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Egg Of Columbus
An egg of Columbus or Columbus's egg ( ) refers to a seemingly impossible task that becomes easy once understood. The expression refers to an apocryphal story, dating from at least the 16th century, in which it is said that Christopher Columbus, having been told that finding a new trade route was inevitable and no great accomplishment, challenges his critics to make an egg stand on its tip. After his challengers give up, Columbus does it himself by tapping the egg on the table to flatten its tip. The story is often alluded to when discussing creativity. The term has also been used as the trade name of a tangram puzzle and several mechanical puzzles. Source of the story The Columbus egg story may have originated with Italian historian and traveler Girolamo Benzoni. In his book ''History of the New World'', published in 1565, he wrote: The factual accuracy of this story is called into question by its similarity to another tale published fifteen years earlier (while Benzoni ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Columbus Breaking The Egg' (Christopher Columbus) By William Hogarth
Columbus is a Latinized version of the Italian surname "''Colombo (surname), Colombo''". It most commonly refers to: * Christopher Columbus (1451–1506), the Italian explorer * Columbus, Ohio, the capital city of the U.S. state of Ohio * Columbus, Georgia, a city in the U.S. State of Georgia Columbus may also refer to: Places Extraterrestrial * Columbus (crater), a crater on Mars * Columbus (ISS module), ''Columbus'' (ISS module), the European module for the International Space Station * Columbus (spacecraft), ''Columbus'' (spacecraft), a program to develop a European space station 1986–1991 Italy * Columbus (Rome), a residential district United States * Columbus, Arkansas * Columbus, Georgia, the 119th-most populous city in the United States, and the 2nd-largest in Georgia after Atlanta * Columbus, Illinois * Columbus, Indiana, known for modern architecture * Columbus, Kansas * Columbus, Kentucky * Columbus, Minnesota * Columbus, Mississippi * Columbus, Missouri * Columbus, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Florence Cathedral
Florence Cathedral (), formally the Cathedral of Saint Mary of the Flower ( ), is the cathedral of the Catholic Archdiocese of Florence in Florence, Italy. Commenced in 1296 in the Gothic style to a design of Arnolfo di Cambio and completed by 1436 with a dome engineered by Filippo Brunelleschi, the basilica's exterior is faced with polychrome marble panels in various shades of green and pink, alternated by white, and features an elaborate 19th-century Gothic Revival western façade by Emilio De Fabris. The cathedral complex, in Piazza del Duomo, includes the Florence Baptistery and Giotto's Campanile. These three buildings are part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site covering the historic centre of Florence and are a major tourist attraction of Tuscany. The basilica is one of world's largest churches and its dome is still the largest masonry dome ever constructed. The cathedral is the mother church and seat of the Archdiocese of Florence, whose archbishop is Gherardo Gam ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Creativity
Creativity is the ability to form novel and valuable Idea, ideas or works using one's imagination. Products of creativity may be intangible (e.g. an idea, scientific theory, Literature, literary work, musical composition, or joke), or a physical object (e.g. an invention, dish or meal, piece of Jewellery, jewelry, costume, a painting). Creativity may also describe the ability to find Creative problem-solving, new solutions to problems, or new methods to accomplish a goal. Therefore, creativity enables people to Solves problem, solve problems in new ways. Most ancient cultures (including Ancient Greece, History of China#Ancient China, Ancient China, and Outline of ancient India, Ancient India) lacked the concept of creativity, seeing art as a form of discovery rather than a form of creation. In the Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition, creativity was seen as the sole province of God, and human creativity was considered an expression of God's work; the modern conception of creativi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kalevala
The ''Kalevala'' () is a 19th-century compilation of epic poetry, compiled by Elias Lönnrot from Karelian and Finnish oral folklore and mythology, telling a story about the Creation of the Earth, describing the controversies and retaliatory voyages between the peoples of the land of Kalevala called Väinölä and the land of Pohjola and their various protagonists and antagonists, as well as the construction and robbery of the mythical wealth-making machine Sampo. The ''Kalevala'' is regarded as the national epic of Karelia and Finland, and is one of the most significant works of Finnish literature along with J. L. Runeberg's ''The Tales of Ensign Stål'' and Aleksis Kivi's '' The Seven Brothers''. The ''Kalevala'' was instrumental in the development of the Finnish national identity and the intensification of Finland's language strife that ultimately led to Finland's independence from Russia in 1917. The work is known internationally and has partly influenced, for exampl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Väinämöinen
() is a deity, demigod, hero and the central character in Finnish folklore and the main character in the national epic ''Kalevala'' by Elias Lönnrot. Väinämöinen was described as an old and wise man, and he possessed a potent, magical singing voice. Name The name Väinämöinen has often been explained as coming from the Finnish word ''väinä'' ("stream pool") or ''väineä'' ("slow"). Janne Saarikivi brought forth a hypothesis of the name's possible connection of early Germanic forms of Odin's name: ''*wātenos'' could've been loaned into Proto-Karelian language, Proto-Karelian as ''*vätnä'' or ''*väinä'', and ''Auðunn'' could be compared to ''Äinemöinen''. In Finnish mythology The first extant mention of Väinämöinen in literature is in a list of Tavastia (historical province), Tavastian gods by Mikael Agricola in 1551, where it says: ''"Aeinemöinen wirdhet tacoi."'' () He and other writers described Väinämöinen as the god of chants, songs and poetry; in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tesla's Egg Of Columbus
Tesla's Egg of Columbus was a device exhibited in the Westinghouse Electric display at the 1893 Chicago World's Columbian Exposition to explain the rotating magnetic field that drove the new alternating current induction motors designed by inventor Nikola Tesla by using that magnetic field to spin a copper egg on end. Origins At the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition Westinghouse Electric (who had a large space in the "Electricity Building" devoted to their electrical exhibits) asked Tesla to participate and gave his devices their own exhibit space. The display demonstrated a series of electrical effects related to alternating current, AC generators, and displayed many types of induction motors and explained the rotating magnetic field that drove them. With the fair celebrating the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World, the "Egg of Columbus" exhibit, building on the apocryphal 15th century story of the " Egg of Columbus" (where the explorer sto ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Piet Hein (Denmark)
Piet Hein (16 December 1905 – 17 April 1996) was a Danish polymath (mathematician, inventor, designer, writer and poet), often writing under the Old Norse pseudonym Kumbel, meaning "tombstone". His short poems, known as '' gruks'' or grooks (), first started to appear in the daily newspaper ''Politiken'' shortly after the German occupation of Denmark in April 1940 under the pseudonym "Kumbel Kumbell". He also invented the Soma cube and the board game Hex. Biography Hein, a direct descendant of Piet Pieterszoon Hein, the 17th century Dutch naval figure, was born in Copenhagen, Denmark. He studied at the Institute for Theoretical Physics (later to become the Niels Bohr Institute) of the University of Copenhagen, and Technical University of Denmark. Yale awarded him an honorary doctorate in 1972. He died in his home on Funen, Denmark in 1996. Resistance Piet Hein, who, in his own words, "played mental ping-pong" with Niels Bohr in the inter-War period, found himself confronted ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Superegg
In geometry, a superegg is a solid of revolution obtained by rotating an elongated superellipse with exponent greater than 2 around its longest axis. It is a special case of superellipsoid. Unlike an elongated ellipsoid, an elongated superegg can stand upright on a flat surface, or on top of another superegg. This is due to its curvature being zero at the tips. The shape was popularized by Danish poet and scientist Piet Hein (1905–1996). Supereggs of various materials, including brass, were sold as novelties or " executive toys" in the 1960s. Mathematical description The superegg is a superellipsoid whose horizontal cross-sections are circles. It is defined by the inequality :\left, \frac\^p + \left, \frac\^p \leq 1 \, , where ''R'' is the horizontal radius at the "equator" (the widest part as defined by the circles), and ''h'' is one half of the height. The exponent ''p'' determines the degree of flattening at the tips and equator. Hein's choice was ''p'' = 2.5 (the s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hindsight Bias
Hindsight bias, also known as the knew-it-all-along phenomenon or creeping determinism, is the common tendency for people to perceive past events as having been more predictable than they were. After an event has occurred, people often believe that they could have predicted or perhaps even known with a high degree of certainty what the outcome of the event would be before it occurred. Hindsight bias may cause distortions of memories of what was known or believed before an event occurred and is a significant source of overconfidence in one’s ability to predict the outcomes of future events. Examples of hindsight bias can be seen in the writings of historians describing the outcomes of battles, in physicians’ recall of clinical trials, and in criminal or civil trials as people tend to assign responsibility on the basis of the supposed predictability of accidents. In some countries, 20/20 indicates normal visual acuity at 20 feet, from which derives the idiom " hindsight is 20 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gordian Knot
The cutting of the Gordian Knot is an Ancient Greek legend associated with Alexander the Great in Gordium in Phrygia, regarding a complex knot that tied an oxcart. Reputedly, whoever could untie it would be destined to rule all of Asia. In 333 BC, Alexander was challenged to untie the knot. Instead of untangling it laboriously as expected, he dramatically cut through it with his sword. This is used as a metaphor for using brute force to solve a seemingly-intractable problem. Legend The Phrygians had no king, but an oracle at Telmissus (the ancient capital of Lycia) decreed that the next man to enter the city driving an ox-cart should become king. A peasant farmer named Gordias drove into town on an ox-cart and was immediately declared king. Out of gratitude, his son Midas dedicated the ox-cart to the Phrygian god Sabazios (whom the Greeks identified with Zeus) and tied it to a post with an intricate knot of cornel bark (''Cornus mas''). The knot was later described by Ro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gömböc
A gömböc () is any member of a class of convex set, convex, three-dimensional and homogeneous bodies that are ''mono-monostatic'', meaning that they have just one stable and one unstable Mechanical equilibrium, point of equilibrium when resting on a flat surface. The existence of this class was conjectured by the Russian mathematician Vladimir Arnold in 1995 and mathematical proof, proven in 2006 by the Hungarian scientists Gábor Domokos and Péter Várkonyi by constructing at first a mathematical example and subsequently a physical example. The gömböc's shape helped to explain the body structure of some tortoises and their ability to return to an equilibrium position after being placed upside down. Copies of the first physically constructed example of a gömböc have been donated to institutions and museums, and the largest one was presented at the Expo 2010 Shanghai China, World Expo 2010 in Shanghai, China. Name If analyzed quantitatively in terms of flatness and th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Egg Balancing
Egg balancing is a traditional Chinese practice of standing eggs on their ends that has also been popularized in the United States. Although the irregular shape of eggs makes this somewhat difficult, eggshells typically have many textural variations such that the vast majority can be balanced on their broad ends with minimal effort. Folklore holds that eggs can be balanced in this way only at a particular time of year: the lunar new year in China, the Dragon Boat Festival in Taiwan, or the vernal equinox in the United States. It is also said that eggs can be balanced on the heads of nails at the equator. In reality, eggs will balance anywhere at any time of year, and the practice has no connection to the gravitational force of the moon or sun. History Lichun egg Egg balancing has been connected with Lichun, the solar term beginning ''Chinese'' spring () on February 4 or 5 when the sun is at the celestial longitude of 315°. On this day, fresh chicken eggs were balanced on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
