Just being my usual dorky self.
Yesterday I was standing with Daniel outside our English classrooms, and one of his friends asked me if I was from Bosnia. He looked skeptical when I told him that no, neither I nor any members of my family were Bosnian.
I never get used to odd comments like that; although, usually it's "You look Russian, are you Russian?" Bosnian is a new one.
The Greeks were a bunch of arrogant gits and Morris Kline is a superasshole. I hope god picks apart his brains and feeds them to chickens.
Incidentally, I am very impressed with the concept of zero. Although I think the Mayas took it a little bit too far at times.
Biology in T minus two hours. Bleargh. I'm gonna need a tanker truck full of coffee to get through this, and we have a quiz tonight.
"Lost Discoveries: The Ancient Roots of Modern Science -from the Babylonians to the Maya" is a great book. Extremely fascinating- especially the part about the whole death by zero thing in Mayan culture. Here's an excerpt.
"To those who fear the mix of religion and science, zero holds even greater horrors. With the Maya, zero reached the proportions of a cult religion, and a bloodthirsty one. Not content with one symbol, like 0, for the number, the Maya needed many. There was the basic snail shape, a flower, a tattooed man with his head thrown back, and many others. Barbara Fash, of Harvard University's Peabody Museum, says the flower's centerpoint is a 'bed of creation,' the zero signifying both the beginning and completion of a cycle. The zero was an affirmation of life.
There was a dark side. When the end point of a sacred calendar coincided with the end point of a civil calendar, the Maya felt the need to fend off the death of the universe by killing Death himself. So they played a ball game, a kind of deadly Super Bowl, in which one opponent was the Hero and the other was the God of Zero, or Death. The game was staged, but the players were real people, and the injury and death they suffered was real also. The 'ball' was an important hostage, such as a captured king, who had been saved for the event. He was trussed up into a ball, and the Hero and the God of Zero kicked him back and forth, eventually killing the 'ball,' sometimes by rolling him down a flight of stairs. The fix was always in, and the Hero always won. The God of Zero would then be sacrificed by having his lower jaw torn off."
The Maya were obsessed with running out of time. Like, Time is a finite resource, and once we run through it all, the universe is gonna come crashing down on all our heads. The idea seemed to have really freaked them out, as they had at least three calendars going all at the same time.
It must have been really hectic living in the Mayan kingdom. More hectic than the subway at rush hour.
"WE'RE RUNNING OUT OF TIME!!!!!!!!!AAAAAAARRRRRGGGGHHH!!!!!!"
I never get used to odd comments like that; although, usually it's "You look Russian, are you Russian?" Bosnian is a new one.
The Greeks were a bunch of arrogant gits and Morris Kline is a superasshole. I hope god picks apart his brains and feeds them to chickens.
Incidentally, I am very impressed with the concept of zero. Although I think the Mayas took it a little bit too far at times.
Biology in T minus two hours. Bleargh. I'm gonna need a tanker truck full of coffee to get through this, and we have a quiz tonight.
"Lost Discoveries: The Ancient Roots of Modern Science -from the Babylonians to the Maya" is a great book. Extremely fascinating- especially the part about the whole death by zero thing in Mayan culture. Here's an excerpt.
"To those who fear the mix of religion and science, zero holds even greater horrors. With the Maya, zero reached the proportions of a cult religion, and a bloodthirsty one. Not content with one symbol, like 0, for the number, the Maya needed many. There was the basic snail shape, a flower, a tattooed man with his head thrown back, and many others. Barbara Fash, of Harvard University's Peabody Museum, says the flower's centerpoint is a 'bed of creation,' the zero signifying both the beginning and completion of a cycle. The zero was an affirmation of life.
There was a dark side. When the end point of a sacred calendar coincided with the end point of a civil calendar, the Maya felt the need to fend off the death of the universe by killing Death himself. So they played a ball game, a kind of deadly Super Bowl, in which one opponent was the Hero and the other was the God of Zero, or Death. The game was staged, but the players were real people, and the injury and death they suffered was real also. The 'ball' was an important hostage, such as a captured king, who had been saved for the event. He was trussed up into a ball, and the Hero and the God of Zero kicked him back and forth, eventually killing the 'ball,' sometimes by rolling him down a flight of stairs. The fix was always in, and the Hero always won. The God of Zero would then be sacrificed by having his lower jaw torn off."
The Maya were obsessed with running out of time. Like, Time is a finite resource, and once we run through it all, the universe is gonna come crashing down on all our heads. The idea seemed to have really freaked them out, as they had at least three calendars going all at the same time.
It must have been really hectic living in the Mayan kingdom. More hectic than the subway at rush hour.
"WE'RE RUNNING OUT OF TIME!!!!!!!!!AAAAAAARRRRRGGGGHHH!!!!!!"