Aircraft Carrier: An aircraft carrier gets about 6 inches per gallon of fuel.
Airplanes: The first United States coast to coast airplane flight occurred in 1911 and took 49 days. A Boeing 747s wingspan is longer than the Wright brother's first flight (120ft).
Aluminum: The Chinese were using aluminum to make things as early as 300 AD Western civilization didn't rediscover aluminum until 1827.
Automobile: George Seldon received a patent in 1895 - for the automobile. Four years later, George sold the rights for $200,000.
Coin Operated Machine: The first coin operated machine ever designed was a holy-water dispenser that required a five-drachma piece to operate. It was the brainchild of the Greek scientist Hero in the first century AD.
Compact Discs: Compact discs read from the inside to the outside edge, the reverse of how a record works.
Electric Chair: The electric chair was invented by a dentist, Alfred Southwick.
E-Mail: The first e-mail was sent over the Internet in 1972. Eye Glasses: The Chinese invented eyeglasses. Marco Polo reported seeing many pairs worn by the Chinese as early as 1275, 500 years before lens grinding became an art in the West.
Things We Like to know about Computing:
The term ‘computer’ originally referred to a person who performed numerical calculations, often with the help of a mechanical calculating device.
The most common form of computer in use today that is the normal PC is the ‘embedded computer’, which is a small device used to control other devices.
The distinction of being the first portable computer goes to the ‘Xerox NoteTaker’, developed at Xerox PARC in 1976.
Early CPUs were made up of separate components. However with the introduction of the first microprocessor (Intel 4004) and the first widely-used microprocessor (Intel 8080) in 1970, this class of CPUs has almost completely taken over all other CPU implementation methods.
In the event software is stored in hardware that cannot be easily modified, it is sometimes called ‘firmware’ to indicate it comes under a grey area somewhere between hardware and software.
Apple Computer’s Macintosh or Mac computer system derives it’s name from McIntosh, a popular type of apple.
The term ‘booting’ or ‘bootstrapping’ a computer derives from the story of Baron Munchhausen who at one instance, pulled himself out of a swamp by the straps on his boots.
The term, ‘Bug’ as we know today refers to a fault in a computer program that prevents it from working correctly. The term is often but erroneously credited to Grace Hopper, who in 1946 after joining the Harvard Faculty at the Computation Laboratory traced an error in the Harvard Mark II to a moth trapped in a relay.
Computers:ENIAC, the first electronic computer, appeared 50 years ago. The original ENIAC was about 80 feet long, weighed 30 tons, had 17,000 tubes.
The first "modern" computer (i.e., general-purpose and program-controlled) was built in 1941 by Konrad Zuse. The computer was launched in 1943, more than 100 years after Charles Babbage designed the first programmable device.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Monday, May 12, 2008
Hinduism differs from Christianity and other Western religions in that it does not have a single founder, a specific theological system, a single system of morality, or a central religious organization. It consists of "thousands of different religious groups that have evolved in India since 1500 BCE."
. It claims about 837 million followers - 13% of the world's population. It is the dominant religion in India, Nepal, and among the Tamils in Sri Lanka. According to the "Yearbook of American & Canadian Churches," there are about 1.1 million Hindus in the U.S. The "American Religious Identification Survey" is believed to be more accurate. They estimated smaller number: 766,000 Hindus in 2001. Still, this is a very significant increase from 227,000 in 1990. Statistics Canada estimates that there are about 157,015 Hindus in Canada.
Hinduism is generally regarded as the world's oldest organized religion.
Most forms of Hinduism are henotheistic religions. They recognize a single deity, and view other Gods and Goddesses as manifestations or aspects of that supreme God. Henotheistic and polytheistic religions have traditionally been among the world's most religiously tolerant faiths. However, until recently, a Hindu nationalistic political party controlled the government of India. The linkage of religion, the national government, and nationalism led to a degeneration of the separation of church and state in India. This, in turn, has decreased the level of religious tolerance in that country. The escalation of anti-Christian violence was one manifestation of this linkage. With the recent change in government, the level of violence will diminish.
Name of the religion:
This religion is called:
 | Sanatana Dharma, "eternal religion," and | ||||||||
| Vaidika Dharma, "religion of the Vedas," and | ||||||||
| Hinduism -- the most commonly used name in North America. Various origins for the word "Hinduism" have been suggested:
|
Early history of Hinduism:
Beliefs about the early development of Hinduism are currently in a state of flux:
| The classical theory of the origins of Hinduism traces the religion's roots to the Indus valley civilization circa 4000 to 2200 BCE. The development of Hinduism was influenced by many invasions over thousands of years. The major influences occurred when light-skinned, nomadic "Aryan" Indo-European tribes invaded Northern India (circa 1500 BCE) from the steppes of Russia and Central Asia. They brought with them their religion of Vedism. These beliefs mingled with the more advanced, indigenous Indian native beliefs, often called the "Indus valley culture.". This theory was initially proposed by Christian scholars in the 19th century. These dates put severe constraints on the date of the "Aryan invasion," and the development of the four Veda and Upanishad Hindu religious texts. A second factor supporting this theory was their lack of appreciation of the sophisticated nature of Vedic culture; they had discounted it as primitive. The classical theory is now being rejected by increasing numbers of archaeologists and religious historians. |
| Emerging theory: The Aryan Invasion view of ancient Indian history has been challenged in recent years by new conclusions based on more recent findings in archaeology, cultural analysis, astronomical references, and literary analysis. Archaeologists, including Jim Schaffer and David Frawley, have established convincing arguments for this new interpretation. 3 Archaeological digs have revealed that the Indus Valley culture lasted from about 3500 to 1800 BCE. It was not "destroyed by outside invasion, but...[by] internal causes and, most likely, floods." The "dark age" that was believed to have followed the Aryan invasion may never have happened. A series of cities in India have been studied by archaeologists and shown to have a level of civilization between that of the Indus culture and later more highly developed Indian culture, as visited by the Greeks. Finally, Indus Valley excavations have uncovered many remains of fire altars, animal bones, potsherds, shell jewelry and other evidences of Vedic rituals. "In other words there is no racial evidence of any such Indo-Aryan invasion of India but only of a continuity of the same group of people who traditionally considered themselves to be Aryans...The Indo-Aryan invasion as an academic concept in 18th and 19th century Europe reflected the cultural milieu of the period. Linguistic data were used to validate the concept that in turn was used to interpret archeological and anthropological data." "There was no invasion by anyone." |
During the first few centuries CE, many sects were created, each dedicated to a specific deity. Typical among these were the Goddesses Shakti and Lakshmi, and the Gods Skanda and Surya.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
