April 30, 2019 Tuesday

Bedtime Story 

What is Really South?

The truth is that even for the Americans it took a while - about a century of research and mutual understanding - to come to a precise definition and agreement as to what comprises Southern United States.

As you are aware that unlike say Japan and India that are geographically stretched vertical both the United States and Russia are stretched horizontally making a precise demarcation of north and south a more difficult task than east and west.

Even “worse”, United States has nothing geographically to demarcate even the east from west unlike say Russia which has the Ural Mountains running from north to south which in a way demarcates the European part of Russia from its Asiatic part.

Similarly Indian Subcontinent has the Vindhya Range, a discontinuous chain of mountain ridges, escarpment, hills formed as a result of differential erosion of sedimentary rocks, that can be taken a landmark for dividing northern India from its southern part.

Both the Appalachians and the Rocky Mountains either lie too much towards the east or too much towards the west to form any meaningful physical and geographical landmark for dividing the congruous mainland United States into two equal halves.      

In general Southern States include those states that lie on the eastern part of the United States but south of Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic States that we had happened to have discussed in our bedtime stories.

So for the United States the Southern States largely include the Eastern States but those that lie south of Mid-Atlantic States which for any alien or immigrant would not be natural to assume.

On the other hand the states of New Mexico, Arizona and for that matter even California that are geographically in the south (the islands of Hawaii which are also a state lie much further down south in the Pacific but then they are hardly taken into consideration as they are non-contiguous with the main land) but they are not labeled as Southern States.

This means therefore that the states in the south that lie west of Texas and do not border the Gulf of Mexico are not considered as Southern States.  

Another way of looking at the Southern States is to view them historically and include those states that formed the Confederate States of America from 1861 to 1865 and had actually declared themselves a separate country from that of the United States of America as the name suggests.

It should not escape your attention that the very name Confederate States of America of 1861 was built on the lines of United States of America given to the nation in 1776 (just about 85 years ago) by the Thirteen British Colonies that stretched as a thin and narrow strip of land along the Atlantic Ocean from Province of New Hampshire in North to Province of Georgia in South.

They were aptly called the secessionist states as they were a part of one nation but wanted to separate themselves from the “mainland typical American region” as Mid-Atlantic and New England or North Eastern United States is often known as.

The root of the contention was economy of the south that was heavily dependent upon agriculture – specifically cotton.

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

April 29, 2019 Monday

Bedtime Story 

The Third Front of War of 1812

The collection of the income of the US Customs went down from $13 million in 1811 to $ 6 million in 1814.

Thus the Atlantic theatre of 1812 war though gave Americans some success in single ship battles overall the economic damage that it inflicted upon the nation can be considered to be crippling.

(3.) The Southern States and the southwestern territories – was the third theatre of war of 1812 that was taking place between the United States and United Kingdom.

It was, of the three theatres of war of 1812, most unique as its population comprised on native Indians also known as the

Red Sticks who wished to preserve their traditional leadership and culture against the cultural onslaught of the European-American settlers.

If the rest of the United States or the Mid-Atlantic is considered to “the typical America” then the Southern states would an atypical one.

For the Indians in some sense the “traditional” or “the typical American” was an enemy as much as the British was to the United States.

This irony was lost on the White Americans I think.

The British and the other European powers used this existing discord between the two Americas to their advantage by fortifying the Red Stick Creeks with arms and supplies to fight the Americans.  

The United States or the European American settlers of the Northeastern United States and Mid-Atlantic saw this resistance to their modernity and progressive way of life as Red Stick militancy.

The word “Creeks” comes from the various river creeks that exist in the southern states of Alabama, Georgia and Florida such as Coosa, Tallapoosa, Alabama and Chattahoochee (note the funny sounding Indian names).

The coastal states of Southern United States that have Gulf of Mexico as their coastline are called the Gulf States and include Mexico, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida.

In 1812 these states were under the territorial control of the European powers and therefore were sandwiched in the conflict and jostling for supremacy between the European powers of France, Spain and Britain besides the United States which was battling all these three.

The Native Americans or the Red Sticks only complicated the problem adding yet another dimension for the “White” powers.

It was indeed a bloody and messy time for everybody living in this region but particularly for the native Indians caught between the major powers with none of them interested in preserving the native traditions and culture of Red Sticks.

For them it was all about the battle for land and resources of the virgin territory of Southern United States.            

I am certain that most immigrants living in the United States would not be aware what these terms (Southern States and southwestern territories) exactly mean though they must be having a loose and inaccurate idea about these geographical and historical terms.

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

April 28, 2019 Sunday

Bedtime Story 

Mid-Atlantic in 1812

Historically Mid-Atlantic has played a very important role in the development of American culture, commerce, trade and industry and is sometimes referred to as the “the typically American” region.

It was the region – in contrast to New England area – that was settled in the sixteenth century by a wide range of European people like Dutch, Swedes and others besides the English and French.

So it was from this “the typically American” region that the privateers were waging their war against British Navy and they had met with far greater success than the official American Navy.

While the U.S. Navy took a mere 254 British vessels the privateers inflicted a far greater damage by taking 1300 British merchant vessels.

While these numbers varies from source to source and historian to historian, the general idea that privateers inflicted far greater damage in the Atlantic to the Royal Navy remains true.        

In spite of this loss incurred by the fleet of the Royal Navy it did not pose any major threat for them simply because their total number of fleet was overwhelmingly large.

When converted to percentage of the whole Navy their loss was a meager 7.5% of the entire fleet.

Though the loss was significant in terms of finance and human lives tactically and strategically it hardly affected Britain.

This loss was not so much as to create a need to divert the existing patrolling vessels in the European borders against French to the shores of North America as France was a far greater threat to the interests of Britain than was United States.

After all United States was just another colony and resource to be exploited.

Furthermore this loss in no way affected the merchant vessels of Britain and therefore did not cause any effective trade blockade for them.

British trade remained unaffected – at least directly – from this war taking place in the Atlantic Ocean and continued to prosper as before at the cost of colonies.

This was not the case on the American side as they suffered serious trade reversals.

The large Royal Navy managed to blockade almost all the major ports of New England and Mid-Atlantic including Charleston, Port Royal, Savannah, New York City, Delaware River and Chesapeake Bay.    

By the end of May 1814 almost entire east cost of the United States was under blockade so tight that most of the merchant vessels and even naval ships had to be confined to their ports.

In 1807 the volume of exports of the United States – quite ironically to its enemy Britain or British colonies – amounted to 130 million dollars.

Two years after the War of 1812, that is by 1814, it was drastically slashed down to 7 million dollars.

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

April 27, 2019 Saturday

Bedtime Story 

Outsourcing War

Last night we saw how uncompetitive the young American Navy was against the mighty Royal Navy in 1812.

As always the Americans came up with their ingenious solution which to this very day they deploy in war zones or areas of conflict keeping their own military personal away from direct involvement – and that is their literal off shoring of their wars.

Examples of this type of out sourcing are the use of Brigade 2506 in the Bay of Pigs Invasion of April 17, 1961 and the use of Contras both in Nicaragua and Iran.

Make no mistake about such types of operations; they are not as clandestine as you might believe (involving a large group of people – much larger than you would expect) and the clearance comes eventually from the top.

In the Iran-Contra Affair of 1987 almost everyone around Reagan including the President was in the know and everyone did their best to cover up when the affair came to light.

Powerful men concerning national security such as the Secretary of Defense and National Security Advisor among others were indicted and many convicted on counts of perjury, withholding evidence and destruction of evidence.

Most of them were caught lying like little children.

Of course in any third world country the trials would have gone on endlessly at the cost of taxpayer’s money with eventual either acquittal or even discharge of most of the high-ranking bureaucrats and officials for the lack of evidence.

In most cases the judges make a show of reprimanding the investigating officers for shoddy investigation and not bringing enough evidence into record.

The rich and powerful are almost never convicted until and unless they end up on the wrong side of the men or party in power or the ruling establishment.

In that case miraculously all evidence seem to pour in with prosecution making it a water tight case.

The President obviously would not be privy to the intricate details of such operations but he is broadly briefed and the go ahead has to come from him.

This same policy – not surprisingly – was deployed in the War of 1812 on the Atlantic front.

A great amount of naval warfare of the United States was carried out by such “Contras” who were then called the American privateers who chiefly operated from the port of Baltimore, the largest city in the state of Maryland. 

The city of Baltimore today is the second largest seaport in the Mid-Atlantic.

Mid-Atlantic is the region in United States that includes 8 states starting from New York to West Virginia, that is relatively more affluent than other parts of the United States (based on the number of high-income counties in this area) and is home to some of the most prestigious universities of the nation including Princeton and Columbia.

It includes New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Washington D.C., Virginia and West Virginia.

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

April 26, 2019 Friday

Bedtime Story 

The Atlantic Naval Warfare of 1812

In 1812 British Navy ruled the oceans with a fleet of 600 cruisers in its commission along with smaller boats.

Most of them though were deployed in Atlantic on the European side against its arch rival France with whom United Kingdom had direct conflict of interest regarding trade (they both had colonial ambitions over the world making them threat to each other).

Even taking that French factor into account the Royal Navy still had at least 85 cruisers posted to patrol the American waters that included the Caribbean.

All United States had was a tiny fleet – it could hardly be called that – comprising of mere 8 frigates and few sloops and brigs.

That would change soon as United States would launch into a major ship-building program that would include construction of frigates that would be far larger and powerful than the British possessed.

Powerful in the sense that each frigate would carry more cannons numbering 50 or 60 with 24-pounder artillery battery in contrast to the British that had a standard 38 guns with 18-pounder artillery.

America was into arms race with the United Kingdom and other European imperialistic power houses. 

Such serious Naval warfare is exemplified by the single ship action 400 miles southeast of Halifax that took place between USS Constitution and HMS Guerriere.

Even though the British Navy was far more powerful and superior whereas American Navy was barely twenty years old and untested it was American who proved to be victorious.

After a 35-minute battle with firepower and cannons Guerriere had been dis-masted, captured and later burned.

Overall, while in single ship battle United States met with greater success than the British and raised their morale it was the Royal Navy’s blockade that had the greater crippling affect on the shipping economy of the United States.

In one sense the task of the Royal Navy was far simpler in contrast to that of the small fleet of United States.

Whereas the budding American Navy had to engage with the Royal Navy and battle with each of them all the Royal Navy had to do was to block the American merchant ships from leaving the coast thereby crippling the American economy.

Even more simple than that was to create a fear among the merchants that any venture into Atlantic would prove ruinous for them; after all we know how markets panic by mere sentiments or bad news.

The war game in the Atlantic was inherently skewed in favor of the British.   

It is not surprising therefore that while the United States Navy captured a mere 165 British merchants the Royal Navy had captured 1,400 American merchants after engaging them in the oceanic warfare.

Americans were not all that naïve as they were keenly aware of the might of the Royal Navy and knew they had little chance to prevail over them.

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

April 25, 2019 Thursday

Bedtime Story 

The Mystery of the Great Lakes

Last night we were left wondering as to the source of the freshwater in the Great Lakes of North America.

Could it be that some mysterious feeding river flowing down the icy slopes of some Himalayan mountain is constantly inundating these lakes?

Or perhaps there might be some invisible groundwater springs that is unknown to all taking care of these lakes?

The answer is none of the above is correct in any meaningful way.

You will be surprised to know that of these three factors it is only the precipitation that contributes marginally to these lakes and at the best replace the water that is lost by evaporation but no more than that.

There is nothing of substance that can be said to be the source for the freshwater of these massive naturally occurring water bodies.

So the mystery deepens.

The answer to this mystery lies not in the present but in the distant past; not any historical and cultural past but geological past that goes back more than a billion years (remember that our planet is a mere 4.6 billion years old therefore 1 billion becomes a substantial part of it).

Actually our entire solar system is pretty much that many years old as is our planet and when I say “pretty much that many years old” you have to cautious in interpreting it.

When we are talking about time spans that are billions of years “pretty much same” would include a difference of 50 to 200 million years.

This is an incredibly long time for a human perspective if you were to consider that the entire Order of Primates is merely 65 to 80 million years old with the earliest primate barely resembling modern day lemurs might have first evolved 80 million years ago.    

The geological condition for the formation of these Great Lakes was laid almost 1200 million years ago by movement of tectonic plates but the water that filled these massive geological cavities came at the end of the last glacial period about 12,000 years ago.

More specifically this glaciation period for North America is known as the Wisconsin glaciation that extended from 75,000 years ago to 11,000 years ago.

These lakes formed at the rim of the receding ice as the enormous mass of the continental ice sheet retreated.

The glaciers not only provided the freshwater that we see know but their scouring also led to carving out of the basins for these lakes albeit very rough and uneven. 

Such lakes that are formed due to the activity of glaciers are generalized as glacial lakes and most of them that are present today are found in Asia, Europe and North America.

The area on this planet which will see the most formation of glacial lakes in the coming centuries as a result of continuing deglaciation would be the Southern Tibetan Plateau. 

(2.) At Sea on the Atlantic on and off the East Coast of North America – a substantial amount of warfare that took place in 1812 was of Naval in nature.

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

April 24, 2019 Wednesday

Bedtime Story 

Political Boundaries in 1812

It is not surprising for me as a person who has worked in that illustrious institute as the University campus during my period in 2007-08 was colossal beyond my wildest imagination sprawling out not only in one limited campus but consisting of multiple sites separated far from each other all over the Baltimore City.

I shall try in some future bedtime story to describe the scale of this behemoth of University.

Just the sheer acreage occupied by the University and the serenity of its environment was stupefying for a person coming from a third world lawless metropolitan city that is starving of space.

You would be surprised to know that the name of this university - one of the top in the United States – comes not from a physician or a scientist but its benefactor and an entrepreneur.

We are talking about the period (early 19^th century which means early 1800s) when the United States went to war with United Kingdom and an era when the United States barely had the political semblance of today.

The political and national boundaries of that period has almost nothing in common with those of today’s; so much so that the rulers of that period whose Empire was spread all throughout the world are struggling to decide today whether they should be a part of Europe or not and if yes what sort of partnership it should be.

In fact, in 1812 much of the United States and the eastern part of Canada was the territory of the United Kingdom and the Royal Navy was the undisputable master of the seas.

During the Napoleonic Wars of 1803-1815 (and the period that is the subject of our bedtime story) the Royal Navy was at its peak and was overwhelmingly superior to the fleets of adversaries of Britain.

Because the political geography of that period was so different it comes as an unanticipated anomaly that even though the war was fought between the United States and United Kingdom the theatre of war was primarily North America and was fought in three places over the continent with Europe being nowhere in the picture:

(1.) The Great Lakes and the Canadian Frontier – The Great Lakes are a series of interconnected fresh water lakes in the upper mid-eastern region of North America.

These lakes include Lake Superior, Lake Michigan, Lake Huron, Lake Erie and Lake Ontario of which only the Lake Michigan lies completely within the United States.

The other four form a water boundary between the United States and Canada (limited to the Province of Ontario which is Canada’s most populous province).

These five lakes by volume are the second largest group of freshwater lakes on earth after Lake Baikal located in Russia which holds 22 to 23% of the world’s surface freshwater.

From where do you think these great lakes of North America get their water?

Is it from the naturally occurring precipitation?

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

April 23, 2019 Tuesday

Bedtime Story 

Men who Pioneered the Concept of Visual Receptive Fields

Thus one must not mistake the different concepts of angle of view and receptive field.

Visual receptive fields were initially considered to be two-dimensional and represented as circles or squares or other such two-dimensional shapes though in fact these shapes are merely a thin section or slice of the entire volume of the visual receptive field.     

Whereas by definition receptive fields pertain to a single neuron the idea of the receptive filed can be further extended higher up in the way that was first proposed by two American scientists who were originally not Americans as often happens in this great nation.

No functional neuron either in the visual cortex or in the retina exists in isolation since that neuron would be functionally a useless entity much like an isolated logic gate in the form of a lone silicon transistor wafer would be useless in an integrated circuit.

In fact the very word “integrated” betrays or rather explicitly illustrates this point in contrast to the discrete circuits.

Integrated circuit as defined by the Global Standards for the Microelectronics Industry is a circuit in which all or some of the circuit elements are inseparably associated and electrically interconnected so that it is considered to be indivisible for the purposes of construction and commerce. 

Brain and thereby retina too is an integrated circuit whose immensely complex synaptic circuitry we have yet not yet completely unraveled even though great progress has been made and is continuously being made.

David Hubel (Canadian American neurophysiologist) along with Torsten Wiesel - a Swedish neurophysiologist published a paper in 1962 in the Journal of Physiology that was titled “Receptive fields, binocular interaction and functional architecture in the cat’s visual cortex”.

These two men partnered as research scientists for more than twenty years starting in 1958 at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and this would go on to become one of the greatest pairings in the history of genuine science research.

In 1959 they moved on to Harvard and most of their experimental work together would be conducted there.

David Hubel had moved into Johns Hopkins in 1954 whereas Wiesel arrived in 1955 to work under the great Hungarian-American neurophysiologist Stephen Kuffler who is often referred to as “Father of Modern Neuroscience”.

Stephen Kuffler is yet another Hungarian scientist who did America proud and should rightly be listed as one of “The Martians” that Leo Szilard had popularized.

These Martians - Szilard had proposed – were the evidence of intelligent life beyond earth and that Hungary served as a front for aliens on Mars.      

Kuffler is regarded as a true, original and highly creative neuroscientist who established the Department of Harvard Neurobiology in 1966.

So even though both these men – Hubel and Wiesel - were at Johns Hopkins at the same time for three years their paths crossed each other only in 1958.

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