18 outubro 2017

Historians have just discovered the oldest reference to the...



Historians have just discovered the oldest reference to the mathematical concept of “zero” in India. The concept of zero as a number was revolutionary in mathematics. In Eurasia, the idea came from India (and the Mayans separately invented it hundreds of years late in the Americas) but exactly when zero was first conceived in India is a bit of a mystery. Now, we have a potential clue: the Bakhshali manuscript, which a farmer dug up the text from a field in 1881 in the village of Bakhshali, near Peshawar in what is today Pakistan. It consists of 70 leaves of birch bark and contains hundreds of zeros in the form of dots. Why was it only just discovered, if the farmer dug it up over 100 years ago?

People knew what it was, and knew it zeros throughout the text. But they thought the Bakhshali manuscript was written between the 700s and the 1100s CE. Since the oldest then-known written reference to zero was the Indian astronomer Brahmagupta’s work “Brahmasphutasiddhanta,” which was written in 628 CE, the Bakhshali manuscript was a lot less exciting. It was a mathematical manuscript utilizing the newly-invented concept of zero, which astronomers had been using for at least a couple decades before the Bakhshali.

But recent, more advanced carbon dating resulted in three different dates for different parts of the Bakhshali manuscript. It appears now to be not one document but several, put together. And the oldest part dated to 224 to 383 CE! That is hundreds of years before Brahmagupta! Two other parts dated to 680 to 779 CE, and 885 to 993 CE, which is probably why earlier analyses got the manuscript’s age wrong.

If further tests confirm the findings, the Bakhshali manuscript moves up when zero was invented to the same time the Roman Empire was falling to barbarians, the Three Kingdoms Period was reordering China, and Teotihuacan was near the heights of its power.

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The Psychology of Emotional and Cognitive Empathy

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Isn't historical non fiction just history?

Originally, the name of the blog was intended to be quirky! And “history” was already taken.

These days, however, it is also a statement of purpose. The blog attempts to tell people about history accurately, and truthfully. Reporting history as it is currently understood. Sadly, history is often used these days to tell lies and misinformation.

Now, historical-nonfiction will be biased. That is because all history is biased. It is based on whose story we emphasize, who wrote things down, and going back to archaeology, to whose artifacts survived.

Some facts are just facts. Abraham Lincoln was born in 1809. But that is biased to the western, Christian calendar. Lincoln was born in 5569, according to the Jewish calendar. Lincoln was born in 4507, according to the Chinese calendar. You can see how Abraham Lincoln’s birth year can be reported accurately and truthfully, but no matter how we report his birth year, there will be a bias. And birth years are about as clear-cut as history gets!

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Dorothy “Dodo” Cheney was the first American woman...



Dorothy “Dodo” Cheney was the first American woman to win an Australian Open singles title in 1938. But that was just the beginning of her long career. She retired from competitive tennis in 2012 – at the age of ninety-five! At the time of her retirement, Dodo had won a record 394 US national titles.

When asked why she had continued to play for over seventy years, Dodo replied, “Because I love winning.”

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What Lurks Below NASA’s Chamber A?


Hidden beneath Chamber A at the Johnson Space Center is an area engineers used to test critical contamination control technology that has helped keep our James Webb Space Telescope clean during cryogenic testing.

from NASA http://ift.tt/2gjAzIb
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VISIT –> http://ift.tt/1eWNk1f for quality...



VISIT –> http://ift.tt/1eWNk1f for quality psychology information and resources.

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VISIT –> http://ift.tt/1eWNk1f for quality...



VISIT –> http://ift.tt/1eWNk1f for quality psychology information and resources.

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