A Ton of Crap (75 page)
Authors: Paul Kleinman
The First Battle at the Marne
The First Battle at the Marne was the first significant battle fought that proved that the war would not be short and introduced the fighting style most characteristic of World War I: trench warfare. By the end of August 1914, three of Germany’s armies were moving toward Paris to take control of the city and conquer France. By September 3, 500,000 French civilians had left the city. The commander-in-chief of the French forces planned an attack on the German First Army, and they attacked on September 6. By splitting the German armies, the French and the British were able to advance, and German forces couldn’t break through. On September 9, the Germans retreated, and by September 10, the battle was over.
MYSTERYSherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes is one of the names that immediately comes to mind when thinking about mystery fiction. Created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle,
Holmes’s first case was featured in the book
A Study in Scarlet
, published in 1887, and Doyle’s most known book was
The Hound of the Baskervilles
of 1902. When creating the character, Doyle actually used Poe’s C. Auguste Dupin as an influence for Sherlock. Sherlock Holmes was featured in four novels and countless stories, and is still adapted for film and television to this day.
LOGICShorthand Sentences
An example of logic might be:
Assuming: The cat is orange.
And assuming: The cat is a female.
I conclude: The cat is orange and the cat is a female.
In logic, shorthand sentences are essential. Instead of writing out full-length sentences all the time, a letter is chosen to represent that sentence. So the sentence “The cat is orange” would be represented by the letter
A
, and the sentence “The cat is a female” would be represented by the letter
B
.
THE COPENHAGEN INTERPRETATIONThe Many-Worlds Theory
First proposed in 1957, the many-worlds theory was not taken seriously until the quantum suicide theory. The many-worlds theory states that for every outcome that is possible, the world splits into copies and each of the actions are taken. The person is not aware of the other version of the universe. So, with the case of quantum suicide, if the man dies, his self in the other universe lives on, ready to test the gun once again. Every time he dies, the universe splits once more. The Copenhagen interpretation contradicts the many-worlds theory.
VIETNAMESERole of the Chinese
During the time of the Viet-Muong, there were two dialects: that of the Lowlanders and that of the Highlanders. When the Chinese came to power over the lowland Viets, Chinese characters, language, and administration were introduced. The Chinese ruled over the land for 1,000 years, and though Chinese was officially the written language, the development of the spoken language continued, with the Lowlander dialect becoming the spoken language. In the tenth century, the Highlander language was no longer a dialect, but its own language: Muong. Though the Vietnamese spoke their own language, they used Chinese characters when writing, and this was known as chữ nôm.
WORLD WAR IThe Battle of Tannenburg
The Battle of Tannenburg was fought from August 26 to August 31, 1914. It is considered Germany’s greatest victory, and Russia’s worst defeat. Two Russian armies, one led by General P. K. Rennenkampf, the other by A. V. Samsonov, planned on attacking East Prussia. Contact between the two armies was lost, and the Germans took advantage of Samsonov’s isolated army. Within the next few days, half of his army was lost, and on August 29, Samsonov shot himself. The Germans took 92,000 Russian prisoners.
MYSTERYThe Golden Age of Detective Fiction
The period from 1920 to 1939 is referred to as the Golden Age of Detective Fiction. During this time, such prolific mystery writers as Dorothy Sayers, Agatha Christie, and Freeman Wills Crofts produced their most notable work. While Poe and Doyle brought the mystery genre to life, the writers of this time polished the genre. These books were meant to engage the reader and make the reader try to work along with the detectives. For this reason, certain rules were set in place. These rules included that the criminal should be mentioned early in the book, detectives were not allowed to be helped by intuition or accident, no supernatural solutions were allowed, and no clues could be concealed from the reader. By World War II, the genre began to decline in popularity.
LOGICConnectives
Connectives are used to connect sentences represented by A and B. Connectives are the “and, or, if . . . then, not, if and only if.” Connectives have their own symbols. They are:
| and | ^ |
| or | v |
| if . . . then | −> |
| not | ~ |
| if and only if | <−> |
So, now the sentences about the cat look like this:
The cat is orange and the cat is a female. (A ^ B)
The cat is orange or the cat is a female. (A v B)
If the cat is orange, then the cat is a female. (A −> B)
The cat is not orange. (~A)
The cat is orange if and only if the cat is female. (A <−> B)
THE COPENHAGEN INTERPRETATIONWhat Is the Copenhagen Interpretation?
Niels Bohr first posed the Copenhagen interpretation in 1920. The Copenhagen interpretation states that quantum particles do not exist in one state or another, but rather all of the possible states exist at one time. Only when it is observed does a quantum particle take on a probability. Think back to Schrödinger’s cat. The cat was both dead and alive. Schrödinger’s cat is in fact, an example of the Copenhagen interpretation. According to the Copenhagen interpretation, the quantum suicide theory does not work because the direction of the quark can be observed, and eventually the quark will turn clockwise, killing the man.
VIETNAMESE