“And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who couldn’t hear the music.” –Friedrich Nietzsche Good morning, A potpourri today… Above is the photo taken from Apollo 17 back in the 1970s, which I believe was the first “full view” photo of the Earth from space. We’re all living on that ball hurtling through empty space…
I enjoyed musing over the list of contronyms. Although not contronyms, I had occasion to look into the word gauntlet.
This morning my brother-in-law informed me, as he does daily, of his WORDLE score. Today he scored a 2/6 (dammit!). I commented that he had thrown down the gauntlet with force. But one can also run the gauntlet, in a variety of settings. So I google it, and I found a nice piece in History.com
I enjoyed musing over the list of contronyms. Although not contronyms, I had occasion to look into the word gauntlet.
This morning my brother-in-law informed me, as he does daily, of his WORDLE score. Today he scored a 2/6 (dammit!). I commented that he had thrown down the gauntlet with force. But one can also run the gauntlet, in a variety of settings. So I google it, and I found a nice piece in History.com
https://www.history.com/news/what-does-it-mean-to-throw-down-the-gauntlet
Another enjoyable post. Thanks. I have two comments.
First: you mentioned that the earth is hurtling through space. A fun calculation for high school level geometry is the estimation of the velocity.
Assume that the earth's path is a circle, and not an ellipse (oval), centered at the sun.
Assume the radius of the circle is the old, well-known grade school figure, of 93 million miles.
Assume that the earth completes the path in 365.25 days.
Use the equation rate x time = distance.
Calculate the circumference (distance travelled: C = 2 pi x r), divide by the time (days to go once around), and you have the rate.
This rate will be in miles/day. Do the conversion of units to arrive at the rate in miles/second.
Allowing for the approximated figures, the earth has a velocity of: a little more than
18.5 miles per second.