Tag: #FOWC

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A is for Arrow

Egyptian scarab ornament @1500 BCE, pharoah shooting arrow. At the LA County Museum of Art.

I shot an arrow into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where…

Longfellow, “The Arrow and the Song”

Such a simple idea, but such a powerful creation! It turned the tide in battles, created legends, and wiped out cities–maybe even a species. William Tell used one to split an apple on his son’s head to avoid execution. Welsh longbows defeated the French at Agincourt. The Mongols nearly conquered the known world because they could shoot in any direction while on horseback, until the Mamluk archers in Egypt stopped their advance with arrows of their own. Even Taylor Swift sang about it: “I am the archer; I am the prey.”

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The Mother(hood) of Invention

Female human evolution, depicted by Stadtpflaenzchen.

To send Women’s History Month out in style and to unabashedly advertise the upcoming A-Z blogging challenge of April, this post will honor the role played in women in early invention–very early, in fact. I want to focus on a major invention that contributed to the evolution of our entire species: the baby sling.

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We Are Not Equidistant

I asked Google Gemini to draw me an original picture of the warring hemispheres, but the one it “created” seems to have a credit. Let’s thank Novesiom! for this one.

I was going to write a one-sentence, spring-themed message, wishing everyone a happy equinox and pointing out that Melbourne is probably experiencing roughly what we’re feeling in Northern California. Then, it turned out much of what I knew about the equinoxes was wrong.

The earth is not round.
It doesn’t move in a circle around the sun.
Day and Night are not equal to each other.
The North is not treated the same as the South.

Since I was This Old when I learned The Truth, I will share it with you, appropriately, on the northern vernal equinox, i.e. today, March 20th, 2025. There will be science, although I will not discuss the ecliptic because I have hard time visualizing it. I promise there will be no arithmetic. There will be geometry.  And you might find yourself wobbling a little, which will be in keeping with the situation.

Classic view drawn by ar.inspired.com.
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