A Ton of Crap (59 page)

Yellow Journalism
Yellow journalism
was the name given to sensational news stories being reported in the United States about the Spanish treatment of Cubans. Though based on truth, the articles were written to elicit strong responses. The two men most responsible for yellow journalism were William Randolph Hearst of the
New York Journal
and Joseph Pulitzer of the
New York World
. Yellow journalism would galvanize public opinion about wanting to go to war.

JANE AUSTEN

The Sentimental Novel
The sentimental novel was a popular literary genre of the eighteenth century that celebrated emotions and sensibility. These novels focused on the emotional response, both in terms of the reader and the characters. Plots were created to further the emotions of the story rather than the events. Jane Austen’s
Sense and Sensibility
was a satire of this type of literature of the time.

MODERN ALGEBRA

History of Modern Algebra
Toward the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century, there was a great shift in mathematical methodology, and mathematicians moved toward general theory and away from concrete objects. Among others, the work of Ernst Steinitz, David Hilbert, Emmy Noether, and Emil Artin came to define abstract, or modern, algebra.

WEATHER

Clouds
Clouds are large collections of droplets of ice crystals or water so small that they can float in the air. As warm air rises, it cools down and expands. The moisture begins to condense and forms water droplets. As billions of the droplets come together, they begin to form a cloud. Clouds can be classified into three groups: cirrus (clouds above 18,000 feet), alto (clouds that are 6,500 feet to 18,000 feet in the air), and stratus (clouds that go up to 6,500 feet).

HUNGARIAN

Turkic Influences
From 400 to 896, the Hungarians lived as nomads. When they settled on the coast of the Black Sea, they came into contact with the Turkic people. The Huns had come to the area after the fall of Attila and settled there, ruling over the Hungarians. Between the sixth and the eighth centuries, the Huns fell into decline and were replaced by the Turks. Hungarians were introduced to the Turkic writing system, which the Old Hungarian writing system was based on. The word
Magyar
comes from the Turkic
onugor
, and the phonetic language was extremely influenced by the Turkic language.

THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR

Sinking of the USS
Maine
In 1897, the United States sent a warship, the USS
Maine
, to Cuba to investigate what was going on and to provide rescue to any Americans. On February 15, 1898, an explosion on the USS
Maine
left 266 Americans dead. Though the explosion was an internal problem with the ship and not an attack by Spain, the newspapers quickly placed blame on the Spanish, creating great anti-
Spanish fervor among Americans.

JANE AUSTEN

Sense and Sensibility
Sense and Sensibility
was Jane Austen’s first published novel. The book came out in 1811, and Austen credited herself with the pseudonym, “A Lady.” Jane Austen would continue to publish anonymously until the day she died, with only her family knowing it was she who was writing the books. The book follows two sisters who relocate to a new home after their father’s death, and experience romance and heartbreak. The book sold out all 750 copies in its first edition.

MODERN ALGEBRA

Groups
Groups are sets of elements, both finite and infinite, that together with a binary operation (an operation that applies to two expressions) satisfy the properties of closure, the inverse property, the identity property, and associativity. In closure, if
a
and
b
are elements in
G
, then
ab
, the product, is also in
G
. The inverse property states that for each element, there must be an inverse, or (
a
 × 
b
) = (
b
 × 
a
) = 1
_G
. The identity property states
e
, an element, exists in
G
. For every
a
in
G
, the equation is
e
 × 
a
 = 
a
 × 
e
 = 
a
. Lastly, associativity states that (
a
 × 
b
) × 
c
 = 
a
 × (
b
 × 
c
).

WEATHER

Thunder
The sound of thunder is actually caused by lightning. As a bolt of lightning passes through the cloud, it creates a channel, or a small hole in the air. When the lightning is gone, the air collapses back in again, which creates a sound wave. Because light travels faster than sound, we see the lightning before we hear the thunder.

HUNGARIAN

The Four-Tiered Level of Politeness
In Hungarian, there are four different ways to express levels of politeness. Uses of the different levels include when showing respect to the person being addressed; when distancing oneself from the person being addressed; a system similar to the previous two but with additional words (this would be used when talking to the family friends of parents, for example); and a form of being polite that doesn’t fit into the other three categories.