Vital Knowledge
I'm currently reading the original novel version of The Planet of the Apes by Pierre Boulle (same guy who wrote The Bridge on the River Kwai, incidentally).
It's somewhat different than the movie version. In the book, the hero proves his intelligence to the primates not by saying "Get your paws off me, you damn dirty apes", but by drawing a proof of the Pythagorean Theorem, and also by sketching the three conic sections. That's when they realize he's a civilized being.
So, everyone go bone up on your geometry. It just might come in handy, should you ever find yourself being treated like a primitive being by your alien captors.
It's somewhat different than the movie version. In the book, the hero proves his intelligence to the primates not by saying "Get your paws off me, you damn dirty apes", but by drawing a proof of the Pythagorean Theorem, and also by sketching the three conic sections. That's when they realize he's a civilized being.
So, everyone go bone up on your geometry. It just might come in handy, should you ever find yourself being treated like a primitive being by your alien captors.