Short Essays Essay Example for Free

Short Essays Essay Ans. 5: If the stars move across the sky in circles centered directly overhead, the loacation of the observer would either be north pole or the south pole. This could be the location because the earth moves around the axes. This can be exaplained by looking at the following justification: Anyone who would be looking at the sky, would be always standing at the top of the earth. Therefore, the objectcs present at the celestial sphere which are classified relative to the ground willl occur at the same point of the sphere. In order to locate a person, we can mark the horizon diagonally to the mid of the celestial sphere, in such a way that the centre of the earth and the slestial sphere are identical. The observer’s view of the sky doesn’t matter, whether the sky’s view of the observer is the cut off position that is spotted by the horizon therfore the horizon is always kept perfect. The next points for reference would be the North Celestial Pole and the South Celestial Pole. If the person is standing at the equator, the pole would be horizontal through the Earth. If the observer is located at one of the poles, then these poles would go from the earth vertically. The north and the south celestial pole would be marked at the intersections. These intersections would be the result of exrtending the earth’s pole out to the celestial sphere. If we are at the southern hemisphere, the south celestial pole would be below the horizon, which makes it to be on the opposite side of the celestial sphere and for northern hemisphere, this situation is inverted. Ans. 9: Ptolemaic Model: The Ptolemaic model describes the obvious movement of the planets in a very direct and a straight way. this apporach is achieved by supposing that each planet of the solar system moves on a small and tiny sphere or circle. This circle is better known as epicycle. This epicycle moved on a larger sphere or circle. This larger sphere is called as a deferent. It was assumed, that the stars move on a celestial sphere around the outside of the planetary spheres. Copernican Model: Copernican Model is better known as the sun centred solar system. This model explained that the true movement of the planets is not in a uniform circular motion, around. Due to this reason, the Copernican model would still need to have those small nad tiny circles on which the planets move, called the epicycles. The main feature of the Copernican model that differs this model from the ptolemaic model was the retrograde loops. These loops of the planets, the way they are seen from the Earth, arise physically as a result of the plantes motion altogether combined with the Earth’s motion. The Ptolemaic model was considered wrong because it was not precise and as the time passed by the predictiopn in the model proved to be worse and worse. Although this model was very good to predict the position of the planets. Rather than having larger epicycles, earth moving around the sun could also explain the retrograde motions of the planets. Ans. 10: The ptolemaic model accounts better for variations in the brightnesses of the various planets with time. The ptolemaic model contains Epicycles. These epicylces are tiny circles on which the planets move. The epicycles were establish to clarify variations in brightness of the planets as compared to the eccentrics. Eccentric circles are the circular paths that are intended to be seen from some internal point moved from the centre of the circle. These circles allow better estimations of the celestial movements. The copernican model doesnot account for the brightness issue because the Planets in the solar system closer to the Sun tend to moved faster rather than the planets which are further away from the sun. This way, at times a planet could be on the similar side of the sun as the earth and this could make them appear brighter and on the other hand, a planet that could be on the opposite side of the sun from the earth will tend to appear dimmer because it was far away. Therefore the ptolemaic model tends to take care the issue of brightness of the planets as it has different circles for all the planets to revolve around. This makes each planet to appear brighter individually. Ans. 15: High tides are the result of the difference between the gravitational pull of the Moon on the either side of the Earth. The Tidal forces gradually slow down the rotation of the Earth. These Tidal forces slowly increase the dimensions of the orbit of the Moon. The level of the sea rises atleast twice a day. This level is divded into 2 parts. When the sea reaches the highest level, it is said to be high tide. The sea is said to be at low tide when it is at its lowest level or somewhere in between the midway to the highest level. the tides of the earth are defined as the deformation of the ocean and also of the Earth. A gravitational pull is exterted by the moon toward the earth. This is done when the moon is pulled on by the earth. As you get away from the moon, the gravitational force applied by the moon or any other object decreases gradually. Theorotically the pull by the moon on the near by side of the earth is about 7% greater. Therefore it can be said that the difference between the earth’s turn in its axis and the high tide is a result of the gravitational pull by the moon. References: Wikibooks (2008). Astronomy. Retrieved September 7, 2008, from http://en. wikibooks. org/wiki/Astronomy

Mickey Mantle :: essays research papers

? Questions 1.) How old was Mickey Mantle when he joined the New York Yankees? When Mickey Mantle joined the Yankees in 1952 he was 20 years old. 2.) In what year did Mickey mantle first play in the World Series?   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The first year Mickey Mantle played in the World Series was in 1956. 3.) In what years did Mickey Mantle win the Triple Crown Award?   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In 1955, Mickey Mantle won the Triple Crown Award and the Most Valuable Player award. 4.) Where and when was Mickey Mantle born?   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Mickey Mantle was born on October 20 1931 in Spavinaw, Oklahoma. 5.) How many times did Mickey Mantle win The Most Valuable Player award?   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Mickey mantle won the Most Valuable Player award three times during his career.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Chapter Summary One of my favorite chapters in this book was chapter fourteen. The name of the chapter is â€Å"The Leader.† â€Å"The Leader† is about how Mickey Mantle became the New York Yankee’s best player and how he took Joe DiMaggio's place on the team. Chapter fourteen is about Mickey Mantle’s tenth season. During that season Mickey Mantle batted .317 and won the Triple Crown Award for the second time in a row. Only a few other players have done that in baseball history. He batted in one hundred and twenty eight runs, two away from his career high of one hundred and thirty. That year he also hit fifty-four home runs, breaking Babe Ruth's record of fifty home runs.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The book Mickey Mantle was mostly about how Mickey Mantle became a player in Major League Baseball. Mickey Mantle was born on October 20, 1931. His Dad was Elven Mantle. He taught Mickey Mantle how to switch hit and play outfield. His mom was Lovell Mantle. He grew up in Spavinaw, Oklahoma. When he was seventeen he went to play minor league baseball. He played for the Kansas-Missouri League. He signed a contract to play for the Yankees in 1951. It was for 50,000 dollars. Mickey Mantle won five MVP awards during his career. In 1961 he signed a contract with the Yankees for 80,000 dollars. At the time he was the highest paid player in the League.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Mickey Mantle,   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Mister Yankee By Al Silverman Questions ? 6.) How did Mickey Mantles benefit from being a switch hitter his entire career even though he hit .325 right handed and .285 left handed?   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  If he was up against a left-handed pitcher he could hit right handed; if it was a   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  right handed pitcher he could hit left-handed

Battle Royal by Ralph Ellison

†Battle Royal† is a chapter in â€Å"Invisible Man†, a novel by Ralph Ellison. In his lifetime, â€Å"Invisible Man† is Ellison’s sole novel but it won him the National Book Award in 1953. What makes the novel special is that it addresses the intellectual and social issues during the post-civil war American Black identity. It also includes the relationship among Marxism, Black Nationalism and the racial policies started by Booker T. Washington. †Invisible Man† was published in 1952 and it showed another angle of the racial tensions that were brewing in America at that time.It was unapologetic and was aware that racial equality was not emerging. It was inspired by the Harlem Renaissance with the goal of uplifting the black race through art and literature. †Invisible Man† takes on a pessimistic point on race relations. Ellison’s approach was not entirely alongside the black arts movement literature. It was in between the e xtreme and the conservative, similar to the literature that was released during the 1960s and 70s black arts movement. â€Å"Invisible Man† served as the indicator of the transitioning period (Schor 240). The narrator has no name.He introduces himself as the â€Å"invisible man. † According to him, people are unwilling to notice him, primarily because he is black. But he has a positive way of seeing this. Because of his ‘invisibility’, he doubts his existence and is anguished. He feels that he needs others to see him. He tries but he rarely succeeds. Basically, the central struggle of the Narrator is his conflict on how others view him and on how he sees himself. The stereotype of him as a mugger is generated because of his color. The â€Å"blindness† of others is rooted from the inability of the Narrator to not allow these cliches be imposed on him.(Sun Joo Lee) It is also ironic that the Narrator confirms his invisibility to the readers by not men tioning his name. He introduces himself as the Narrator, no more no less, thus only heightening his ‘invisibility’ even to those who he’s letting into his life. The chapter entitled â€Å"Battle Royal† begins with the Narrator recalling his grandfather. He was meek and often said yes to the whites. He received great praise from them because of this quality. However the Narrator was not proud of this particular trait of his grandfather and claimed that he was in fact haunted by it in their town.The important points raised in the first chapter titled â€Å"Battle Royal† began when the Narrator recalled the time he delivered a class speech at his graduation. The speech encouraged submission and humility for the advancement of the African Americans. This suggestion was a success that the town arranged him to deliver the peace in the gathering with the white citizens. The Narrator and some of his African American classmates were asked to take part of the even called â€Å"battle royal. † It was the highlight of the evening. They wore boxing gloves and entered a ring.A naked blonde Caucasian woman with an American flag painted on her belly marched around the ring. The African American students, including the Narrator looked down. The whites insisted that they looked at the woman. The whites placed blindfolds around the African Americans and asked them to pummel each other.They encouraged them to viciously fight one another. The Narrator was defeated during the last round. The whites removed their blindfolds. The contestants were led to a rug that had coins and some bills. The boys grabbed the money but were electrocuted because there was a current running through the rag.The white men forced the African Americans to remain on the rug. When the Narrator was giving his speech, the white men scoffed at him and ignored his quotations and verbatim texts from Booker T. Washington. He was asked to repeat the â€Å"social responsibi lity† part of his speech.He finished delivering this and received a round of applause. The white men handed him a briefcase made of calfskin. He was told that the contents would determine the fate of the African American. Inside the briefcase, the Narrator received a scholarship grant to the state college for African Americans.He was still excited despite his discovery that the coins on the electrocuted carpet were only brass tokens. †Battle Royal† is only one chapter in â€Å"Invisible Man† but it already holds the main points of Ellison’s novel. To analyze it, we begin with the narrator’s grandfather’s take on the emotional and moral ambiguity of the racial tensions in the United States. It is no question that the grandfather was submissive and allowed to be dominated. The grandfather confessed that he is a traitor to the policy because of his meekness.The Narrator felt that his grandfather betrayed not only himself, but his family, hi s ancestors as well as his future generations (Wolfe). It is crucial, according to the grandfather, that the Narrator, as an African American maintain two identities. Outside, he should embody a good slave, behaving the exact way the master wanted him to. Inside, he should keep the resentment and the bitterness that was imposed by the false exterior. This is ambiguous because why would one encourage an action when it would only lead to something negative in the end.Here, role-playing is introduced. It becomes a method that is important in the rest of the novel. While the Narrator is attacked by outside forces, he can bring out his mask as his form of defense. The Narrator was encouraged early on to pull off a performance as the good slave.This attacked his sense of self. The text mentioned that the excessive obedience to the expectation of the white Southerners became the disobedience for the African Americans. According to the grandfather, the family could â€Å"overcome the white people with yeses, undermine them with grins.† It suggested that an African American family could play the rift between the perceptions of others in contrast to how they perceived themselves (Valiunas 3) The Narrator believed that by obeying his grandfather’s command, he too would receive praise and respect from the white Southerners in their village.He was right, in a way. The Caucasians granted him a scholarship. However, it was ironic that on the night he received this opportunity, he was also asked to take part on the barbaric and degrading battle royal. This showed the tension between rebellion and obedience and on how the white men continue to manipulate the African Americans.The battle royal showed Ellison’s metaphor of blindness. It was also a way of masking the African Americans their objectives from what was asked of them. The white men viewed the African Americans as not only inferior beings but as animals as well.The blindfolds the African Americans wore pertain to their own blindness. They were unable to understand that the goodwill that was being showered to them (the coins and the bills) was all false. To add salt to the wound, there was the electric current running on the rug. Ellison, as a writer, did not limit his work to allegories and symbolisms.He presented his thoughts through the narrator’s speech. He entered the tradition of the Black Movement. He discouraged the optimistic social program headed by Booker T. Washington. The speech, in particular, had long quotations from the great reformer’s Atlanta Exposition Address of 1895 (Bloom 28).Ellison didn’t believe in the optimistic assessment of the Caucasians. During his time, the successful African American businessmen were still vulnerable tot eh racial prejudices of poor and uneducated African Americans. Ellison argued this pointing out Washington’s belief through the Narrator’s grandfather ideology.Then there was the white audience who taunted and humiliated the hardworking yet polite Narrator. Finally, the briefcase was coined as â€Å"badge of office. † This was another irony because when one pertains to a badge, they usually refer to an emblem or an insignia that is associated to the job and position of the person. The text however only elaborated that the Narrator was in â€Å"office† because he was a good slave. The briefcase appeared throughout the novel, which served as the reminder for the Narrator of his self-effacement.If the reader would continue reading â€Å"Invisible Man†, he would discover that the Narrator matured and developed a new understanding on race relations. He began to assert his identity with his relations. Similar to other works such as Charles Dickens’ â€Å"Great Expectations† and â€Å"David Copperfield†, Charlotte Bronte’s â€Å"Jane Eyre† and Mark Twain’s â€Å"Huckleberry Finn†, Ellison’s novel  "Invisible Man† discussed the individual’s existence alongside people who deemed him different because of his non-traditional ways.The â€Å"novel of formation† is considered to be the kind of existentialism that combines the story of the lead with the world where he discovered what he was trying to find out in terms of his race, his society and his identity (Butler 588). †I felt a wave of irrational guilt and fear. My teeth chattered, my skin turned to goose flesh, my knees knocked. Yet I was strongly attracted and looked in spite of myself. Had the price of looking been blindness, I would have looked. † (Ellison 939).This was from the original short story â€Å"Battle Royal† which eventually became the first chapter of the â€Å"Invisible Man. † This conveyed the desired of the African American spirit during the age of oppression that was overshadowed by fear and ignorance. Ellison used perception in order to give the readers the thoug ht provoking and shocking dissertation on what the African American culture had to go through, despite the notions that equality was brewing. â€Å"Battle Royal† is an allegory that illustrates the African American community’s journey to overcome the oppressive attitudes of Caucasians.The novel is a record of the African American’s search for success over the adversities he faced. Like any other fiction, Ellison devotes his work to an experience. The Narrator shifts from naivety and enchantment into a structured realization of his pretentiousness.Ellison’s work continues to be updated, despite it being published in 1952. The Narrator wondered â€Å"Could politics ever be an expression of love? † This might be a meaningless question for most but for the Narrator, it is appropriate that he presented his thoughts as the passive victim of every experience.He was dissuaded by the white to discover his real self and was limited when it came to the possib ilities. His â€Å"invisibility† was manipulated by the social group that was deemed to be superior than his. He wasn’t able to fully assert his individuality.The fact remained that the Narrator had to stumble over various social fences before he could recognize those â€Å"infinite possibilities† in front of him. Regardless, â€Å"Battle Royal† is abundant of the primary talent that was rooted from Ellison.With his intelligence on the subject matter, the novelist was wildly inventive in coming up with the scenes that were dipped in tension. It was probably painful for him to see his people bleeding so he wrote in a language that stung the reader.No other writer was able to capture the agony, gloom and confusion of the African American life as well as Ellison. Most reviewers commend â€Å"Battle Royal† as a good reading, not only for African American studies but for English Literature as a whole.This short story is a cry from the African Americans that they should be heard and by reading this, they would be.Works Cited Schor, Edith Visible Ellison Greenwood Press, 1993 Sun Joo-Lee, Julia, â€Å"Knuckle Bones and Knocking Bones† Vol 36, 2002 Wolfe, Jesse â€Å"Ambivalent Man: Ellison’s Rejection of Communism† Vol 34, 2000 Valiunas, Albert â€Å"The Great Black Hope† Vol 119 March 2005 Bloom, Harold, African Americans In Literature Chelsea House, 1986 Butler, Robert J. , The Critical Response to Ralph Ellison, Greenwood Press, 2000. Ellison, Ralph, Invisible Man. Chelsea House, 1986.

The African Berbers

The Berbers, or Berber, has a number of meanings, including a language, a culture, a location, and a group of people: most prominently it is the collective term used for dozens of tribes of pastoralists, indigenous people who herd sheep and goats and live in northwest Africa today.  Despite this simple description, Berber ancient history is truly complex. Who Are the Berbers? In general, modern scholars believe that the Berber people are descendants of the original colonizers of North Africa. The Berber way of life was established at least 10,000 years ago as Neolithic Caspians. Continuities in material culture suggest that the people living along the coasts of the Maghreb 10,000 years ago simply added domestic sheep and goats in when they became available, so the odds are theyve been living in northwest Africa for much longer. Modern Berber social structure is tribal, with male leaders over groups practicing sedentary agriculture. They are also fiercely successful traders  and were the first to open the commercial routes between Western Africa and sub-Saharan Africa, at locations such as Essouk-Tadmakka in Mali. The ancient history of the Berbers is by no means as tidy. Ancient History of Berbers The earliest historical references to people known as Berbers are from Greek and Roman sources. The unnamed first century AD sailor/adventurer who wrote the Periplus of the Erythrian Sea describes a region called Barbaria, located south of the city of Berekike on the Red Sea coast of east Africa. The first century AD Roman geographer Ptolemy (90-168 AD) also knew of the Barbarians, located on the Barbarian bay, which led to the city of Rhapta, their main city. Arabic sources for the Berber include the sixth-century poet Imru al-Qays who mentions horse-riding Barbars in one of his poems, and Adi bin Zayd (d. 587) who mentions the Berber in the same line with the eastern African state of Axum (al-Yasum). The 9th-century Arabic historian Ibn Abd al-Hakam (d. 871) mentions a Barbar market in al-Fustat. Berbers in Northwest Africa Today, of course, Berbers are associated with people indigenous to northwest Africa, not east Africa. One possible situation is that the northwestern Berbers were not the eastern Barbars at all, but instead were the people the Romans called Moors (Mauri or Maurus). Some historians call any group living in northwest Africa Berbers, to refer to the people who were conquered by Arabs, Byzantines, Vandals, Romans, and Phoenicians, in reverse chronological order. Rouighi (2011) has an interesting idea that the Arabs created the term Berber, borrowing it from the east African Barbars during the Arab Conquest, their expansion of the Islamic empire into North Africa and the Iberian peninsula. The imperialist Umayyad caliphate, says Rouighi, used the term Berber to group the people living nomadic pastoralist lifestyle in northwestern Africa, about the time they conscripted them into their colonizing army. The Arab Conquests Shortly after the establishment of the Islamic settlements at Mecca and Medina in the 7th century AD, the Muslims began expanding their empire. Damascus was captured from the Byzantine Empire in 635 and by, 651, Muslims controlled all of Persia. Alexandria in Egypt was captured in 641. The Arab conquest of North Africa began between 642-645  when general Amr ibn el-Aasi based in Egypt led his armies westward. The army quickly took Barqa, Tripoli, and Sabratha, establishing a military outpost for further successes in the Maghreb of coastal northwestern Africa. The first northwestern African capital was at al-Qayrawan. By the 8th century, the Arabs had kicked the Byzantines completely out of Ifriqiya (Tunisia) and more or less controlled the region. The Umayyad Arabs reached the shores of the Atlantic in the first decade of the 8th century and then captured Tangier. The Umayyads made Maghrib a single province including all of northwestern Africa. In 711, the Umayyad governor of Tangier, Musa Ibn Nusayr, crossed the Mediterranean Sea into Iberia with an army made up mostly of ethnic Berber people. Arabic raids pushed far into the northern regions and created the Arabic Al-Andalus (Andalusian Spain). The Great Berber Revolt By the 730s, the northwestern African army in Iberia challenged Umayyad rules, leading to the Great Berber Revolt of 740 AD against the governors of Cordoba. A Syrian general named Balj ib Bishr al-Qushayri ruled Andalusia in 742, and after the Umayyads fell to the Abbasid caliphate, the massive orientalization of the region began in 822 with the ascent of Abd ar-Rahman II to the role of Emir of Cordoba. Enclaves of Berber tribes from Northwest Africa in Iberia today include the Sanhaja tribe in the rural parts of the Algarve (southern Portugal), and the Masmuda tribe in the Tagus and Sado river estuaries with their capital at Santarem. If Rouighi is correct, then the history of the Arab Conquest includes the creation of a Berber ethnos from the allied but not previously related groups of northwestern Africa. Nonetheless, that cultural ethnicity is a reality today. Ksar: Berber Collective Residences House types used by modern Berbers include everything from movable tents to cliff and cave dwellings, but a truly distinctive form of building found in sub-Saharan Africa and attributed to Berbers is the ksar (plural ksour). Ksour are elegant, fortified villages made completely with mud brick. Ksour have high walls, orthogonal streets, a single gate and a profusion of towers. The communities are built next to oases, but to preserve as much tillable farmland as possible they soar upward. The surrounding walls are 6-15 meters (20-50 feet) high and buttressed along the length and at the corners by even taller towers of a distinctive tapering form. The narrow streets are canyon-like; the mosque, bathhouse, and a small public plaza are situated close to the single gate which often faces east. Inside the ksar there is very little ground-level space, but the structures still permit high densities in the high rise stories. They provide a defensible perimeter, and a cooler micro-climate produced by low surface to volume ratios. The individual roof terraces provide space, light, and a panoramic view of the neighborhood via a patchwork of raised platforms 9 m (30 ft) or more above the surrounding terrain. Sources Curtis WJR. 1983. Type and Variation: Berber Collective Dwellings of the Northwestern Sahara. Muqarnas 1:181-209.Detry C, Bicho N, Fernandes H, and Fernandes C. 2011. The Emirate of Cà ³rdoba (756–929 AD) and the introduction of the Egyptian mongoose (Herpestes ichneumon) in Iberia: the remains from Muge, Portugal. Journal of Archaeological Science 38(12):3518-3523.Frigi S, Cherni L, Fadhlaoui-Zid K, and Benammar-Elgaaied A. 2010. Ancient Local Evolution of African mtDNA Haplogroups in Tunisian Berber Populations. Human Biology 82(4):367-384.Goodchild RG. 1967. Byzantines, Berbers and Arabs in 7th-century Libya. Antiquity 41(162):115-124.Hilton-Simpson MW. 1927. Algerian Hill-forts of today. Antiquity 1(4):389-401.Keita SOY. 2010. Biocultural Emergence of the Amazigh (Berbers) in Africa: Comment on Frigi et al (2010). Human Biology 82(4):385-393.Nixon S, Murray M, and Fuller D. 2011. Plant use at an early Islamic merchant town in the West African Sahel: the archaeobotany of E ssouk-Tadmakka (Mali). Vegetation History and Archaeobotany 20(3):223-239.Rouighi R. 2011. The Berbers of the Arabs. Studia Islamica 106(1):49-76.