A Ton of Crap (103 page)

LANDING ON THE MOON

Apollo 7
Apollo
missions 4, 5, and 6 were successful unmanned flights. On October 11, 1968,
Apollo 7
tested the manned command module in orbit for the first time. While in orbit, the crew of three practiced lunar-mission maneuvers. Not only was
Apollo 7
the first manned
Apollo
flight, but it was also the first time a manned flight was broadcast on live television. The spacecraft was able to exit orbit and re-enter the atmosphere successfully, and the capsule was recovered in the Atlantic Ocean.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

His Work
William Shakespeare wrote some of the world’s most famous comedies, tragedies, and histories, as well as sonnets and poems. The number of plays he wrote is still up for debate. The general consensus is that he wrote a total of thirty-seven plays; however, others believe that including possible lost works and collaborations, it’s really more like forty. He also wrote countless poems, including 154 sonnets and two long-form narrative poems. Shakespeare wrote sonnets all of his life, and a collection of them was published in 1609 by publisher Thomas Thorpe. Since Thorpe printed the sonnets without Shakespeare’s consent, it is believed that they were not intended to be published, but were actually private pieces.

PASCAL’S TRIANGLE

Before Pascal
The numbers found in Pascal’s triangle were well known before Blaise Pascal from the studies made by Indians in combinatorics and the study of figurative numbers by the Greeks. One of the first depictions of the numbers in the triangle is from commentary found in the tenth century of an Indian book that was written between the fifth and sixth centuries. Use of the triangle was also found in Persia at around the same time, with Persian mathematician, Al-Karaji, and later by Omar Khayyám. In fact, in Iran, it is referred to as the “Khayyam triangle.”

EARLY HUMANS

Homo Habilis
The first real humans lived 2.4 to 1.4 million years ago in Africa and are called
Homo habilis
. The
Homo habilis
still had apelike features; however, they were taller and had larger brains than the
Australopithecus afarensi
. The most notable thing about
Homo habilis
is that this is the first time we see tool making, and thus,
Homo habilis
marks the beginning of the Stone Age, in which tools of stone were used by early mankind (
Homo habilis
means “handy man”).
Homo habilis
did not know how to make fire yet.

SWAHILI

Influence of Other Languages
The largest and most obvious influences in Swahili are Persian and Arabic. In some cases, Arabic words just completely replaced Bantu words. For example, the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, and 10 are all Bantu words, but the words for 6, 7, and 9 have been replaced with Arabic words. From 1500 to 1700, the coastal towns were controlled by the Portuguese, and several Portuguese words and customs (such as Swahili bull fighting) have remained. When the British and Germans colonized the East African coast later on, Swahili began incorporating those languages as well (such as the word
baiskeli
for “bicycle”).

LANDING ON THE MOON

Apollo 8
On December 21, 1968,
Apollo 8
was launched. Close to three hours after the launch, translunar injection, in which the ship is maneuvered into a trajectory that will bring it to the Moon, occurred. After sixty-nine hours and eight minutes, the spacecraft entered elliptical lunar orbit; the first manned mission to do so. At a little over eighty-nine hours, on December 25, transearth injection occurred, setting the ship into the trajectory headed toward Earth. On December 27, the capsule landed in the Atlantic Ocean and the mission was a success.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Shakespeare’s Writing Style
Shakespeare’s plays featured blank verse, a metrical pattern that consisted of lines of iambic pentameter that did not rhyme. When passages deviated within the plays, Shakespeare would use a different poetic form or simple prose. With one exception, his sonnets were written in iambic pentameter. Shakespeare also invented words and phrases (of which there are at least 1,500 he made up). Among the many words he invented or made popular were
assassination
,
bump
,
submerge
,
frugal
,
gnarled
,
dishearten
,
obscene
,
generous
, and
monumental
.

PASCAL’S TRIANGLE

What Is Pascal’s Triangle?
Pascal’s triangle is a number pattern in the shape of a triangle that follows a very simple concept. You begin at the top with 1 and then move down the triangle. To get the next number, you just add the two numbers above it. For example:

The bold numbers show how Pascal’s triangle works. When the 1 and the 2 are added up, you get 3, which gets placed below those numbers.

EARLY HUMANS