Kidz Stuff Part 2
October 2020
Kids Stuff Part 2 (10 more things kids should know)
This article carries on from where Part 1 left off. I hope you will be inspired to look deeper into the items I have written about or find out even more new stuff to teach your children.
Solidarity
Brian Madican
October 2020
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Why do we have eyebrows?
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Who was the first Roman Emperor?
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Who cut off Samson’s hair?
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Who are the days, the months and the planets named after?
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How can you count to 60 using just 2 hands?
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The magic of the number 9.
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How many species of Insects are there?
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What are the 5 Kingdoms of life?
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How many animals have become extinct?
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What is the paradox of Achilles and the tortoise?
Why do we have eyebrows?
They are not there just to express how we feel although this is an important part of our facial expressions. Eyebrows are useful to keep water out of our eyes when we sweat or walk in the rain. This helps keep our vision clear so that we can see what we are doing and where we are going.
Eyebrows come in all shapes and sizes. Some are dark and thick while others are long and thin. Some meet in the middle while others are arched or straight. One of the bushiest sets of eyebrows ever belonged to Bernard Ingram pictured below.
Who was the first Roman Emperor?
No prizes if you said Julius Caesar as many people think he was. However, Julius Caesar was never an Emperor of Rome. Augustus was the first Roman Emperor and he reigned from 27 BCE to 14 AD. Originally his name was Octavius and he adopted the title Augustus after he defeated Mark Anthony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium in Greece. The month of August is still named in honour of him. The month of July is named after Julius Caesar. Augustus embarked on a great building programme in Rome and famously claimed on his deathbed that he had found Rome a city of bricks and left it a city of marble.
The Emperor Augustus hailing a taxi.
Who cut off Samson’s hair?
The story of Samson appears in the Book of Judges and is one of the best in the whole of the Old Testament. He was a great hero although flawed by his love for Delilah. Samson performed many wonderful and daring deeds because of his great strength. However, he lost his strength when he lost his hair.
Many people think it was Delilah who personally cut off Samson's hair. Samson did not have his hair cut off, but his head was shaved, not clipped. At Judges 16:19 it says:
Delilah made Samson "sleep upon her knees; and she called for a man, and she caused him to shave off the seven locks of his head."
So, it was an unnamed barber who shaved off Samson’s locks.
The 1950 Film Samson and Delilah is one of the best adaptations of the story of Samson. It stars Victor Mature as Samson and Hedy Lamarr as Delilah. It can look a bit dated at times. During the fight with the lion you can see that the film studio would not let Victor Mature grapple with a real lion so a stunt double was used. Victor Mature is only allowed to wrestle with a lion skin and occasionally throw its paws over his shoulders in close up shots. Nevertheless, it is a cracking film and stays very close to the Bible story. The scenes where Samson defeats the Philistine army with the jawbone of an ass and the end sequence in the temple are both marvellous. Incidentally when Samson was being re-made as a TV film in 1984 the producers thought it would be a nice touch if they asked Victor Mature to appear in it as Sansom’s father. When they contacted Mature about this, he replied “If the money is good enough I will appear as Samson’s mother!”.
Who are the days, the months and the planets named after?
Monday is named after the moon which has become shortened to “mon” over time.
Tuesday is named after the Norse god Tyr.
Wednesday is named after the Anglo-Saxon god Woden.
Thursday is named after the Norse god Thor.
Friday is named after Woden’s wife, Frigg.
Saturday is named after the god Saturn.
Sunday is named after the Sun.
Thor the Norse god of thunder.
January is named after the Roman god Janus who had 2 faces. One face faces the old year and the other the new year.
February is named after Februa, the mother of Mars.
March is named after the Roman god of war, Mars.
April is named after Aprilis (Aphrodite) the Roman goddess of love.
May is named after Maia the Roman goddess of spring.
June is named after the Roman goddess, Juno.
July is named after the Roman general Julius Caesar.
August is named after the Roman Emperor, Augustus.
September was the name of the seventh month (from the Latin word septem for seven) in the Roman calendar.
October was the name of the eigth month (from the Latin word octo for eight) in the Roman calendar.
November was the name of the ninth month (from the Latin word novem for nine) in the Roman calendar.
December was the name of the tenth month (from the Latin word decem for ten) in the Roman calendar.
All of the planets, except for Earth, were named after Greek and Roman gods and goddesses. Jupiter, Saturn, Mars, Venus and Mercury were given their names thousands of years ago.
Planetes is a Greek word meaning a wandering star. The Greeks realised that planets were not quite the same as stars as they had different orbits through the night sky.
The planets minus Pluto which is classified as a dwarf planet and so is not in this picture.
The other planets were not discovered until after telescopes were invented in the early 1600s. The tradition of naming the planets after Greek and Roman gods and goddesses was carried on when the other planets were discovered.
Mercury was named after the Roman god of travel. Venus was named after the Roman goddess of love and beauty. Mars was the Roman god of War. Jupiter was the king of the Roman gods, and Saturn was the Roman god of agriculture.
Uranus was discovered by the astronomer William Herschel in 1781. He wanted to call it “Georgium Sidus,” (George’s Star) for the British ruler at the time, King George III. Other astronomers were interested in dubbing the planet Herschel. It was German astronomer Johann Bode who recommended the name Uranus, a Latinized version of the Greek god of the sky, Ouranos.
Neptune was named after the Roman god of the Sea. Pluto, which is now classified as a dwarf planet, was named after the Roman god of the underworld. And finally, the name Earth is an English/German name which simply means the ground.
How to count to 60 using just 2 hands
It is easy to count to ten using your fingers on each hand. If you wanted to count to twenty then you could always take your shoes and socks off and count your toes. However, there is a way to count up to 60 using just your two hands.
Take a look at the palm of your hand and your 4 main fingers (not your thumb) and you will see that each finger is divided into 3 sections that bend. If you use your thumb to touch each of the 3 sections on each finger you can count up to 12 (4 x 3) on one hand.
With 2 hands you can count up to 24. If you want to count up to 60 then you can use one hand to count up to 12 and then use each of your 5 fingers on your other hand to remember each set of 12. In this way you can count to 60 using just 2 hands.
This is one of the earliest ways that people used to count. The numbers 12, 24 and 60 are very important. There are 12 months in a year. Using 2 hands you can count to 24 and there are 24 hours in a day - 12 day hours from midnight to noon on one hand and 12 night hours from noon to midnight on the other. Each hour is divided up into 60 minutes and this is the number you can count to using 2 hands. Plus, each minute is also divided up into 60 seconds for the same reason.
The magic of 9
The number 9 is quite unique as it has certain properties that other numbers do not have.
In the 9 times table, the numbers always add up to 9.
9 = 9, 18 (1 + 8 = 9), 27 (2 + 7 = 9), 36 (3 + 6 = 9), 45 (4 + 5 = 9), 54 (5 + 4 = 9), 63 (6 + 3 = 9),
72 (7 + 2 = 9), 81 (8 + 1 = 9), 90 (9 + 0 = 9).
When you reach 99 then you need to add the numbers up and they make 18 and then add this again and they still equal 9.
99 (9 + 9 = 18 and then 18 is 1 + 8 = 9), 108 (10 + 9 = 18 and then 18 is 1 + 8 = 9), 117 (11 + 7 = 18 and then 18 is 1 + 8 = 9) and so on. See how far you can go along the 9-x table.
What are the 5 Kingdoms of life?
The 5 Kingdoms of Life consists of the Kingdom of Monerans (or Bacteria), the Kingdom of Protists, the Kingdom of Fungi, the Kingdom of Plants and the Kingdom of Animals.
Below is a table that show the Kingdoms and examples of each Kingdom.
How many species of insects are there?
Insect species are the most diverse groups of living animals in the world. There are lots and lots of them and they make up over 90% of all animals in the globe. Insects are found in nearly all ecosystems in the world with the highest concentration in the tropics. Scientists are on a mission to establish the number of insect species but have faced numerous challenges making it an ongoing process. Currently, over 925,000 species of insects have been identified.
Characteristics of Insects
Insects usually have 3 body segments namely the head, the thorax, and the abdomen. Common insects have six legs, a pair of antennae, compound eyes and an exoskeleton. Almost all insects reproduce by laying eggs which metamorphosize through several stages to become adults. A complete metamorphosis starts with an egg then larva then pupa and eventually an adult.
According to the estimates of entomologists (people who study insects), there are over 10 quintillion insects (10,000,000,000,000,000,000) at any given time on earth. The insects can be either crawling, hopping or flying. Billions more are either asleep or in various stages of metamorphosis. The figure makes insects the biggest biomass among earth’s animals.
There are several main orders of insects. The Coleoptera (beetles) order with over 300,000 is the largest of the orders. This constitutes almost 40% of described insects and 25% of all known animal life-forms.
The photo below shows just some of the amazing and beautifully coloured varieties of beetles from the Coleoptera order.
The Lepidoptera order (butterflies and moths) has around180,000 species, Diptera (flies) over 90,000 and Hymenoptera (bees and wasps) over 100,000.
Below is a picture showing the main Orders of insects and another with insect names in english.
Insect Records
The longest beetle is the Hercules beetle, with a maximum overall length of at least 16.7 cm (6.6 in) including the very long horn on its head.
Larva of a Hercules beetle An adult Hercules beetle
The Titan beetle is one of the largest and heaviest insects in the world.
One Titan beetle specimen measured 16.7 cm (6.6 in) in length. The short, curved and sharp mandibles are known to snap pencils in half and cut into human flesh.
A Titan beetle
The Giant Weta is often cited as the heaviest insect on Earth. Large species can be up to 10 cm (4 in) not inclusive of legs and antennae. One captive female reached a mass of about 70 grams (2.5 oz.), making it one of the heaviest documented insects in the world. However, their body mass is usually no more than 35 grams.
The Giant Weta insect
The largest known butterfly is the Queen Alexandra's birdwing (Ornithoptera alexandrae) of Papua New Guinea. Females may have a wingspan exceeding 28 cm (11 in) and weigh over 25 grams (0.9 oz).
What is the largest insect on Earth? This is not an easy question to answer. It depends on what you mean by the “largest”? If you mean the “bulkiest” then this title may go to the Goliath beetle (Goliathus). These are among the largest insects on Earth, if measured in terms of size, bulk, and weight. Male Goliath beetles can measure up to 11 cm (4.3 in), and can reach weights of up to 100 grams (3.5 oz) in the larval stage, though the adults are only about half this weight.
Until 2016, the longest insect in the world was a stick insect (Phobaeticus chani). One specimen held in the Natural History Museum in London measures 56.7 cm (22.3 in). Without legs fully extended, the body alone still measures an impressive 35.7 cm (14.1 in).
However, in 2016, a new species of stick insect in southern China was declared the world’s longest bug. This was the Phryganistria chinensis Zhao, at 62.4 cm (24.6 in). It is named after Zhao Li of the Insect Museum of West China, who spent years searching for the massive insect described by locals.
The enormous Phryganistria chinensis Zhao insect
How many animals have become extinct?
According to estimations about 99.9% of all species are extinct. Scientists have no way of confirming how many species of animals have lived and are living because there just simply is too many. Even knowing what we know about how fossils are created and the extinction rate of current species, there is no way to be sure about how many species are extinct. However, using information gathered by palaeontologists and the history of evolution, it’s been estimated that 99.9% of all species are extinct.
That’s not all of the species living here on the planet today. It’s actually of all the species who have lived on Earth at all. Life has survived through 5 mass extinctions. The death of the dinosaurs when a meteor hit the Earth is the most famous extinction. Another of the extinctions is called the Great Dying when over 90 % of all life died.
A dinosaur before the meteor landed
A dinosaur after the meteor landed.
Scientists have hypothesized how many species there could have been based on what they know about the 5 mass extinctions that have occurred and what happened before them.
According to those estimates, about 10 million species have lived on the Earth and so far we have only found evidence of about 1 million of them. Based on these estimates, it does seem that the claim 99.9% of species are extinct is actually true. However, there are naysayers. Some think the estimate of the number of species is actually closer to 6 million, making the percentage that is extinct much lower overall.
Extra facts on animals
Did you know that 90% of all life is smaller than your thumb?
What is the difference between a monkey and an ape? The most visible difference is that monkeys have tails and apes don’t.
Other differences are below.
Some other differences
Monkeys are not as intelligent as apes, almost all have tails, they have snouts not noses and cannot learn sign language.
Apes are very intelligent, do not have tails, have smooth flat noses and can learn sign language.
As human beings we have evolved into walking, talking apes and, like apes, we have a coccyx – a tail bone – inside us. The coccyx is the final segment of your backbone also known as your spine.
What is the paradox of Achilles and the Tortoise?
A paradox is a seemingly absurd or contradictory statement or proposition which when investigated may prove to be well founded or true.
One of the most famous paradoxes was devised by the Greek philosopher, Zeno of Elea, who came up with the Paradox of Achilles and the Tortoise in the 5th century BCE:
Aside from being the hero of the Trojan War, and the greatest of all Greek warriors, Achilles was also known as the fastest man alive.
No human nor animal of the mortal realm held any hope of besting him in a race, and none had even dared to try.
Well, none but the witty Tortoise.
Claiming that it could beat Achilles as long as it had a slight head start, the Tortoise challenged him to a race. When asked how long a head start was being requested, the Tortoise nonchalantly replied, “ten metres.”
Achilles roared with laughter, “A mere ten?! You will surely lose, my friend. But let us race, if you so wish it.”
“Oh, but on the contrary,” replied the Tortoise, “I will win, and I can prove it to you with a simple argument.”
Achilles stopped laughing. He knew he was the superior athlete, swift and strong while the Tortoise was slow and heavy, but he also knew that the Tortoise had sharper intellect, and Achilles had lost many an argument with it before.
“Suppose” began the Tortoise, “that you could cover that ten metre head start in mere moments. During those few moments, though slow as I may be, I would have, at the very least, moved a little further, so that now you must once again, catch up to me, yes?”
“Yes, that is true”
“And while you are doing so, I shall have gone yet a little further, so that you must then catch up with me once again. And so you see, in each moment you must be catching up the distance between us, and I — at the same time — will be adding a new distance, however small, for you to catch up again. And as such, you will never catch up.”
With a sigh, and a look of defeat, Achilles replied, “You are right, as always.” And so, he conceded the race.
Zeno’s argument is that at the point where Achilles reaches where the tortoise was, the tortoise will have moved on. Achilles must then reach the new point where the tortoise was before, but once he’s arrived there, the tortoise will again have moved further, and so on. Essentially, Zeno’s argument is that, logically speaking, not even the fastest runner could overtake another once the latter had a head start.
Intuitively, we know that this isn’t true — that Achilles will indeed overtake the tortoise. Yet, Zeno’s logical argument, at first glance, seems to be void of fallacy. Disproving the paradox through logical arguments or mathematics has been attempted by great minds such as Aristotle and Archimedes, with both philosophers and scientists scrambling to solve it in various ways.
While the modern-day internet troll fools many a mind, Zeno of Elea’s trolling consumed what adds up to be centuries worth of time and effort.
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