Atomic Weight

The atomic theory of matter, in its various forms, existed a good two thousand years before the time of John Dalton, he was the first to propose, in his 1808 book A New System of Chemical Philosophy, that atoms had weight. Atoms, as Dalton defined them, were hard, solid, indivisible particles with no inner spaces, rather than something that could not be seen, touched, or tasted. They were indestructible and preserved their identities in all chemical reactions. Furthermore, each kind of element had its own specific kind of atom different from the atoms of other elements. These assumptions led him to propose that atoms were tangible matter and therefore had weight.

Because atoms were much too small to be seen or measured by any common methods, absolute weights of atoms could not be determined. Rather, these first measurements were made by comparing weights of various atoms to hydrogen. Hydrogen was chosen as the unit of comparison because it was the lightest substance known and the weights of the other elements would be very close to whole numbers.

View complete Articule

The Weight of History

EIGHT years ago, when Pope John Paul II prayed at Jerusalem’s Western Wall, there seemed to be a new level of trust between Roman Catholics and Jews. But so heavy is the historical baggage that the relationship still creaks under the strain.

The latest problem is a nasty flare-up in an old argument over the role of Pius XII, who was pope during the second world war. Was he a hero who deserves to be beatified, or was he, as some Jews say, guilty of neglectful silence?

On October 19th Shimon Peres, Israel’s 85-year-old president, tried to draw a line under the row. “We have reason to believe that Pius XII didn’t do enough to save Jewish life,” he said, speaking for many Israelis. But he added: “I don’t want to pass judgment. We don’t want to make false accusations. If there is evidence [that he helped persecuted Jews] then it should be checked carefully.” And he reissued Israel’s invitation to the present pope, Benedict XVI. “The visit to the holy country is nothing to do with anger or disputes. It’s holy all the time, it is holy for all of us.”

View complete articule

Grateful Dead

The Grateful Dead was an American rock band formed in 1965 in the San Francisco Bay Area. The band was known for its unique and eclectic style, which fused elements of rock, folk, bluegrass, blues, reggae, country, jazz,psychedelia, and space rock—and for live performances of long musical improvisation. "Their music," writes Lenny Kaye, "touches on ground that most other groups don't even know exists."

The fans of the Grateful Dead, some of whom followed the band from concert to concert for years, are known as "Deadheads" and are known for their dedication to the band's music. Many referred to the band simply as "the Dead."

The Grateful Dead's musical influences varied widely; in concert recordings or on record albums one can hear psychedelic rock, blues, rock and roll, country & western, bluegrass, country-rock, and improvisational jazz. These various influences were distilled into a diverse and psychedelic whole that made the Grateful Dead "the pioneering Godfathers of the jam band world." They were ranked 55th in the issue The Greatest Artists of all Time by Rolling Stone magazine.

View Link

Official Post

Metals and Weight Standards of Milesian Coins

Although many objects had been used as money from the earliest times, coins in the modern sense were invented in the general region of Miletus and adjacent Lydia in the late seventh or early sixth century bc. The idea of coined money spread from the Ionian colonies to mainland Greece about 550 bc, and by about 500 bc it had spread throughout the Greek world. All the coinage of the West is directly descended from the first issues struck in the territory surrounding Miletus more than two and a half thousand years ago.

The earliest coins of Miletus and Lydia were not made of gold or silver but rather of electrum, a naturally-occurring alloy of gold and silver that was especially common in the Lydian rivers. Since the gold/silver ratio in natural electrum is variable, the Lydian kings purposely regulated the proportion of gold in their coinage to guarantee that it would have a consistent value (and almost certainly to guarantee that it would generate a profit for themselves, as well). Although the gold content of the earliest Lydian coins appears to have been closely regulated, at least some of the Ionian Greek cities—including Samos, a few miles off the coast from Miletus—issued early electrum coins that were highly variable in gold content, although this was not readily detectable because copper was routinely added to maintain consistency of color (Konuk, in press). Much remains to be learned, even today, about the details of early electrum coinage production. Progress in this area will certainly depend upon techniques of materials analysis that have only become available within the last few years (Keyser and Clark, 2001).

The economic uncertainties that followed from the use of an alloyed metal for coinage soon led to the widespread replacement of electrum issues with separate series of gold and silver coins, and this innovation was made by the Lydian king Croesus (Kroisos), who ruled from 561–546 bc. Just as the oil of the Middle Eastern countries has made them wealthy today, so the electrum, gold, and silver of Lydia made that country wealthy in the sixth century bc. The expression “as rich as Croesus” has been a by-word for wealth for more than 2500 years.

View Link