303.WHY DO WE DANCE?
Dance is conversation between body and soul. Before children even learn to talk, and without having seen anyone else dance, they often express themselves naturally through rhythmic movements. Animals also dance! There are birds which actually have group dances, with circling, bowing, advancing, and retreating in unison!
302.WHO WROTE THE FIRST OPERA?
Do you enjoy Westerns on TV? They’re certainly popular with millions of people. Yet can you imagine anyone enjoying exactly the same Western year after year for dozens of years?
But there is a form of entertainment that people enjoy in just that way! They know the plot, they even have most of the lines memorized, yet they love to see it performed year after year! That form of entertainment is the opera.
301.WHO INVENTED THE ZERO?
BRAMMA GUPTA
Perhaps you didn’t realize that the zero had to be invented! Actually one of man’s greatest inventions, it was a concept that has had a tremendous influence on the history of mankind because it made the development of higher mathematics possible.
Up until about the sixteenth century, the number system used in Europe was the Roman system, invented about two thousand years ago. The Roman system was not a simple one. It is built on a base of 10. Thus the mark “X” means 10. The letter “C” means 100. The letter “M” stands for 1,000. The mark for 1 is “I,” for 5 “V,” for 50 “L,” and for 500 “D.” 4 is shown by “IV,” or 1 less than 5. To indicate 1,648, you write: “MDC XI VIII” In the Roman system, to read the number, sometimes you count, sometimes you subtract, sometimes you add.
