On March 11, 2011, East Japan was hit by one of the most devastating tsunamis the world had ever seen,officially named the Great East Japan Tsunami. The world waited in despair as the people of Japan braced themselves for the tsunami triggered by a massive 9.0 earthquake, the most powerful to hit the country. When the wave finally came, cars, houses and whole buildings were instantly swept away. On that day itself, 17,000 people had gone missing, leaving 10,000 dead. But the worst was yet to come. Four nuclear plants in Fukushima Daiichi overheated when the tsunami killed the power lines, causing their coolers to stop working. Explosions soon followed, and then the radiation began to leak.

As far as tsunamis go, the actual size of the tsunami, which was 10 metres, was the not biggest ever, in fact, it was comparatively small. A tsunami in 1958 in Lituya Bay, Alaska, USA, for example, reached 524 metres. However, because it hit a fairly isolated area, very few people died. In contrast, 20,000 people died in the Great East Japan Tsunami at last count, which is again, fairly little compared to the Asian Tsunami of 2004 where 230,000 people died.

What marks the Great East Japan Tsunami as so uniquely tragic is the suffering that not only Japan, but the rest of the world will have to endure. Radiation has already been found in the rainwater that fell on Boston, USA. Seafood may now be radioactive because the amount of radioactive tap water in Japan has become simply too much for the resilient country to contain, and they have been forced to throw the contaminated water into the ocean.

And all because of a tsunami.

Tsunami is a Japanese word which literally translated means “harbour wave”. It is fitting that the Japanese named it because they have unfortunately been afflicted with 195 tsunamis. However, tsunamis have been endangering mankind since approximately 6100 BC, the year when the first tsunami was recorded in the Norwegian Sea.

A tsunami approaching a coast.

Tsunamis are a result of the earth’s continental plates shifting against each other. But it’s not as simple as that.  If the plates just grind against each other as a strike-slip motion, a tsunami is not very likely. They only occur if there is vertical displacement. That is, when one of the crusts acts as a paddle, transferring the energy of the underwater earthquake to the other crust, creating a wave of water. This wave of water, which starts out harmless enough could be, by the end of its journey to the coast of an unfortunate land, up to 260m – like the tsunami in Spirit Lake, Washington, USA in 1980.

The wave of the Asian Tsunami of 2004.

Tsunamis are one of the most dangerous destroyers in the world. Some bright (and somewhat misguided) minds recognised that and picked up on the idea to use a tsunami as a weapon. In 1999, it was discovered that during World War II, in 1944 and 1945, scientists in Auckland were testing a tidal wave bomb. The American government in particular were supportive of the project, for if perfected, it could have been as deadly as a nuclear bomb. However, the project was scrapped when the man made tsunamis never got to a threatening enough size and theoretical flaws were found.

The destinies of nuclear power and tsunamis have long been intertwined. Today, tsunamis can be triggered by using nuclear power to create vertical displacement, though certainly not on the same scale as a natural tsunami. On May 11th 2011, their fates intertwined yet again, in a way that no one could have predicted. In Japan now, the plant workers are, at this moment, working to contain the radiation, with the fate of Fukushima and the rest of the world in their hands.

“The dog was dead. There was a garden fork sticking out of the dog. […] The dog was called Wellington. [...] I wondered who had killed Wellington and why.”

After reading just the first page of Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, which won the Whitbread Book of the Year award, you feel compelled to read more – if only to find out who killed Wellington. That is just how Mark Haddon intended it to be. His rationale was “Who on Earth is going to want to read about a fifteen-year-old kid with a disability living in [Swindon, London] with his father?”

However, as you read on, you find that it is not so much the plot that compels you to keep reading – but rather the extraordinary main character: Christopher Boone, the story’s narrator. Christopher, a 15 year old boy with Asperger’s syndrome, can tell you every country in the world and their capital cities and every prime number up to 7, 507. But he finds feelings baffling.

The book dives into Christopher’s unusual mind, and much of what makes the book so fascinating is Christopher’s quirks, characteristics, likes and dislikes. This is what makes the book unique. He is a fan of Sherlock Holmes – whose adventures are his motive for telling the story – thus the title of the book is taken from a remark made by Sherlock Holmes’ in the short story “Silver Blaze” written by Arthur Conan Doyle; he is also a fan of prime numbers – the chapters are numbered by prime numbers.

However, when on some pages every sentence starts with “and” you start feel a little annoyed. Yet you can’t help but feel refreshed by it as it adds to the books authenticity. Much of the rest of the book invokes a similar love/hate relationship with Christopher himself and the people around him, which gives you a sense of the way Christopher’s mind works and how differently he feels (or doesn’t feel) in certain situations.

Mark Haddon

Although Mark Haddon used to work with children with autism, it was way back when – when autism didn’t even have a name. Contrary to popular belief, the book was not intended as a book about autism, but started as one about a poodle that was killed by a pitch fork. As he continued writing, Haddon found that it was a funny story, but only because of the voice he was writing the story with – Christopher’s.

Ironically, though feelings confuse Christopher, his story makes many readers feel like crying while reading one page, and laughing while reading the next. It is this effect that makes the book so special, un-put-downable and re-readable – and thanks to this book’s extraordinary insight into a mind so different from our own, after reading this story, you may never see the world in the same way again.

“Er… I’m home schooled.”

My answer would attract weird looks, confusion and disbelief, so much so that I’ve come to dread the question.

I am not home schooled because of a disability or even because our school system is poor. In fact, much to the incredulity of many, my parents chose to home school my younger brother and I. Seeing as they resided in a country where when people are told that you are home schooled they are most thoroughly confused; this was very brave of them. When they first started home schooling, which was practically from my birth in 1995, it was the late ‘90s, and home schoolers were very, very scarce.

Andrea; 5 days old.

“Home schooled? School… at home? Got such a thing, ah?” People would ask. The answer is yes, got. Another frequently asked question would be, why did your parents decide to home school you? The answer could be that they breastfed me from the beginning (another abnormality in a small town) and it just evolved from there. Or that I did go to kindergarten for about three weeks but I didn’t like how they forced me to study.

I was born in Ipoh, Malaysia, and lived there till I was seven. It was an idyllic childhood in Ipoh – which is a rather sleepy, small town. Thus, Ipoh is one of the last places you would expect to meet a home schooled kid.

My brother and I in Ipoh.

Living in Ipoh was very peaceful, if stagnant; we could ride our bikes in the lane behind our house, and draw on our concrete backyard. However, it certainly was not the case where because we were home schooled we did nothing all day long. We did do activities – to an extent.

When I was two I asked for a violin. This proved to be a pickle, as at that time, there were no violin teachers in Ipoh. Not a single one. Fortunately (or unfortunately), there were piano teachers there. So my ever devoted parents coerced a piano teacher to teach me the violin.

Of course, given the circumstances, things did not work out. My violin was much too big and heavy for me, and in a few months time, I had stopped playing the violin. I have always wondered what if I hadn’t stopped the violin, to be honest. If I had started at that age with a good teacher, well, the possibilities are endless. But you can’t rewind time, and it was not till several years ago that I picked up it violin again, and now it is a central part of my life.

The violin is now a central part of my life.

When I was seven, we moved to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia’s capital. KL was very different from Ipoh. For example, in Ipoh everywhere is more or less 15 minutes from each other. But now we had to deal with KL’s immense traffic jams (at least they seemed to be immense, compared to Ipoh’s tinier ones, but no doubt are tiny compared to Hong Kong’s or New York’s). We sold our 20 year old Mercedes which we nicknamed “Benny”.

I had been promised it as my car when I was old enough to drive, but I didn’t mind Benny being sold too much as there were various insects, including a cockroach or two, living in him. In fact, I was relieved. To this day, cockroaches have scared the living daylights out of me. I don’t know if it is their disgusting antennas, the fact that they carry diseases, their tiny, plentiful legs (I am not sure how many they have, as I have never been curious enough to check, but they sure can run fast) or their yucky brown, muddy colour. For me, they are just gross, gross, GROSS.

Anyhow, it was here, in KL, that a huge part of my life would commence. I started tae-kwon-do (a Korean art of self-defence; a variation of karate) in Ipoh, but back then I wasn’t too good at it. But when we moved to KL, all that changed. If I’ve learnt anything in life so far (besides learning how to read and write – just kidding) it’s that the most important thing is to believe. My second tae-kwon-do instructor believed in me greatly, and by the time I was nine, I had achieved my black belt, the highest of all the belts.

But there was one catch – sparring. I was fine with the patterns (a sequence of a set of moves), but to fight, one on one with another person, I just couldn’t do it, and so I stopped TKD.

Now, I am at a cross roads in my life. I am 15, and very soon I shall have to decide what I want to do in life. That is a huge pressure; this one decision will decide the rest of your life, or at least the next four years. However, I am already fairly sure it will be music. But it will not be something to do with bugs, I can tell you that much.

You could think of cells as the sibling of particles. Only where particles make up our world’s infrastructure, cells make up the infrastructure of the living beings that inhabit the world. Thusly, cells are living and particles are non-living.

When you think about it, cells are mind boggling. It’s crazy to think that thousands of miniscule structures make up your entire body. How is that? Well, your body is much like a food chain. Cells make up tissues, tissues make up organs, several organs make up a system, and several systems make up an organism. Of course, it is unlike a food chain in the sense that organs don’t eat tissues etc.

The physical aspects of cells

Let’s start at the bottom of the chain, and basically the whole foundation of organisms. Animal cells are usually rounder than plant cells, which are boxier. An animal cell’s physical components are a cytoplasm, mitochondria, cell membrane, granules, and a nucleus. Plant cells consist of cellulose, a cell membrane, a vacuole, cell sap, plastids, chlorophyll, chloroplasts and a nucleus. Though animal and plant cells have different components, every single cell has a cell membrane. However, only most have a nucleus.

When put under a microscope, the typical animal cell’s cytoplasm looks like a thick liquid floating about, and floating about said thick liquid is the mitochondria and granules. Right smack in the middle is the nucleus, or the brain of the cell. It decides what goes in and what goes out and what is kept. The shape of every cell differs, thus it is impossible to draw a typical cell, but it is possible to show a rough sketch to show the characteristics which are standard in a cell.

The anatomy of an animal cell.

The plant cell’s structure differs greatly. Usually it is a rectangular shape, with its nucleus hiding in a bottom corner. Hence, if you were to cut the plant transversely (crosswise), you may not see a nucleus at all. Its vacuole takes up most of the cell, and the chloroplasts are sprinkle much like jellybeans on the outline of the vacuole. Weird but true.

The anatomy of a plant cell.

For cells to make tissues and those tissues make organs etc, they have to be specialized. Like the different people who make up the different parts of our world, cells are different. Though they are not as unique as each human, likewise they each have their own purpose.

Specialization starts with one cell splitting into two. Let’s say we have one cell (just to let you know, this cell’s specialization is, specialization). So, cell one splits into two. Now we have two cells, one cell becomes specialized and the other retains its ability to split. The beauty of specialization is how it’s so simple, yet it’s vital to all organisms. I’m sure you know how a baby is born. Let’s skip to before the baby is a fetus. It is a single cell. Then, like magic, it divides. At the speed of light, from one to two, to four, to eight, to 16 etc. Before you know it, you have a whole fetus, and the division doesn’t stop till the baby is fully grown.

Tissue culture

Animal tissue culture is when you take developing animal tissues and treat it with enzymes to separate the cells. The cells are then put into a culture vessel (shallow dish) containing nutrient solution, which makes the plant grow artificially. The vessel will eventually have a layer one cell thick, upon which the division will stop there until the cells are removed to another vessel. However, most mammal cells divide no more than 20 times.

Plant tissue culture is rather amazing. From just small amounts of plant tissue, great quantities of plants can be reproduced. First, a small amount of plant tissue is treated with enzymes, which separate the individual cells. The cells are then treated with hormones which help roots, stems and leaves grow from said cells.

And alternate method is taking a small piece of plant tissue and putting it on nutrient jelly. The nutrient jelly, as you may have guessed, gives the tissue the nutrients to grow into a callus, and eventually a plant.

You may be wondering what the use of tissue culture is, we have the organic plants and animals, why do we need artificial ones?

Well, tissue culture, much like pop culture, can be done at a mass level. Tissue culture, perhaps unlike pop culture, is very useful. When used at said mass level, it can help research on diseases, and sometimes can take the place of the cruel practice of animal testing.

Cells… superstars?

Though they may seem boring, they’re a vital part of our lives, indeed, they are us. Studying cells can help to develop live-saving vaccines, particularly recent progress for a vaccine against AIDS, which can prevent the AIDS from entering a cell.

Cells are greatly needed, well-liked, and respected (Well… you know what I mean). In a pop culture context, you could say that cells are the superstar of biology. Though they don’t have to worry about the paparazzi, and probably don’t have to worry about falling out of the spotlight, for children and adults alike will be studying them for years to come.

How stable is our world?

The Earth literally shattered a majority of Haiti’s buildings and infrastructure during the recent tragic earthquake there. Natural disasters like this can make one wonder if our tables and chairs won’t suddenly disintegrate in front of our very eyes. Fortunately, that question has been answered a long time ago.

Since Homo sapiens ruled the Earth, our world’s greatest minds have been bothered by one question (actually, they had many questions, but this particular one was rather important). That question was “What is the world made up of?” We have discovered since that it is made up of matter. But what is even more interesting is what matter is made of.

In 1807, the secret was finally revealed by John Dalton. He discovered that matter (as a matter of fact) is made up of particles. Particles are made up of molecules, which are made up of atoms, which for the longest time scientists thought was the smallest thing in the world. However, when said atom was cut open, it revealed an even smaller nucleus.

John Dalton discovered the atom

A breakthrough was made in 1919, when a scientist named James Chadwick discovered that revolving around the nucleus were clusters of tiny protons, neutrons, electrons and about 70 other, miniscule sub-atomic particles.

The Kinetic Theory

Thus, the Kinetic Theory is a fascinating one. That’s because it states that the world is made up of the aforementioned atoms, which are the tiny building blocks that support our lives. The notion that we big, heavy humans are supported by these little, cannot-be-seen-by-the-naked-eye things seems hard to believe. But it’s true.

For example, the particles which, bit by bit, make up the computer which you are using to read this now are actually moving. The movement is a very, very slight vibration fueled by kinetic energy. Throughout all the matter in the universe, kinetic energy is coursing through it. Some have less and some have more. Your computer has less, much less kinetic energy than say, your mum’s perfume. That’s because your computer is a solid and your mum’s perfume is a gas.

Confused? Think about it this way, we are what we’re surrounded by. Imagine that solids are the older generation of human beings today, stiff and stuck in their ways. Imagine that liquids are the youth of today flowing, free but slightly restricted. And imagine gases are hyper little kids, bouncing of the walls. Got that image in your head? Okay, now here’s the fun part:

The people you just imagined are actually particles, which make up solids, liquids and gases. The simplest example is water. As we all know, water is a liquid. But when we freeze it, it magically becomes its solid form, the hard, dense ice. That is because the water has hit its freezing point of 0°C, thus freezing the liquid into a solid. Likewise, doing the opposite and heating the water till it reaches its boiling point of 100°C creates its gaseous form – steam.

So when heated up, the water particles gain heat energy and move faster and faster till they break free of their bonds and is then free to move about at a high speed, occasionally colliding with each another in their new state of matter: gas.

The Different States of Matter (Source: www.chem.ufl.edu)

Proof that particles move – Diffusion

Have you ever noticed that when a person wearing a strong, pungent perfume walks into a room, within a few minutes the entire room smells like said perfume? Well, that magic is called diffusion.

With the high freedom these gas particles have, it’s not surprising how versatile they can be. For example, if gas is put into a jar, you will notice that it will spread itself out quickly and evenly. That’s because the gas particles move. In fact, they move so fast, that gases take mere hours to diffuse.

Liquids, on the other hand, can take days to diffuse as liquid particles move slower than that of gases.

Proof that particles move – Brownian motion

For many years, there was no proof that particles move. People were still uncertain what exactly we and the world were made of. However, about 150 years ago a scientist and botanist named Robert Brown erased all doubt and uncertainty regarding atoms. While gardening one day, he noticed that the fine pollen grains on the surface of the water were moving about, upon further investigation through his microscope, he discovered that the pollen grains were moving about in random motion.

Progress on this was made slowly but surely, but the breakthrough was in 1923 when another scientist, Norman Wiener, made what Brown had noticed clearer. He stated that the visible, tiny pollen grains were constantly colliding with the scores of water particles, causing the random motion. That breakthrough is called Brownian motion, after the scientist who discovered it.

Certainly, the world seems more fascinating once you have discovered atoms. And it is nice to know that the world is probably not about to crumble beneath our very feet.

Seth Grahame-Smith starts off Pride & Prejudice & Zombies with the same famous words but with a twist, “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains.”

On April 1^st, 2009, one of the greatest books in the history of English Literature was massacred – literally. Jane Austen (one of the greatest authors in the history of English Literature)’s immortal Pride & Prejudice, was mashed up with zombies. That’s right; Longbourn, Netherfields and Pemberly have all become infested with zombies. And for some (most notably guys), it works.

Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen

For others, it doesn’t. TIME magazine listed the mash up as one of the top five worst inventions of the year. One possible reason for their decision could be that it is somewhat jarring when the some of the beautiful and eloquent paragraphs originally by Jane Austen is summarized in a straightforward and modern way (perhaps to save space) making the book rather choppy at times.

In Pride & Prejudice & Zombies, it is early 1800’s and a mysterious plague has spread all over England. This plague transforms the victim into a brain hungry zombie and unfortunately no one knows where it came from or how to destroy it. But never fear, the dashing Mr. Darcy is here to defend his country, as is our beloved heroine Elizabeth Bennet.

When Elizabeth and Darcy first meet, she is about to slit his throat – but when she attempts to, zombies break into Netherfields and start feasting on the brains of the unfortunate people near them. But when he saves her sister Lydia (who though is a brilliant warrior is still as air headed as ever) from the disgrace of running away from the deceptively charming Mr. Wickham by disabling him for life, Elizabeth warms up to him.

Despite its cover, Pride & Prejudice & Zombies is not as gory as one may think. In fact, the grossest part for me was when Elizabeth bites into the still-beating heart of one of Lady Catharine’s ninjas.

The zombiefied cover of Pride & Prejudice & Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith

However, throughout the book, various background characters do get killed off, starting with an abrupt murder of Mrs. Long in the beginning. Fortunately, none of the main characters get killed off. Unfortunately, one of the main characters is Mrs. Bennet, who despite the plague is not at all less determined in the least to get her daughters married off.

Pride & Prejudice & Zombies is a unique blend of the original Pride & Prejudice and new chunks (I feel it’s appropriate to use that here) of zombies, occasional cannibalism, ninjas, and ultra-violent mayhem. If you have always intended to, but have not yet read the original, I strongly suggest reading it first before reading And Zombies. However, if you never intended to read the original then you may get a chuckle out of And Zombies, because the gory(ish) zombie parts certainly liven things up.

The Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was visiting Sarajevo in Bosnia when he and his wife were ambushed by a few young Serbian men. They were a part of a group called Young Bosnia, a group filled with people who hated Austria’s oppressiveness. Fueled by anger, four of them set out to ambush and assassinate the Archduke and his wife and succeeded. The person who pulled the trigger was a young man called Gavrilo Princip. Little did he know that by doing so, he had just started one of the greatest wars in history – known as, the First World War.

A Great War monument.

But how could a war as humongous as the First World War just happen? How could, all of a sudden, one of the greatest bloodsheds in history suddenly begin? The answer is, they don’t just suddenly begin. The First World War is a product of a great build up of tension over a long period of time. When young Gavrilo Princip pulled the trigger, he was actually lighting the fuse of a great bomb that held immense tension between the main countries involved in the war.

Tensions had been running high long before the war between Germany, Britain, France, Austria-Hungary and Russia. The main reasons were colonies (such as the Balkans) and the build up of armies. Eventually, the war was broken up into two sides, one was the Triple Entente, which was comprised of France, Britain and Russia, the other side was called the Dual Alliance, which encompassed Germany and Austria-Hungary.

With all the tension going around, it was hard to believe that war didn’t happen sooner – but there was a forced and strained peace in an effort to delay the war as long as possible for no one wanted to be the one to start it all off.

Despite the forced peace, everyone was secretly getting ready for a war and forming a battle plan. The most controversial of all was the Germans’ Schlieffen Plan. The plot was to station a small army in the east to detain Russia, while the rest of Germany’s forces would smash through Belgium, overcome and defeat France and Britain and consequently knock them out of the competition.

A famous war time poster in Britain.

However, their plan failed when they underestimated Russia and France’s strength and they were defeated twice. The war deteriorated to a War of Attrition – as both sides were forced into a stalemate, and both were in the same position and were reduced to cold hard murder as the last chance of winning, as neither had an advantage over the other.

The Great War eventually came to an end, and though the Triple Entente won, really, both sides lost, as many lives were taken, and many nations scarred.

The Great War, though now it is more commonly called the First World War or World War I, had a great impact on the world. For example, in Britain before the war, working class men could not vote. But when the war hit, the government saw these men risking their lives everyday for their country, and felt that that was unfair to them and started to pass a new law saying that working class men could now vote. Women, or more specifically, the Suffragists and Suffragettes, had been campaigning for women to get this very thing for a long time – the right to vote. They saw their chance, and started campaigning hard, and succeeded.

It is likely that women may have never gotten the vote, and have never been able to get the same jobs as men and so on because when the war hit, many young men left their countries to fight in a foreign land, leaving many jobs crucial to the war empty. Women saw their chance, and successfully got the vote in 1918.

A year after women won full voting rights, these women joined in the St. Patrick's Day Parade on Fifth Avenue on March 27, 1921.

The big three and the Treaty of Versailles

The Great War caused immense casualties like never before. On the Allied side, Britain lost 750,000 soldiers, with 1,500,000 wounded, France lost 1,400,000 soldiers, with 2,500,000 wounded, Belgium lost 50,000 soldiers, Italy lost 600,000 soldiers, Russia lost 1,700,000 soldiers, and America lost 116,000 soldiers.

Fighting against the Allies, Germany lost a whopping 2,000,000 soldiers, Austria-Hungary lost 1,200,000 soldiers, Turkey lost 325,000 soldiers and Bulgaria lost 100,000 soldiers. The total losses are estimated to be 8.5 million with 21 million wounded.

The truly tragic thing about the World War I is that after all that bloodshed, there went on to be another world war where there was even more bloodshed, so all the soldiers who lost their lives in the World War I were in vain.

As well as the loss of millions of lives, the remaining lives were in a chaos. Much of Europe had been turned into rubble; many families torn apart. The winners of the war were not about to give Germany (who they blamed the war on) any mercy. So when the main leaders of the Allies sat down to map out what exactly was owing to them, they did not hold back.

The main leaders were known as the big three, and they consisted of David Lloyd George of Britain, Georges Clemenceau of France and Woodrow Wilson of America. The first two were perfectly happy to punish Germany to the extreme, as that was what their country expected of them. Woodrow Wilson on the other hand, wanted to be a little more merciful, he did not want Germany to become resentful and start another war. It turns out that he would be right.

After several gut wrenching days, the big three decided on several terms and conditions for Germany which would become the Treaty of Versailles. An easy way to remember all the conditions of the treaty is GARGLe: Guilt, Arms, Reparations, German territory and League of Nations.

• Guilt: As previously stated, the Allies believed that Germany was the cause of the war, so the treaty declared that Germany should take all the blame for starting the war.
• Arms: Germany’s pride was its army. Despite having lost the most soldiers in the war, they still had a substantial army. The treaty took that away; Germany was forced to cut down their army to the very minimum, which left them rather defenseless.
• Reparations: All the countries involved in the war had suffered immense damages to their infrastructure. In Europe, buildings which had been around for hundreds of year were in a heap of rubble. The total cost of reparation which Germany was forced to pay was 6,600 billion marks (£6,600 million pounds). That is 2% of Germany’s annual income production.
• German territory: Germany had to give up all of her colonies to the winning countries. Alsace-Lorraine was given to France, Eupen and Malmedy was given to Belgium, Northern Schleswig was given to Denmark, and Hultschin was given to Czechoslovakia.
• League of Nations: This was a peacemaking idea from the peacemaking Woodrow Wilson. He wanted a place where all global disputes between countries could be sorted out fairly, in hopes of avoiding another war. As a snub, Germany was not allowed in until it learned to be more peaceful. Ironically, the creator of the league’s country did not join as America refused to, on the grounds of them adopting an isolated policy.

It was all very simple; Germany had to sign the treaty or risk being invaded by the Allies. Nevertheless, it was not an easy choice.

Germany’s reaction to the treaty

As you can imagine, the Germans were not happy. They were clearly not the starters of the war, but were forced to take the blame anyway. Already wiped out, the reparation fee was impossible for Germany to pay, so in desperation, they hyper inflated their currency to the point where a loaf of bread would cost 20 billion marks.

From this point on, Germany blamed everything that went wrong on the treaty. What went wrong? Well, after the war, the German government supplied a war pension to the survivors of the war, but shortly after stopped providing it. After paying one installment of the reparations, Germany refused to pay anymore, thus French soldiers marched into a part of Germany to force the money out of them, the soldiers bullied the citizens, and the treaty gave them the power to do so.

The Germans were angry, and needed someone, something to blame. They blamed the new government for signing the treaty; they blamed the old government for leading them into the war; but most of all, they blamed the treaty for all of their problems. They also blamed the people behind the treaty, namely, the big three and their countries.

“Something has to be done, Germany could not carry on this way, and we must FIGHT for all of our previous glory.”

That is the gist of what a youth at that time preached to the citizens, who ate it all up.

The Great War was over and the countries were slowly recovering, but the war left a lot of tensions, for although the war had ended, most of the reason was because the stalemate was costing too much to maintain. As predicted by Woodrow Wilson, the treaty would cause yet another war, an awful, gruesome and brutal war. This unfortunately leads us to another scarring, tragic and equally horrific war: World War II. This war would be led by the youth who preached to the citizens and easily started the uprising. His name was Adolf Hitler.

And not to mention telephone numbers. Without numbers, maybe telephones and mobiles phones will use pictures to identify a person? – “Oh sorry, I called you by mistake; I wanted to call your twin, so sorry.” But a part of what makes numbers so very important is our age. Without numbers, we wouldn’t know when we were born, or how old we are.

Now another good thing about numbers (or a bad thing about numbers depending on you) is math. Math, like numbers, is terribly useful and can be used to find the areas of triangles and other important things like that.

If you have studied math before, no doubt you would have heard of the Pythagorean Theorem. Which is the formula for finding the area of a right angled triangle:  a² + b² = c². What that means, is a², or the height of the triangle, multiplied by b², the base of the triangle, equals c², the hypotenuse of the triangle. See the diagram below for a clearer view.

Pythagoras' Theorem

This mathematical formula is a priceless and significant part of math as we know it today. So who could have been so clever to think up this formula? None other than a man called Pythagoras.

Pythagoras and math

Pythagoras (c. 570 BC – c. 495 BC) was a Greek mathematician, musician, philosopher and scientist. He was a significant part of the development of math, yet not much is known about him as none of his writing has survived. Though he didn’t leave behind any great writings, he left behind a way of life. His disciples called themselves the Pythagoreans.

The Pythagoreans were a select and secretive group and were divided into two groups merely on the base of their interest. One of them were called the akousmatikoi (“listeners”), who were focused more on the religious side of Pythagoras’ teachings, and the other were the mathēmatikoi (“learners”) who were focused more on of the scientific and mathematical side of Pythagoras’ teachings.

A bust of Pythagoras himself.

Nonetheless, the Pythagoreans in general adored numbers, and believed them to be the building blocks of life. They believed that each number had their own personality, and that the explanation for something existing could be explained through numbers.

But becoming a disciple of Pythagoras the man supposedly “sent from the gods”, was a very long process. The applicant’s charter, habits, feelings, words, actions and their way of life in general would be examined by Pythagoras himself, and only if they passed successfully would they be accepted into his school.

If they succeeded, they would then have to give all their property to the school, as everything was held in common. Then, for the next three years, they would have no vote in proceedings, and no medical treatment. And after that, they were required by the school to observe silence for five years, with the aim of training them to tame themselves, first to listen and then to attain wisdom.

If after those long eight years or so the pupil was considered unsuitable, he would be expelled and all his property returned. But, despite the risk of being expelled after all the hard work put in, many people from all over the region flocked to Pythagoras’ school, with hopes of learning from the great master himself.

Pythagoras is the bald one in the middle. He is teaching his disciples music.

Pythagoras and music

Pythagoras not only discovered his famous theorem, but he also discovered the overtone series, which is what you hear on a modern piano today.

It is said that one day Pythagoras was passing by a blacksmiths workshop and he noticed the various harmonies coming from the blacksmiths shop. Later, he went back to investigate, and found that the different tones that came from the blacksmiths hammer when it hit the metal changed according to the weight of his anvil.

Pythagoras was intrigued. He experimented and found that by plucking a string one foot long it vibrates x times per second, and by plucking another piece of string two feet long, it vibrates 2x per second, but at the same pitch. Thus, plucking both strings simultaneously or one after the other, creates an octave.

After further experimenting, Pythagoras found that by dividing one of the strings into halves, thirds, quarters, or fifths of the original length while keeping the other string the same length and then plucking in a similar fashion created an octave, a perfect fifth, and a major third respectively. To hear the differences click here.

This discovery was very important to Pythagoras, for he realised that these tones played musically and in the right sequence on an instrument could change the behaviour patterns of a person and accelerate the healing process.

Pythagoras’ discovery of music prompted the opening of a Pythagoras Graduate School of Music and Sound Research in Finland, and focuses more on the academic side of music and less on the performance side. Their main research fields are:

• Musical acoustics and sound processing
• brain research
• music theory
• psychology of music
• media design

Pythagoras’ significant discovery lent further proof to the belief of the Pythagoreans: that everything, including music, was fundamentally made out of their beloved numbers.

History, being rather unclear, has many different versions of Elaine, Lily Maid of Astolat, from the time of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. In the French version of King Arthur, Mort Artu, she tries to get Sir Lancelot to wear her sleeve in a joust after she declares her love.

In Thomas Mallory’s Le Morte D’Arthur, she has fallen in love with Lancelot and he agrees to wear her sleeve in a jousting competition as the alternative to becoming involved with her.

In both versions, Elaine’s father, Bernard of Astolat, organises a jousting tournament, in which Lancelot participates. When Lancelot is wounded, Elaine convinces her father to bring him to her chamber for her to nurse him back to health.

While playing nurse, Elaine falls deeply in love with Lancelot. But when she confesses her love for him, he rejects her for he is in love with Queen Guinevere who is King Arthur’s wife. Unfortunately for Lancelot, King Arthur is his boss, and makes it hard for him to see Queen Guinevere. Elaine is heartbroken when Lancelot rejects her and consequently dies of a broken heart. As per her instructions, her family puts her in a barge and floats her down the river to Camelot with a note to Lancelot.

Elaine floating down the river.

When she reaches Camelot, she is discovered by the lords, ladies and knights of Camelot. Queen Guinevere is outraged with jealousy until she finds out that Elaine died a virgin and nothing ever happened between her and Lancelot.

Lancelot is guilt-ridden and pays for a lavish funeral for Elaine (which could have been what her family had hoped for in the first place by sending her floating down the river).

The Lady of Shalott

Alfred Tennyson, also known as Alfred, Lord Tennyson, is one of the more popular poets in the English language. He was also Poet Laureate – a position that he held longer than any laureate before or after him.

One of Tennyson’s most famous poems is The Lady of Shalott, based on the legend of Elaine of Astolat. Tennyson’s poem was on a poem he had read, Donna do Scalotta, and so it is very different from Thomas Mallory’s version. In this version, no joust ever took place, Elaine had never met Lancelot before, and she is under an undisclosed curse to forever weave a magic web in an isolated tower, with only a mirror to reflect the view from her window.

Lord Alfred Tennyson

However, one day the handsome knight, Sir Lancelot, rides past her window in the tower and the effect that he has on her is so strong that she turns to look out the window at him and the curse is broken. She leaves her tower and finds a boat near a riverbank. She writes her name on the prow and floats down the river to Camelot (in a subconscious effort to chase Lancelot, perhaps).

But before the boat reaches Camelot, she freezes to death and arrives at the palace of King Arthur where Lancelot stands among the Knights, lords and ladies, admiring her beauty.

“Under tower and balcony,
By garden-wall and gallery,
A gleaming shape she floated by,
A corse between the houses high,
Silent into Camelot.
Out upon the wharfs they came,
Knight and burgher, lord and dame,
And round the prow they read her name,
The Lady of Shalott.

Who is this? and what is here?
And in the lighted palace near
Died the sound of royal cheer;
And they cross’d themselves for fear,
All the knights at Camelot:
But Lancelot mused a little space;
He said, “She has a lovely face;
God in his mercy lend her grace,
The Lady of Shalott.”

- Excerpt from Tennyson’s The Lady of Shalott.

The story of Elaine of Astolat has been changed and re-moulded many times. The unrequited love that she bore is very much a human experience, making her character more real than most of the others in the time of King Arthur. Though her actions may have been a bit drastic, she has given us great stories and poems, for such is the wonder of the Lady of Shalott.

But how did it all start? Well, in 1789, the people of France decided that it was…

…the Last Straw

When King Louis XVI of France ascended to the throne, the country was already nearing bankruptcy. Historians generally think that Louis XVI’s predecessor, King Louis XV, is to blame. Louis XV had fought many wars; therefore sending the country into an economic crisis. Naturally, the people of France were not happy with that, as taxes were raised very high for the starving nation. At that time, the streets of France were terribly dirty, and diseases were common. There were many people living on the streets as well. For the impoverished people, looking at the well dressed royals stuffing themselves certainly did not help matters.

In fact, it was the last straw.

Do You Hear the People Sing?

In 1789, the people of France, lead by Napoleon Bonaparte, began the fight against the monarchy. But what really started the ball rolling was the Tennis Court Oath. The Tennis Court Oath was the historic event where 576 out of the 577 members of the Third Estate (the Third Estate consisted of the everyone who was not rich, in other words, the poorly paid working class people, and the even poorer, poorly paid peasants) and a few members of the First Estate were fed up with the Monarchy, and gathered themselves into an indoor tennis court and solemnly swore a collective oath which goes as follows:

We swear never to separate ourselves from the National Assembly, and to reassemble wherever circumstances require, until the constitution of the realm is drawn up and fixed upon solid foundations.

Not long after the Tennis Court Oath, they stormed the Bastille prison, for though it held few prisoners and was about to close, the Bastille symbolized the royal oppression, and thus, it fell. The guardian of the Bastille was Bernard-René de Launay, who was actually born in the Bastille prison, as his father was the previous guardian. De Launay felt the brunt of the National Assembly’s force, and was battered to death by a raging mob.

Four years and two months after the revolution began, the era which would be known as “The Reign of Terror” (1793 – 1794) began. Led by Napoleon Bonaparte, monarchs (including King Louis XVI) were guillotined left; right and centre, and an estimated 30,000 people were killed all across France. The first victim of the guillotine was the unpopular and tragic queen, Marie Antoinette. Ironically, when Marie Antoinette first reached France, she was but 14, and adored by the people.

Things went downhill around 1782 – 1785; Antoinette had already given birth to a daughter and a son, and with a family enlargement in mind, she bought the Château de Saint-Cloud independently from the husband, King Louis XVI. At that time, the public was developing a highly frivolous image of the Queen, and the purchase of the Château de Saint-Cloud certainly did not help. The public was quickly seeing Marie Antoinette as an empty-headed, spendthrift foreign queen.

Liberty, Equality, Fraternity

In 1799, while stranded in Egypt, Napoleon heard news of the British’s temporary departure from the French ports and set sail for France. Upon returning, he set about to seize power. On the 9^th of November 1799, he overthrew the French Directory (the body of five which had been holding the power in France) and replaced it with his own French Consulate, which consisted of three consuls. Of course, he declared himself the First Consul, but eventually, it lead to just one single consul, then finally, Emperorship.

However, Napoleon was not always in France, as he was busy conquering other countries and whatnot. But in 1812, his luck began to change as he was defeated in Russia. From then on, it all went downhill, and he lost his last battle, the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.

Napoleon died in 1821, it is generally thought that he died from stomach cancer, though some people say he was murdered by arsenic.

The French Revolution was a critical period in history, not only for France, but also for Britain, whose English radicals and numerous liberals wholly supported the revolution. Their motto was “Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity.”

The French Revolution’s influence stretches to the 21^st century, mostly thanks to Victor Hugo’s novel, later turned into a musical, Les Misérables (also known as Les Mis or Les Miz). On October 8, 2006 the show celebrated its 21^st anniversary, and it’s achievement as the longest running West End musical. Interestingly, it’s not written by Andrew Lloyd Weber, who wrote a significant amount of the modern musicals showing today, but in the original French version, the music is by Claude-Michel Schönberg and the lyrics are by Alain Boublil and Jean-Marc

Les Mis the book and the play has been translated into various languages, from Polish to Japanese to the obvious English. A recent revival of Les Misérables in pop culture is Britain’s Got Talent’s Susan Boyle’s version of “I Dreamed a Dream” from Les Misérables.

The French Revolution started in 1789 and ended in 1799. In those ten years, France entered a zone of turmoil, grief, and violence. But it was also a time of renewal, a much needed change of government and overall change for the better.