December 31, 2017 Sunday

Bedtime Story 

The Russian Hyperinflation of 1992

In economic parlance this kind of sudden release of price and currency control that took place in the Russian Federation of 1992 goes by the very apt name of “shock therapy”.

The prime architect of this ruthless plan was the deputy prime minister Yegor Gaidar under the guidance of American Economist Jeffrey Sachs.

What is certain from my own experience was the shock or the jolt part that the recently liberated Russians got when this policy was unleashed upon them.

As far as any therapeutic gains to the masses that was intended to achieve I cannot vouch for.

Radical slashing of government spending, heavy new taxes, soaring prices and deep credit crunch – all these factors ensured the GDP of the country continued to fall till 1998.

Such kind of nation-wide treatment to economy was first handed out in 1985 to the people of Bolivia when Bolivia was facing a mind-boggling hyperinflation of 25,000%.

It was handed out to people of Poland a bit earlier in 1989.

What is certain is that this so called “shock therapy” converted the mighty disciplined Russia into a large lamentable Bolivia.

Never ever before in the history of mankind has living standards of so many fallen so rapidly in such a short span of time without any war or foreign invasion or epidemic.

The fragility of economic systems, political boundaries and life in general was in full display and we lived through it.

It is hard to imagine that any ape would be able to come of out of this trauma unscarred.

In the very first year of so called liberalization and reforms, retail prices increased by 2520%, which amounts to a monthly inflation of around 200%.

Now just to give you a proper perspective, doubling of price would occur in a month in a hypothetical case of 100% monthly inflation.  

    

So a loaf of bread that amounted to 20 ruble would become 40 ruble at the end of month in a case of 100% monthly inflation.

In the scenario of 200% monthly inflation that same loaf of bread would end up costing 60 rubles.

So if you see the increase per day, a person buying that same bread would be paying on an average 1.33 rubles more each day.

So any student like us who was depending on fixed stipend thanks to the courtesy of Soviet Government or most Russians who depended on fixed wages were rapidly being deprived of purchasing power.

In an economy undergoing hyper inflation all savings and investments become worthless unless they have been traded in for a more stable foreign currency.

Hyper inflation is not something that is very commonplace and to have gone through it is also a kind of rare experience.

Stay tuned to the voice of an average story storytelling chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.com

                              

Good night mon ami and my fellow cousin ape.

                           

  

                

             

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Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.

While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and physics.

He started the participation of Indian students at the International Physics Olympiad.

Do visit him here:

http://skmclasses.weebly.com/

All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:

https://zookeepersblog.wordpress.com/science-tuition-chemistry-physics-mathematics-for-iit-jee-aieee-std-11-12-pu-isc-cbse/

For edutainment and English education of your children, I recommend this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCd14DRdYKj454znayUIfcAg

December 30, 2017 Saturday

Bedtime Story 

The Story of Two Hyper inflations

France under the leadership of this five-member Directory was perpetually at war with various neighbors at different times that included Britain, Austria, Prussia, the Kingdom of Naples, Russia and even the Ottoman Empire.

These wars led the French economy to spiral out of control and eventually it ended up being in a free fall.

The government was bankrupt and the fiat money, the Assignat, was getting devalued almost every day leading to hyperinflation.

I have had a very personal experience with this kind of hyperinflation in the Russia of 1991 but more dramatically in the sordid year of 1992.

I had landed in Soviet Union in the autumn of 1991 along with mon ami when its dying throes were palpable even to very young unexperienced men like us whose only goal was to get their education and scamper back to the safety of their homeland.

Of course, little did the naive brains realize that time that there is no such thing as safety anywhere once you come into existence on this fragile planet.

A major coup d’état also famously known as the August Putsch had recently been attempted by the members of the Soviet Union’s government against the Soviet President and General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev.

The coup as we all know collapsed in just eight days and perestroika and glasnost it seemed to have won the day.

(History would later go on to show that nothing was won and all was lost and Gorbachev who became the darling of the West came to be reviled and denounced at home.)

But already by then the mighty empire was edging and tipping towards an appalling economic and political crisis.

Food and medicine were becoming scarce all over with Russians standing in long queues for such an essential stuff as bread and milk.

Strangely enough, for a young man from perhaps the most chaotic third world country, I (and perhaps even mon ami too) saw this as a sign of stoic and disciplined Russian way of life.

But the worst was yet to come.

Unknown to me, in February of 1992 the Central Bank of Russia headed by Viktor Gerashchenko let loose on the control of money being printed out.

In the second quarter of 1992 money supply had increased by 34%.

In the third quarter, it further increased by another 30%.

By the end of 1992 money supply in the Russian market had increased a shocking eighteen fold!

If that was not crazy enough, what made the hyperinflation a complete certainty was the complete deregulation of most of the prices.

The 69 years of state control over virtually all means of production, investment, consumption and prices was one fine day suddenly let go both free and berserk.

Stay tuned to the voice of an average story storytelling chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.com

                              

Good night mon ami and my fellow cousin ape.

                           

  

                

             

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Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.

While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and physics.

He started the participation of Indian students at the International Physics Olympiad.

Do visit him here:

http://skmclasses.weebly.com/

All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:

https://zookeepersblog.wordpress.com/science-tuition-chemistry-physics-mathematics-for-iit-jee-aieee-std-11-12-pu-isc-cbse/

For edutainment and English education of your children, I recommend this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCd14DRdYKj454znayUIfcAg

December 29, 2017 Friday

Bedtime Story 

The Revolution was Building Up

In France of 1700s, any peasant who lost his wife would not hesitate to pick up a woman as his second wife and there would be plenty available who would be willing to become a step mother to his brood of children.

Such were the conditions and plight of most French apes then unless they happened to be born to monarchies or royalties.

With the loosing wars that the monarchy was indulging in not only within the continent but even across the Atlantic, conditions were ripening up for a massive social upheaval.

In social upheavals on such massive scale as in the French Revolution, mob rioting is far and widespread.

    

The mob comprehends no reason and during revolutions worst of the human instincts are unleashed en masse in a manner so perverse that the perpetrators of evil actually consider themselves to be virtuous.

The financial crisis that France landed up in prior to the revolution was itself caused by its costly and cataclysmic involvement in the Seven Years’ War (It was a World War that essentially rested on the imperialistic conflict between Great Britain and France)) and later the American War of Independence.

As an aside, it must also be told that Britain too landed up in financial crisis as a result of its massive losses in the American War of Independence.

The Thirteen Colonies that declared themselves as the United States of America at their very inception brought down two major world powers to their knees. 

After the bloody French Revolution ended with the abolition of monarchy and establishment of French Republic, the newly formed republic was run by a powerful Committee of Public Safety.

Just see how one of its famous member Maximilien Robespierre justifies the mass beheadings that the Committee carries out during the Reign of Terror in 1793-94:

“If the basis of popular government in peacetime is virtue, the basis of popular government during a revolution is both virtue and terror; virtue, without with terror is baneful; terror, without which virtue is powerless.

Terror is nothing more than speedy, severe and inflexible justice; it is thus an emanation of virtue; it is less a principle in itself, than a consequence of the general principle of democracy, applied to the most pressing needs of the patrie.”

Patrie is the French for fatherland or homeland.

The Committee of the Public Safety that was the de facto executive government in France during the Reign of Terror (1793-94) and could hardly be said to have provided any kind of safety or security to the public.

It headed the period of maximum executions following the Revolution.

This committee was then thrown over and replaced by yet another one in 1795 that went by the name of Directory.

Stay tuned to the voice of an average story storytelling chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.com

                              

Good night mon ami and my fellow cousin ape.

                           

  

                

             

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Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.

While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and physics.

He started the participation of Indian students at the International Physics Olympiad.

Do visit him here:

http://skmclasses.weebly.com/

All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:

https://zookeepersblog.wordpress.com/science-tuition-chemistry-physics-mathematics-for-iit-jee-aieee-std-11-12-pu-isc-cbse/

For edutainment and English education of your children, I recommend this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCd14DRdYKj454znayUIfcAg

December 28, 2017 Thursday

Bedtime Story 

Why Loom Automation was Rejected

In her book “Edison’s Eve” Gaby Wood writes that Vaucanson for his revolutionary ideas, particularly with respect to automation of looms, was pelted with stones by the weavers in the street.

His automation if implemented on a mass scale would put several men out of work that were engaged in the silk weaving industry; particularly the men whose job was to lift the warp threads.

You have to view this reaction of the weavers in its rightful historical context.

France then was suffering from major international losses, the big one being losing Canada to Britain in their colonial wars that were being waged in North America.

An average Frenchman was highly discontent with the monarchy which was well known for its cultural extravagances and sexual excesses.    

So for 50 years Vaucanson’s loom was kept in the Conservatoire des Arts et métiers (National Conservatory of Arts and Crafts: a higher education establishment of French government) in Paris.

At least the Frenchmen had that much sense to preserve this pioneering work even if they did not have the economic ingenuity and financial perspicacity to exploit it.

The automated loom rested at the Conservatory for nearly 50 years lying completely unused.

Then the Revolution happened.

The French government was staring at a major financial crisis in the 1780s and King Louis XVI to put it modestly did not handle it too well.

Just for your information, Louis XVI was beheaded by guillotine in 1793 on charges of high treason.  

Revolutions sound great to arm-chair philosophers, thinkers, historians and romantic writers.

In actual fact revolutions are vicious and cruel that leaves in their wake widespread torment and angst with families being either partially uprooted or completely destroyed.

France, in fact, you would be surprised to know was a very heart-wrenching place in the eighteenth century, much as South Asia is today.

France was the most populated nation of Europe then harboring 22 million human apes, followed closely by European Russia at 20 million.

The entire Russian Empire had overall far more.

To contrast it with its neighbor, contemporary Britain of that time had just 6 million of our ancestral cousins.

Of its entire humanity, 96% of Frenchmen were peasants.

Large number of children was raised in broken families or blended families sharing their scarce resources either with their stepsiblings or their half-siblings.   

At the same time it was common for brothers and sisters to be separated and live apart depending upon the choice of their guardians.

Stay tuned to the voice of an average story storytelling chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.com

                              

Good night mon ami and my fellow cousin ape.

                           

  

                

             

Advertisements

Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.

While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and physics.

He started the participation of Indian students at the International Physics Olympiad.

Do visit him here:

http://skmclasses.weebly.com/

All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:

https://zookeepersblog.wordpress.com/science-tuition-chemistry-physics-mathematics-for-iit-jee-aieee-std-11-12-pu-isc-cbse/

For edutainment and English education of your children, I recommend this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCd14DRdYKj454znayUIfcAg

December 27, 2017 Wednesday

Bedtime Story 

Vaucanson's Modifications

Last night we were recapturing the modifications that were made by Bouchon and Falcon in the loom machine in their attempt to automate the pattern making. 

The eyelets of the horizontally placed needles had hooks attached to them at right angles.

When the cylinder was pressed manually against the row of needles, those needles that got pressed against the solid paper would move forward.

This forward movement would be reflected on to the corresponding attached hooks.

These hooks would not be raised which meant that in turn the corresponding warp yarns that were engaged by these hooks would remain in place.

On the other hand, all those horizontal needles in the array did not get pressed if they passed through the punched holes on the paper.

The hooks that corresponded to these needles would get raised and so the warp yarns snagged by these hooks would get lifted up.

Vaucanson made some few alterations.

Firstly, he placed this paper roll on top of the loop instead to its side.

Secondly, the paper that replaced with card by Falcon was rolled around the drum on top.

Thirdly, he devised a ratchet or a rolling mechanism in the drum such that the punched paper advanced each time by one row after the cylinder was pushed against the hooks.

The card greatly took care of the fragility that was encountered with punched paper.

Moreover, now the card had the support of the drum which further reduced their chances of getting damaged or torn.

Moving the card and drum on top got the sensitive part out of the way of the working weavers.

The automatic ratcheting of the drum was a one step further in automation as it further reduced the need of the person who was required to handle the movement of the paper or the card.

I understand it is not very easy to visualize these changes unless you are shown this in an actual model but still you should get a fairly decent idea of what we are talking about.

If you are curious enough a bird, then obviously you will seek out the video on YouTube as there is a whole treasure of educative information out there.

Now what would such pioneering work beget a man? Awards? Honors?

No, no and again No.

All these innovations and additions that Vaucanson added to the loom for its automation was not well received as it put men out of work.

In her book “Edison’s Eve: A Magical History of the Quest for Mechanical Life” Gaby Wood traces the history of robotics.

Stay tuned to the voice of an average story storytelling chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.com

                              

Good night mon ami and my fellow cousin ape.

                           

  

                

             

Advertisements

Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.

While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and physics.

He started the participation of Indian students at the International Physics Olympiad.

Do visit him here:

http://skmclasses.weebly.com/

All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:

https://zookeepersblog.wordpress.com/science-tuition-chemistry-physics-mathematics-for-iit-jee-aieee-std-11-12-pu-isc-cbse/

For edutainment and English education of your children, I recommend this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCd14DRdYKj454znayUIfcAg

December 26, 2017 Tuesday

Bedtime Story 

Story of Vaucanson

Not only was Vaucanson successful in making the nobleman part with his money, but very soon he even started constructing machines, tending more towards automatic machines.

Within ten years of having started his workshop he had constructed a robot that he named The Flute Player.

This Flute Player was a life-sized figure of a shepherd, one that played the pipe and the other the tabor.

Tabor is a portable snare drum that is hung around one’s shoulder and is played with one hand.

He showed his inventions to the visiting politicians and government officials who had dropped in by his town.

Not only they were not impressed with Vaucanson’s robots (throughout the human history this has been the recurrent theme and fate that geniuses have encountered), they even labeled his work as “profane” and ordered his workshop to be destroyed.

Such were the state of affairs in Europe then.

Vaucanson was neither deterred nor dismayed by the reception of his inventions, because I imagine he must have realized that his work was way beyond the grasp of average mortals of his time.

So instead of politicians and government officers, he next presented his work to scientists at the Academie des Sciences.

Slowly but surely his inventions started getting the deserved attention and even got accepted as revolutionary.

In spite of his remarkable contribution to mechanical automatic machines his nation that was under the reign of Emperor Louis XV failed to capitalize on his endowed expertise.

Instead one of the ministers of the Emperor appointed him as an inspector of the manufacture of the Silk in France.

This took place in the year of 1741.

Silk manufacturing and weaving at that time was a matter of both the national economy and pride.

At the same time there was growing concern in the mainland Europe including France that they were lagging behind the industry flourishing in England and Scotland.

It was on this background that Vaucanson decided to apply his ideas of automation to the looms as he considered it the need of the hour in every sense.

From 1747 onwards he began to study the contributions that were added to the loom machines by Basile Bouchon and Jean Falcon.

I hope you recall what changes Bouchon and Falcon had made in their attempts to automate the looms.

Hooks that had been devised to lift the warp threads were lifted using series of horizontally placed needles.

The needles in their turn were pressed against a sheet of punched paper (punching depending on the desired pattern) that was draped around a perforated drum.

Stay tuned to the voice of an average story storytelling chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.com

                              

Good night mon ami and my fellow cousin ape.

                           

  

                

             

Advertisements

Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.

While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and physics.

He started the participation of Indian students at the International Physics Olympiad.

Do visit him here:

http://skmclasses.weebly.com/

All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:

https://zookeepersblog.wordpress.com/science-tuition-chemistry-physics-mathematics-for-iit-jee-aieee-std-11-12-pu-isc-cbse/

For edutainment and English education of your children, I recommend this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCd14DRdYKj454znayUIfcAg

December 25, 2017 Monday

Bedtime Story 

Transmission of the Idea of Crankshaft

Let me try to give you a more vivid example of a reciprocating motion.

Perhaps if you recall from some movie scenes of distance past of black locomotive engine chugging out from a railway station, you would fleetingly remember how its wheels moved under the action of a horizontal rod that moved in a linear fashion back-and-forth.

That to me is the perfect example of reciprocating motion and underpins the functioning of internal combustion engine.

The two opposite motions that comprise one reciprocation cycle is called a stroke.

This reciprocation motion in crank is achieved by attaching a stiff rod to a rotating stationary wheel more towards its periphery.

As the wheel rotates stationary in one place, possibly mounted on a flywheel axle, the attached rod when placed correctly with appropriate gears and levers will move front and back.

What the Banu Mosa brothers described in their inventions was not a perfect crankshaft as we envision today.

But they got fairly close.

It was what was described in this book that inspired Al-Jazari almost 350 years later to further improve on the crankshaft and make it far more complete.

In his own Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices published in 1206 he connected the rod in the crankshaft to twin-cylinder pump.

Moreover, the wheel described by him had crankpins which made the crankshaft in principle very similar to the modern ones.

Al-Jazari would in turn inspire the Lyonese inventor Jacques de Vaucanson some 550 years later in around 1750.

So you see mon ami, thanks to our ability to record events and pass it on to next generation, we human apes need not start tabula rasa unlike our closest cousins the chimpanzees where knowledge transmission is limited to very close family members such as parents to off springs or such similar familial ties.

As I had stated earlier, Vaucanson received no sensible education in his childhood but his encounter with the surgeon Le Cat ignited a spark within his mind to device automatic machines on the line of human body.

Human body after all, if dissected thoroughly, reveals itself to be a mechanical machine made up of biological tissues whose basic unit of construction and function are cells.

At a very young age of 18 he managed to get funds from a nobleman that allowed him to set up his own workshop where he would construct his own machines.

It amazes me to discover that such a young man with no background in almost anything worthwhile succeeded in convincing someone unknown to become venture capitalist and invest money on him.      

Just try convincing in today’s time rich tycoons for some fancy and wild technological project with no education background and see the reply that you receive.

Stay tuned to the voice of an average story storytelling chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.com

                              

Good night mon ami and my fellow cousin ape.

                           

  

                

             

Advertisements

Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.

While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and physics.

He started the participation of Indian students at the International Physics Olympiad.

Do visit him here:

http://skmclasses.weebly.com/

All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:

https://zookeepersblog.wordpress.com/science-tuition-chemistry-physics-mathematics-for-iit-jee-aieee-std-11-12-pu-isc-cbse/

For edutainment and English education of your children, I recommend this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCd14DRdYKj454znayUIfcAg

December 24, 2017 Sunday

Bedtime Story 

Automatic Controls in Kitab al-Hiyal 

Very modestly, the book - Kitab Al-Hiyal or the Book of Ingenious Devices begins taking the works of Greek civilization as the starting point.

It was not exactly a serious book of engineering but more of an amusement amateur type perhaps similar to my bedtime stories though I cannot be hundred percent sure unless I personally read the book page to page.

Around one hundred mechanical devices have been described in this book including several devices with automatic controls.

When I describe some of the instruments below you might not find them impressive if you chose to ignore or suppress the fact that we are talking about 850 AD, almost one thousand years before the beginning of Industrial Revolution in Europe.

Moreover, whatever else the three brothers may have borrowed from the works of Greeks, the concept of automatic controls was totally an avant-garde step of their own.

When I go through the kind of systems they had devised I as an ophthalmologist am quite taken aback because I find the ideas very impressive.

  

It may be partly due to my lack of knowledge of mechanical engineering but I suspect the ideas would be given due respect even by those who are in that field.

Most of the machines that the Banu Musa brothers had described were operated purely by elegant and ingenious combinatory use of hydraulics (application of fluid power), pneumatics (pressurized air) and aerostatics (non-moving fluid or air).

For the first time in a written text was found the description of “in-line” conical valve that would control the flow of two different kinds of fluids such as wine and water.

Besides conical valve, they had also described in their inventions plug valve, float valve (such as the ballcock found in our flush toilets) and tap valve that is all around us.

The other novel mechanism that was found in their devices was the fail-safe system.

A fail-safe system is essentially any mechanism that will not endanger life or property if the machine as a whole fails.

For instance, they describe a machine that allows one to draw out small quantities of liquid from time to time, but withdrawing a larger amount of that assigned would not be permissible by the machine.

One of the crucial inventions that has a direct bearing on our story was their description of the crank that appear in several of their devices.

Many of you may not know what a crank is since most modern apes are neither mechanical engineers nor desire to get their hands dirty working with machine tools.

A crank is a device that converts a circular motion into a reciprocating motion.

Now you may wonder what a reciprocating motion is.

Well, a reciprocating motion is a repetitive either up-and-down or back-and-forth linear motion.

Stay tuned to the voice of an average story storytelling chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.com

                              

Good night mon ami and my fellow cousin ape.

                           

  

                

             

Advertisements

Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.

While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and physics.

He started the participation of Indian students at the International Physics Olympiad.

Do visit him here:

http://skmclasses.weebly.com/

All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:

https://zookeepersblog.wordpress.com/science-tuition-chemistry-physics-mathematics-for-iit-jee-aieee-std-11-12-pu-isc-cbse/

For edutainment and English education of your children, I recommend this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCd14DRdYKj454znayUIfcAg

December 23, 2017 Saturday

Bedtime Story 

The Banu Musa Brothers

The Banu Musa brothers were three brothers originally from Persia whose father was once a highway robber.

Not a great pedigree though geniuses are more often not born to royalties since DNA recombination is a pure chance event that neither wealth nor diet has any significant control.

Banu Musa literally translates into “Sons of Moses” and here we have direct evidence how closely then Islam, Christianity and Judaism were linked.

Their father eventually landed up somehow working for the seventh Abbasid caliph who is more famous for his large scale warfare with the neighboring Byzantine Empire.

Byzantine Empire whose center was Constantinople was essentially a continuation of the Western Roman Empire from fifth century AD onwards which carried the legacy of a momentous event.

That significant event whose legacy would echo in the centuries to come was the deep vertical chasm that cleaved Christianity into two.

From then onwards originated the term Latin West and the Greek East.

The Greek East would eventually go on to become the Russian Empire which to this day sees itself at conflict with the Latin West with the only difference being that the words Latin and Greek have been dropped out today.

Anyway, we need not care too much about the affairs of the Empires and politics and suffice to know that during the time of Banu Musa brothers at around 800 AD, there existed two primary empires in that Fertile Crescent – the Abbasid Caliphate and the Byzantine Empire.

The reigning Caliph of that time was wise enough to recognize the talent of the three brothers and took them under his patronage.

One of the first things that he did as a gift to the intellect of these three brothers was to enroll them in the famous House of Wisdom.

Now I am sure in a place as elite and as famous as House of Wisdom it would not be been an easy access without recommendation.

Imagine yourself trying to get a position in today’s Princeton University even in subjects on humanities.

The brothers were not only gifted but began playing important role even in the administration of the House of Wisdom recruiting scholars and mathematicians and arranging stipend for them.

They fully appreciated the wisdom of Greeks and began to translate as many Greek texts into Arabic as they could get their hands on to (They had six hands in total).

In fact they were commissioned by the Abbasid Caliph himself to acquire and translate all the Hellenistic texts left over in the monasteries after the fall of the Roman civilization.  

It is said that had it not been for their efforts much of the Greek texts would have lost to present human apes.

In 850 AD the Banu Musa brothers came out probably with their finest treatise that they called: Kitab Al-Hiyal or the Book of Ingenious Devices.

Stay tuned to the voice of an average story storytelling chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.com

                              

Good night mon ami and my fellow cousin ape.

                           

  

                

             

Advertisements

Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.

While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and physics.

He started the participation of Indian students at the International Physics Olympiad.

Do visit him here:

http://skmclasses.weebly.com/

All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:

https://zookeepersblog.wordpress.com/science-tuition-chemistry-physics-mathematics-for-iit-jee-aieee-std-11-12-pu-isc-cbse/

For edutainment and English education of your children, I recommend this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCd14DRdYKj454znayUIfcAg