 70 every second without a work break for any of them. If the North Pole were to employ 100 elves, each would need to make 0.7 toys per second; and with a large company of 1000 elves, this value drops to 1 toy every 14 seconds which is more manageable; however with a massive company of 10,000 elves, each would only need to craft 1 toy every 2.5 minutes which would be much more probable for a workforce to achieve; if however the North Pole were capable of managing a city sized work force of 100,000 elves, each elf would need only to craft a single toy every 24 minutes which is a pace that a human powered North Pole, theoretically could handle. With that being said, mythologically speaking elves are immortal, or at the very least ageless, and they do possess arcane magic and clandestine knowledge which must be kept in mind when calculating what is theoretically possible

The Fallacy of Snowflakes Being Perfectly Symmetrical

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The 6 sided geometric symmetry observed within snowflakes is governed by the rigid molecular structure of hexagonal ice, which is the only crystalline form water can adopt within the Earth’s atmosphere, and the reason snowflakes always have 6 dendrites (points) like a hexagon. It is a common misconception that all snow crystals (snowflakes) exhibit perfect symmetry, as most often they do not possess this characteristic. It is true in the sense that at the microscopic molecular scale, snow crystals form perfectly, but it is untrue because at the macro, real world scale, anomalies virtually always form. This occurs because as the snow crystal becomes larger, water molecules no longer attach to develop and maintain a uniform orientation. Additionally, as the snow crystal grows and expands, factors of the ambient environment begin to influence it (e.g. effects of humidity and temperature etc.) causing the snow crystal to grow one way whilst in one position of a cloud and then grow in a completely different orientation once having been forcibly moved to a different spot within that same cloud. Because of this, it is rare but still possible to find a perfectly symmetrical snowflake. This explains why despite the complex and random nature of snow crystal growth, all 6 arms must align in every case and grow along the same 6 fixed 60 degree axes. If this does not occur, the snow crystal would violate the fundamental laws of energy minimization (to become most stable) dictated by the hydrogen bond lattice (framework connecting atoms within water), which would cause the structure of the snow crystal to become thermodynamically unstable and therefore highly prone to fracture

The Reason Human Beings Evolved to Become Bi-Pedal

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There is evidence that between 6,000,000 – 10,000,000 (6 million – 10 million) years ago, grasslands expanded across landscapes, creating vast open savannas, whilst tall grasses continued to remain dominant within wetter environments. These novel environments influenced the movement and adaptation of early human beings. It is theorized by scientists that human beings walked out of these evolving landscapes and adapted to the ground as humans were not evolved and/or adapted to take advantage of tall grasses the way other species are (e.g. snakes, mice, large cats etc.). It is also theorized by scientists that human beings needed to stand upright because the forests around them were thinning and with that, the canopy disappearing, making it virtually impossible to move from treetop to treetop as time moved forward. With the discovery of the hominid Anamensis, it is now clear to scientists that the tree of human ancestry follows its evolutionary order from Australopithecus Anamensis 4,200,000 (4.2 million) years ago, to Kenyanthropus Platyops, to Homo Habilis within the past 2,300,000 (2.3 million) years, to Homo Erectus, and finally to Homo Sapiens, the species to which modern day human beings belong to. Anamensis allows scientists to definitively state that bipedalism occurred 500,000 years earlier than what was previously believed as the tibia bone from Anamensis clearly demonstrates that Anamensis walked upright on both legs

How Plants Produce Food Via Photosynthesis

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If a leaf is magnified 1000x, green bacteria like structures can be observed, referred to as “chloroplasts,” which are packed into virtually every cell of a plant. These chloroplasts behave like bacteria, retaining their own deoxyribonucleic acid, and are only 5000ths of 1 millimeter (0.005 millimeters or 5 micrometers) in diameter. It is inside chloroplasts that photosynthesis occurs. Photons, which are tiny and rapid moving particles of electromagnetic energy (e.g. rays of light), are harvested upon the surface of the plant’s leaves, where they then enter the plant’s cells and are absorbed by the light harvesting complex located within the chloroplasts themselves. It is here that the photon is leveraged to drive the photolysis reaction, which is to split a water molecule and release oxygen, electrons, and hydrogen ions, fueling the energy transfer mechanisms that ultimately convert carbon dioxide into sugars for the plant’s growth and survival

The Reason Mercury’s Orbit Around the Sun Appears Retrograde From Earth

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Albert Einstein’s Theory of Relativity can be proven because of how Mercury orbits the Sun. Isaac Newton correctly explained how and why planets orbit the Sun, but because Mercury is so close to the Sun, it orbited its center star 7% faster than it should have therefore Mercury is close enough to the Sun that its space-time path is warped because of the mass of the Sun and this warping causes Mercury to orbit faster than planets further away. For many decades scientists hypothesized there was another planet, unseen yet, which gave Mercury an extra push. This additional planet was prematurely named “Vulcan”, which was in vain because no such planet ever existed. It was also theorized that cosmological dust gave Mercury its extra boost or that an unseen asteroid or asteroid field was helping Mercury along. It wasn’t until Albert Einstein proposed that all matter cuts through both space and time, following a curve, that the catalyst could be definitively proven. If a sphere rolled along a table and suddenly hit a dip, it would speed up and change its trajectory. This is essentially what occurs within space-time and is the reason Isaac Newton’s Universal Laws of Gravitation don’t quite fit with Mercury. Mercury is close enough to the Sun that its space-time path is warped because of the mass of the Sun and this warping causes Mercury to orbit faster than planets further away. It is not only Mercury which does this; any planet or body near its host star will orbit slightly faster than planets or bodies further away. Although it is impossible to visually see the curvature and bending of space-time, it can be definitively proven because of the way large bodies of matter affect smaller bodies of matter due to the mass of each body

The Lush Forests of Australia and Antarctica During the Mesozoic Period and the Reason Antarctica Became Cold

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Both Australia and Antarctica were once fused together as part of the supercontinent Gondwana, neither being an arid and hot landscape nor a cold desert but instead a vast and lush forest, larger than the Amazon Rainforest, spanning thousands of kilometers in size. The reason Antarctica is no longer temperate and forested is because in contrast to most shorelines which disrupt and disperse ocean currents upon contact with the coastline, the waters around Antarctica encircle it unobstructed, forming the Antarctic Circumpolar Current after the Drake Passage opened 34,000,000 (34 million) years ago. Because there is no land to stop this flow of water, it forces the current to become stronger and deeper over time. The Antarctic Circumpolar Current cut the continent of Antarctica off from the warm waters of the north, a thermal isolation further exacerbated by decreasing carbon dioxide levels over millions of years. In a mere 1,000,000 (1 million) years during a rapid cooling phase, although the full shift took tens of millions of years to complete, Antarctica transitioned from an appearance which resembled Australia during its wetter, forested period of the Cenozoic Era, to become a frozen tundra, virtually uninhabitable by humans until the mid 20th century, due to its subzero temperatures which consistently remain far below any other location upon Earth, as well as being locked in by vast ice sheets which formed 14,000,000 (14 million) years ago