Understanding the following will help you choose the right set plays, you need in basketball competition

Your offensive set. It’s best to choose set plays that have the same formation as your offensive set. So for example, if you run your primary offense from a box set, it’s best to choose plays that have a similar box formation. This way the defense doesn't get a cue to what’s coming.

The understanding of expanding universe between neighboring galaxies

In the second kind of solution, the universe is expanding so rapidly that the gravitational attraction can never stop it, though it does

Friedmann’s assumption basis of general distant galaxies

The equations of general relativity, which determined how the universee volves in time, are too complicated to solve in detail. So what

Understanding facts about heat part2

Liquids and for solutions. If milk is placed upon a stove, the temperature rises steadily until the boiling point is reached; further

Understanding facts about heat

Boiling. Heat absorbed in Boiling. If a kettle of water is placed above a flame, the temperature of the water gradually increases, and soon

Understanding temperature is independent of the quantity of matter present

Temperature not a Measure of the Amount of Heat Present. If two similar basins containing unequal quantities of water are placed in

Important and valuable The theory of multiple intelligence test

Although most IQ testing only assesses what is termed ‘general ability’ in three categories of intelligence, numerical, verbal and spatial (abstract) reasoning, there are several other equally important and valuable intelligences that need to be recognised and developed. The theory of multiple intelligence (MI) advocates that the traditional view of a single general intelligence,g, is too narrow and that humans have multiple intelligences. By expanding our definition of intelligence to include multiple intelligences, we can identify,
appreciate and nurture more of our strengths. This is important, as it would be as rare for any one individual to be endowed in all the different intelligences as it would for any one individual not to possess some kind of talent. We all tend to be aware of some of our abilities and limitations, for instance, some of us may be great musicians but completely hopeless when it comes to fixing a problem with our car; others may be championship-class chess players but would never be able to smash a tennis ball into the opposing player’s court; and others may possess great linguistic and mathematical skills but feel completely at a loss trying to make small talk at social gatherings. The fact is that no-one is talented in every domain and noone is completely incapable in every domain. The originator of the theory of multiple intelligences, Howard Gardner, a professor of education at Harvard University, defines intelligence as the potential ability to process a certain sort of information. The different types of intelligence are for the most part independent of one another, and no type is more important than the other. Although aspects of it are included in several of the above categories; in addition to the above seven basic types of intelligence can be added creativity, which has sometimes been referred to as ‘the eighth intelligence’. Additionally, if creativity is the eighth intelligence, then memory must be the ninth, and both creativity and memory are explored and tested in detail respectively. Whilst Spearman concluded that people who performed well at varying tasks tended to use the same part of the brain,g,Gardner asserts that each of the above intelligences is located in one or more particular areas of the brain. Some of the evidence for this belief is provided by the study of people who have suffered brain damage, either from strokes or other causes, and who may, for example, still be able to sing words despite having lost the ability to use expressive speech. Although the jury may still be out on the debate as to whether the factor, as gauged by IQ tests, is just one single general intelligence, or whether there are, as Gardner and others suggest, a set of independent mental domains, it would appear to be coming increasingly apparent that, as we learn more about the human brain and how different parts of the brain appear to generate different intelligence, the more compelling Gardner’s theory becomes. The main lesson to be learned from this is that people can be intelligent in many different ways. It is completely wrong to write off or even put down someone who has scored badly in an IQ test which, after all, has only provided us with one type of information about that individual. All of us have the potential for achievement in some kind of intelligence and we also possess the potential for improvement in many other areas. Although there are types of intelligence that cannot be tested in a book, for example, aptitude at performing physical tasks or playing a musical instrument, in the chapters that follow as many different types of intelligence will be tested and explored as is feasible to do.

.A test of intelligence and psychologists treat IQ

Intelligence may be narrowly defined as the capacity to acquire knowledge and understanding, and use it in different novel situations.It is this ability, or capacity, which enables the individual to deal with real situations and profit intellectually from sensory experience.A test of intelligence is designed to formally study, under test
conditions, the success of an individual in adapting to a specific situation.There are a number of different methods which purport to measure intelligence, the most famous of which is the IQ, or intelligence

quotient test. In the formation of such tests many psychologists treat intelligence as a general ability operating as a common factor in a wide variety of aptitudes. Whilst many IQ tests measure a variety of different types of ability such as verbal, mathematical, spatial and reasoning skills, there is now a second school of thought in which it is believed that the earlier definitions of intelligence may be too simplistic. It is now becoming increasingly recognized that there are many different types of intelligence and that a high measured IQ, although desirable, is not the only key to success in life. Other characteristics,such as outstanding artistic, creative or practical prowess, especially if combined with personal characteristics such as ambition, good
temperament and compassion, could result in an outstanding level of success despite a low measured IQ. It is because of this that in recent years CQ (creative quotient) and EQ (emotional quotient), to name
just two examples, have come to be regarded as equally important as, or even more important than, IQ measurement. It should also be pointed out that having a high IQ does not mean that one has a good memory. A good memory is yet another type of intelligence, and could result in high academic success despite a low measured IQ test score. The object of this post is to identify different types of intelligence
and bring together tests for different aspects of intelligence into one post, and provide an objective assessment of abilities in a number of different disciplines.This will, therefore, give readers the opportunity to identify their own strengths and weaknesses and thus enable readers to build on their strengths and work at improving their performance in areas of weakness. As well as the identifying of such strengths and weaknesses, the tests and exercises in this book perform another important function, that of using and exercising the brain. Despite the enormous capacity of the brain, we only use on average 2% of our potential brainpower. There is, therefore, the potential for each of us to expand our brainpower considerably.
It is important that we continually use our brain, for example, the more we practice at tests of verbal aptitude, the more we increase our ability to understand the meaning of words and use them effectively; the more we practice at mathematics, the more confident we become when working with numbers; and the more we practice our ability to move our fingers and manipulate small objects, the more dextrous we become at operations involving this type of aptitude. Our brain is undoubtedly our greatest asset, yet, for most of us, it
is the part of the body we most take for granted. Our brain needs exercise and care in the same way as other parts of the body. We eat the right foods to keep our heart healthy, we moisturize our skin to keep it from drying out and, just as gymnasts strive to increase their performance at whatever level they are competing, by means of punishing training schedules and refinement of technique, there are exercises, or mental gymnastics, we can do to increase the performance of our brain and enhance quickness of thought

Studying of words, phrases, and literary expressions in learning languages

The study of words, phrases, and literary expressions is a highly interesting pursuit. There is a reciprocal influence between thought and language. What we think molds the words we use, and the words we use react upon our thoughts. Hence a study of words is a study of ideas, and a stimulant to deep and original thinking. We should not, however, study "sparkling words and sonorous phrases" with the object of
introducing them consciously into our speech. To do so would inevitably lead to stiltedness and superficiality. Words and phrases should be studied as symbols of ideas, and as we become thoroughly familiar with them they will play an unconscious but effective part in our daily expression. We acquire our vocabulary largely from our reading and our personal associates. The words we use are an unmistakable indication of our thought habits, tastes, ideals, and interests in life. In like manner, the habitual language of a people is a barometer of their intellectual, civil, moral, and spiritual ideals. A great and noble people express themselves in great and noble words. Ruskin earnestly counsels us to form the habit of looking intensely at words. We should scrutinize them closely and endeavor to grasp their innermost meaning. There is an indefinable satisfaction in knowing how to choose and use words with accuracy and precision. As Fox once said, "I am never at a loss for a word, but Pitt always has the word." All the great writers and orators have been diligent students of words. Demosthenes and Cicero were indefatigable in their study of language. Shakespeare, "infinite in faculty," took infinite pains to embody his thought in words of crystal clearness. Coleridge once
said of him that one might as well try to dislodge a brick from a building with one's forefinger as to omit a single word from one of his finest passages. Milton, master of majestic prose, under whose touch words became as living things; Flaubert, who believed there was one and one only best word with which to express a given thought; De Quincey, who exercised a weird-like power over words; Ruskin, whose rhythmic prose enchanted the ear; Keats, who brooded over phrases like a lover; Newman, of pure and melodious style; Stevenson, forever in quest of the scrupulously precise word; Tennyson, graceful and exquisite as the limpid stream; Emerson, of trenchant and epigrammatic style; Webster,whose virile words sometimes weighed a pound; and Lincoln, of simple, Saxon speech,--all these illustrious men were assiduous in their study of words.

Understanding languages The guide to familiar quotations part2

Human thought elaborates itself with the progress of intelligence. Speech is the harvest of  thought, and the relation which exists between words and the mouths that speak them must be carefully observed. Just as nothing is more beautiful than a word fitly spoken, so nothing is rarer than the use of a word in its exact meaning. There is a tendency to overwork both words and phrases that is not restricted to any particular
class. The learned sin in this respect even as do the ignorant, and the practice spreads until it becomes an
epidemic. The epidemic word with us yesterday was unquestionably "conscription"; several months ago it was "preparedness." Before then "efficiency" was heard on every side and succeeded in superseding "vocational teaching," only to be displaced in turn by "life extension" activities. "Safety-first" had a long run which was brought almost to abrupt end by "strict accountability," but these are mere reflections of our cosmopolitan life and activities. There are others that stand out as indicators of brain-weariness. These
are most frequently met in the work of our novelists. English authors and journalists are abusing and overworking the word intrigue to-day. Sir Arthur Quillercouch on page 81 of his book "On the Art of Writing" uses it: "We are intrigued by the process of manufacture instead of being wearied by a description of the ready-made article." Mrs. Sidgwick in "Salt and Savour," page 232, wrote: "But what intrigued her was Little Mamma's remark at breakfast," From the Parliamentary news, one learns that "Mr. Harcourt intrigued the House of Commons by his sustained silence for two years" and that "London is interested in, and not a little intrigued, by the statement." This use of intrigue in the sense of "perplex, puzzle, trick, or deceive" dates from 1600. Then it fell into a state of somnolence, and after an existence of innocuous desuetude lasting till 1794 it was revived, only to hibernate again until 1894. It owes its new lease of life to a writer on The Westminster Gazette, a London journal famous for its competitions in aid of the restoring of the dead meanings of words. One is almost exasperated by the repeated use and abuse of the word "intimate" in a
recently published work of fiction, by an author who aspires to the first rank in his profession. He writes of "the intimate dimness of the room;" "a fierce intimate whispering;" "a look that was intimate;" "the noise of the city was intimate," etc. Who has not heard, "The idea!" "What's the idea?" "Is that the idea?" "Yes, that's the idea," with increased inflection at each repetition. And who is without a friend who at some time or another has not sprung "meticulous" upon him? Another example is afforded by the endemic use of "of sorts" which struck London while the writer was in that city a few years ago. Whence it came no one knew, but it was heard on every side. "She was a woman of sorts;" "he is a Tory of sorts;" "he had a religion of sorts;" "he was a critic of sorts." While it originally meant "of different or various kinds," as hats of sorts; offices of sorts; cheeses of sorts, etc., it is now used disparagingly, and implies something of a kind that is not satisfactory, or of a character that is rather poor. This, as Shakespeare might have said, is "Sodden business! There's a stewed phrase indeed!" [Footnote: Troilus and Cressida, act iii, sc. 1.] The abuse of phrases and the misuse of words rife among us can be checked by diligent exercises in good English, such as this post provides. These exercises, in conjunction with others to be found in different volumes by the same author, will serve to correct careless diction and slovenly speech, and lead to the art of speaking and writing correctly; for, after all, accuracy in the use of words is more a matter of habit than of theory, and once it is acquired it becomes just as easy to speak or to write good English as bad English. It was Chesterfield's resolution not to speak a word in conversation which was not the fittest he could recall. All persons should avoid using words whose meanings they do not know, and with the correct application of which they are unfamiliar. The best spoken and the best written English is that which conforms to the language as used by men and women of culture--a high standard, it is true, but one not so high that it is unattainable by any earnest student ofthe English tongue.

Understanding languages The guide to familiar quotations

Language is a temple in which the human soul is enshrined, and that it grows out of life--out of its joys and its sorrows, its burdens and its

The misused, and misapplied of faith and the law in financial success

Faith Is a word that has been often misused, misapplied and misunderstood. To many it means simply that attitude of mind

How fear and worry can paralyze useful effort, and good work part2

With this mental picture in his mind — if he holds to it long enough — he draws the things or conditions to him, and thus "thought takes

How fear and worry can paralyze useful effort, and good work

One great negative note in the lives of most people is Fear. Fear is the mother of all the negative emotions, and her brood is found clustering very closely around her. Worry, Lack of Confidence, Bashfulness, Irresolution, Timidity, Depression, and all the rest of the negative brood of feelings and emotions are the progeny of Fear. Without Fear none of these minor emotions or feelings would exist. By killing off the parent
of this possible brood of mental vampires, you escape the entire coming generations of negative thoughts, and thus keep your Mental Attitude garden free from these pests and nuisances. Fear and the emotions that come from its being do more to paralyze useful effort, good work, and finely thought-out plans, than aught else known to man. It is the great hobgoblin of the race. It has ruined the lives of thousands of people. It has destroyed the finely budding characters of men and women, and made negative individuals of them in the place of strong, reliant, courageous doers of useful things. Worry is the oldest child of Fear. It settles down
upon one's mind, and crowds out all of the developing good things to be found there. Like the cuckoo in
the sparrow's nest, it destroys the rightful occupants of the mind. Laid there as an egg by its parent. Fear, Worry soon hatches out and begins to make trouble. In case of the cheerful and positive "I Can and I Will" harmony. Worry begins to rasp out in raucous tones: "Supposing'," "What if,' "But," "I can't," “I'm unlucky,""! never could do things right," "Things never turn out right with me," and so on until all the minor notes have been sounded. It makes one sick bodily, and inert mentally. It retards one's progress, and is a constant stumbling block in our path upward. The worst thing about Fear and Worry is that while they exhaust a great part of the energy of the average person, they give nothing good in return. Nobody ever accomplished a single thing by reason of Fear and Worry. Fear and Worry never helped one along a single inch on the road to Success. And they never will, because their whole tendency is to retard progress, and not to advance it. The majority of things that we fear and worry about never come to pass at all, and the few that do actually materialize are never as bad as we feared they would be. It is not the cares, trials and troubles of today that unnerve us and break us down — it is the troubles that we fear may come some time in the future. Everyone is able to bear the burdens of to-day, but when he heaps on the burdens of to-morrow, the next day, and the day after that, he is doing his mind an injustice, and it is no wonder that after a bit he heaps on the last straw that breaks the back of the mental camel. The energy, work, activity and thought that we ex- pend on these imaginary "maybe" troubles of the future would enable us to master and conquer the troubles of each day as they arise. Nature gives each of us a reserve supply of strength and energy upon which to draw and oppose unexpected troubles and problems as they come upon us each day. But we poor, silly mortals draw upon this reserve force and dissipate it in combating the imaginary troubles of next week, or next year, the majority of which never really put in an appearance — and when we have need of the force to oppose some real trouble of the day we find ourselves bankrupt of power and energy, and are apt to go down in defeat, or else be compelled to beat an inglorious retreat.

Self-Confidence Encourage, Enthusiasm, Fearlessness, and Energy In Doing Business

Let a man come into your presence for the purpose  of doing business with you and if he lack self-con- fidence in himself and the things he wishes to sell you, you will at once catch his spirit and will feel that you
have no confidence in him or the things he is offering. You will catch his mental atmosphere at once, and
he will suffer thereby. But let this same man fill himself up with thoughts, feelings, and ideals of En-thusiasm
, Success, Self-Confidence, Confidence in his proposition, etc., and he will fairly radiate success toward you, and you will unconsciously "take stock" in him and interest in his goods, and the chances are that you will be willing and glad to do business with him. Do you not know men who radiate Failure, Dis-couragement and "I Can't"? Are you not affected by their manifested Mental Attitude to their hurt? And, on the other hand, do you not know men who are so filled with Confidence, Courage, Enthusiasm, Fearlessness, and Energy, that the moment you come into their presence, or they into yours, you at once catch their spirit, and respond thereto? I contend that there is an actual atmosphere surrounding each of these men — which if you are sensitive enough you can feel — one of repulsion, and the other of attraction. And further, that these atmospheres are the result of  the constant daily thought of these men or the Mental Attitude of each toward life. Think over this a bit, and you will see at once just how the LAW works. The third phase of the action of Mental Attitude towards Financial Success may be called the working of the Law of Attraction. Now, without attempting  to advance any wild theories, I still must assert that all thinking, observing men have noticed the operation of a mental whereby "like at- tracts like." Avoiding all theories on the subject, I state the general principle that a man's Mental Attitude acts as a magnet, attracting to him the things, objects, circumstances, environments, and people in harmony with that Mental Attitude. If we think Success firmly
and hold it properly before us, it tends to build up a constant Mental Attitude which invariably attracts to
us the things conducive to its attainment and materialization. If we hold the ideal of Financial Success --- in short. Money — our Mental Attitude will gradually form and crystallize the MONEY ideal. And the things pertaining to Money — people calculated to help us win Money — circumstances tending to bring us
Money — opportunites for making Money — in fact, all sorts of Money-things — will be attracted toward us. You think this visionary talk, do you? Well, then, just make a careful study of any man who has
attained Financial Success and see whether or not his prevailing attitude is not that of expectation of money .
He holds this Mental Attitude as an ideal, and he is constantly realizing that ideal.

Expanding other elements of the universe

Our sun and the nearby stars are all part of a vast collection of stars called the Milky Way galaxy. For a long time it was thought that this was the whole universe. It was only in 1924 that the American astronomer Edwin Hubble demonstrated that ours was not the only galaxy. There were, in fact, many others, with vast tracks of empty space between them. In order to prove this he needed to determine the distances to these other galaxies. We can determine the distance of nearby stars by observing how they change position as the Earth
goes around the sun. But other galaxies are so far away that, unlike nearby stars, they really do appear fixed. Hubble was forced, therefore, to use indirect methods to measure the distances Now the apparent brightness of a star depends on two factors—luminosity and how far it is from us. For nearby stars we can measure both their apparent brightness and their distance, so we can work out their luminosity. Conversely, if we knew the luminosity of stars in other galaxies, we could work out their distance by measuring their apparent brightness. Hubble argued that there were certain types of stars that always had the same luminosity when they were near enough for us to measure. If, therefore, we found such stars in another galaxy, we could assume that they had the same luminosity. Thus, we could calculate the distance to that galaxy. If we could do this for a number of stars in the same galaxy, and our calculations always gave the same distance, we
could be fairly confident of our estimate. In this way, Edwin Hubble worked out the distances to nine different galaxies We now know that our galaxy is only one of some hundred thousand million that can be seen using modern telescopes, each galaxy itself containing some hundred thousand million stars. We live in a galaxy that is about one hundred thousand light-years across and is slowly rotating; the stars in its spiral arms
orbit around its center about once every hundred million years. Our sun is just an ordinary, average-sized, yellow star, near the outer edge of one of the spiral arms. We have certainly come a long way since Aristotle and Ptolemy, when we thought that the Earth was the center of the universe. Stars are so far away that they appear to us to be just pinpoints of light. We cannot determine their size or shape. So how can we tell different types of stars apart? For the vast majority of stars, there is only one correct characteristic  feature that we can observe—the color of their light. Newton discovered that if light from the sun passes through a prism, it breaks up into its component  colors—its spectrum—like in a rainbow. By focusing a telescope on an  individual star or galaxy, one can similarly observe the spectrum of the light from that star or galaxy. Different stars have different spectra, but the relative brightness of the different colors is always exactly what one would expect to find in the light emitted by an object that is glowing red hot. This means that we can tell a star's temperature from the spectrum of its light. Moreover, we find that certain very specific colors are missing from stars’ spectra, and these missing colors may vary from star to star. We know that each chemical element absorbs the characteristic set of very specific colors. Thus, by matching each of those which are missing from a star’s spectrum, we can determine exactly which elements are present in the star’s atmosphere.  In the 1920s, when astronomers began to look at the spectra of stars in other galaxies, they found something most peculiar: There were the same characteristic sets of missing colors as for stars in our own galaxy, but they were all shifted by the same relative amount toward the red end of the spectrum. The
only reasonable explanation of this was that the galaxies were moving away from us, and the frequency of the light waves from them was being reduced, or red-shifted, by the Doppler effect. Listen to a car passing on the road. As the car is approaching, its engine sounds at a higher pitch, corresponding to a higher frequency of sound waves; and when it passes and goes away, it sounds at a lower pitch. The behavior of light or radial waves is similar. Indeed, the police made use of the Doppler effect to measure the speed of cars by measuring the frequency of pulses of radio waves reflected off them. In the years following his proof of the existence of other galaxies, Hubble spent his time cataloging their distances and observing their spectra. At that time most people expected the galaxies to be moving around quite randomly, and so expected to find as many spectra which were blue-shifted as ones which were red–shifted. It was quite a surprise, therefore, to find that the galaxies all appeared red-shifted. Every single one was moving away from us. More surprising still was the result which Hubble published in 1929: Even the size of the galaxy's red shift was not random, but was directly proportional to the galaxy's distance from us. Or, in other words, the farther a galaxy was, the faster it was moving away. And that meant that the universe could not be static, as everyone previously thought, but was in fact expanding. The distance between the different galaxies was growing all the time.

Contradiction on creation of universe

The beginning of the universe had, of course, been discussed for a long time. According to a number of early cosmologies in the Jewish/Christian/Muslim tradition, the universe started at a finite and not very distant time in the past. One argument for such a beginning was the feeling that it was necessary to have a first cause to explain the existence of the universe. Another argument was put forward by St. Augustine in his book, The City of God. He pointed out that civilization is progressing, and we remember who performed this deed or
developed that technique. Thus man, and so also perhaps the universe, could not have been around all that long. For otherwise we would have already progressed more than we have. St. Augustine accepted a date of about 5000 B.C. for the creation of the universe according to the book of Genesis. It is interesting that this is not so far from the end of the last Ice Age, about 10,000 B.C., which is when civilization really began. Aristotle and most of the other Greek philosophers, on the other hand, did not like the idea of a creation because it made too much of divine intervention. They believed, therefore, that the human race and the world
around it had existed, and would exist, forever. They had already considered the argument about progress, described earlier, and answered it by saying that there had been periodic floods or other disasters that repeatedly set the human race right back to the beginning of civilization. When most people believed in an essentially static and unchanging universe, the question of whether or not it had a beginning was really one of metaphysics or theology. One could account for what was observed either way. Either the universe had existed forever, or it was set in motion at some finite time in such a manner as to look as though it had existed forever. But in 1929, Edwin Hubble made the landmark observation that wherever you look, distant stars are moving rapidly away from us. In other words, the universe is expanding. This means that at earlier times objects would have been closer together. In fact, it seemed that there was a time about ten or twenty thousand million years ago when they were all at exactly the same place.This discovery finally brought the question of the beginning of the universe into the realm of science. Hubble's observations suggested that there was a time called the big bang when the universe was infinitesimally small and, therefore, infinitely dense. If there were events earlier than this time, the they could not affect what happens at the present time. Their existence can be ignored because it would have no observational consequences. One may say that time had a beginning at the big bang, in the sense that earlier times simply could not be defined. It should be emphasized that this beginning in time is very different from those that had been considered previously. In an unchanging universe, a beginning in time is something that has to be imposed by some being outside the universe. There is no physical necessity for a beginning. One can imagine that God created the universe at literally any time in the past. On the other hand, if the universe is expanding, there may be physical reasons why there had to be a beginning. One could still believe that God created the universe at the instant of the big bang. He could even have created it at a later time in just such a way as to make it look as though
there had been a big bang. But it would be meaningless to suppose that it was created before the big bang. An expanding universe does not preclude a creator, but it does place limits on when He might have carried out his job.

Simple knowledge and understanding of universe theory

One then asks how things change if one adds more stars roughly uniformly distributed outside this region. According to Newton’s law, the extra stars would make no difference at all to the original ones, and so the stars would fall in just as fast. We can add as many stars as we like, but they will still always collapse in on themselves. We now know it is impossible to have an infinite static model of the universe in which gravity is
always attractive. It is an interesting reflection on the general climate of thought before the twentieth century
that no one had suggested that the universe was expanding or contracting. It was generally accepted that either the universe had existed forever in an unchanging state or that it had been created at a finite time in
the past, more or less as we observe it today. In part, this may have been due to people’s tendency to believe in eternal truths as well as the comfort they found in the thought that even though they may grow old and die, the universe is unchanging Even those who realized that Newton’s theory of gravity showed that the universe could not be static did not think to suggest that it might be expanding. Instead, they attempted to modify the theory by making the gravitational force repulsive at very large distances. This did not significantly affect their predictions of the motions of the planets. But it would allow an infinite distribution of stars to remain in equilibrium, with the attractive forces between nearby stars being balanced by the repulsive forces from those that were farther away However, we now believe such an equilibrium would be unstable. If the stars in some region got only slightly near each other, the attractive forces between them would become stronger and would dominate over the repulsive forces. This would mean that the stars would continue to fall toward each other. On the other hand, if the stars got a bit farther away from each other, the repulsive forces would dominate and drive them farther apart. Another objection to an infinite static universe is normally ascribed to the German philosopher Heinrich Olbers. In fact, various contemporaries of Newton had raised the problem, and the Olbers article of 1823 was not even the first to contain plausible arguments on this subject. It was, however, the first to be widely noted. The difficulty is that in an infinite static universe nearly every line or side would end on the surface of a star. Thus one would expect that the whole sky would be as bright as the sun, even at night. Olbers’s counterargument was that the light from distant stars would be dimmed by absorption by intervening matter. However, if that happened, the intervening matter would eventually heat up until it glowed as brightly as the stars. The only way of avoiding the conclusion that the whole of the night sky should be as bright as the surface of the sun would be if the stars had not been
shining forever, but had turned on at some finite time in the past. In that case, the absorbing matter might not have heated up yet, or the light from distant stars might not yet have reached us. And that brings us to the question of what could have caused the stars to have turned on in the first place.

Learning the history of the universe how it was all form

As long ago as 340 B.C. Aristotle, in his book On the Heavens, was able to put forward two good arguments for believing that the Earth was a round ball rather than a flat plate. First, he realized that eclipses of the moon were caused by the Earth coming between the sun and the moon. The Earth’s shadow on the moon was always round, which would be true only if the Earth was spherical. If the Earth had been a flat disk, the shadow would have been elongated and elliptical, unless the eclipse always occurred at a time when
the sun was directly above the center of the disk. Second, the Greeks knew from their travels that the Pole Star appeared lower in the sky when viewed in the south than it did in more northerly regions. From the difference in the apparent position of the Pole Star in Egypt and Greece, Aristotle even quoted an estimate that the distance around the Earth was four hundred thousand stadia. It is not known exactly what length a stadium was, but it may have been about two hundred yards. This would make Aristotle’s estimate about twice the currently accepted figure. The Greeks even had a third argument that the Earth must be round, for why else does one first see the sails of a ship coming over the horizon and only later see the hull? Aristotle thought that the Earth was stationary and that the sun, the moon, the planets, and the stars moved in circular orbits about the Earth. He believed this because he felt, for mystical reasons, that the Earth was the center of the universe and that circular motion was the most perfect. This idea was elaborated by Ptolemy in the first century A.D. into a complete cosmological model. The Earth stood at the center, surrounded by eight
spheres, which carried the moon, the sun, the stars, and the five planets known at the time: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. The planets themselves moved on smaller circles attached to their respective spheres in order to account for their rather complicated observed paths in the sky. The outermost sphere carried the so–called fixed stars, which always stay in the same positions relative to each other but which rotate together across the sky. What lay beyond the last sphere was never made very clear, but it certainly was not part of mankind’s observable universe. Ptolemy’s model provided a reasonably accurate system for predicting the positions of heavenly bodies in the sky. But in order to predict these positions correctly, Ptolemy had to make an assumption that the moon followed a path that sometimes brought it twice as close to the Earth as at other times. And that meant that the moon had sometimes to appear twice as big as it usually does. Ptolemy was aware of this flaw but nevertheless his model was generally, although not universally, accepted. It was adopted by the Christian church as the picture of the universe that was in accordance with Scripture. It had the great advantage that it left lots of room outside the sphere of fixed stars for heaven and hell. A much simpler model, however, was proposed in 1514 by a Polish priest, Nicholas Copernicus. At first, for fear of being accused of heresy, Copernicus published his model anonymously. His idea was that the sun was stationary at the center and that the Earth and the planets moved in circular orbits around the sun. Sadly for Copernicus, nearly a century passed before this idea was to be taken seriously. Then two astronomers—the German, Johannes Kepler, and the Italian, Galileo Galilei—started publicly to support the Copernican theory, despite the fact that the orbits it predicted did not quite match the ones
observed. The death of the Aristotelian–Ptolemaic theory came in 1609. In that year Galileo started observing the night sky with a telescope, which had just been invented. When he looked at the planet Jupiter, Galileo found that it was accompanied by several small satellites, or moons, which orbited around it. This
implied that everything did not have to orbit directly around the Earth as Aristotle and Ptolemy had thought. It was, of course, still possible to believe that the Earth was stationary at the center of the universe, but that the moons of Jupiter moved on extremely complicated paths around the Earth, giving the appearance that they orbited Jupiter. However, Copernicus’s  theory was much simpler.

Learning the ethnicity and politically history of Nigeria part2

Historically,ethnic identities  in Nigeria have been summarized intothe two  broad categories of majority and minority groups. Although unequal size and population are essential to this differentiation, its origins lie more in the power configurations of the former colonial regions in which the large groups – Hausa/Fulani in the North, Igbo in the East and Yoruba in the West – held sway.This is all the more important because prior to
the creation of these regions, there were no major or minor group distinctions in the country. However, with the regions came a ‘core’ comprising the major group and a‘periphery’ made up of numerous ‘small groups’ or minorities. The creation and multiplication of states and local government areas (the number of states has increased from 12 in 1967 to 36in 1996) which have replaced these broader regions has led to the emergence of new majorities and minorities; but, the old historical contexts remain, especially with regard to the major groupings. This is one of the things that has ensured the continued political relevance of the old regions and of the ‘historical minorities,’ which remain both regional and national in scope (Osaghae 1986).
While the category of majority groups remains intact, a number of scholars have identified important distinctions and reconstructions with in the ranks of minorities that in fact show that there are inequalities among minorities. Ekeh(1972, 1996) has moved from differentiating ‘marginals’ or dispersed minorities such as the Ijaw and Ebira (cut from their kith and kin in other regions) from other minorities, distinguishing between historically dominant minorities’ which were powerful overlords in the pre-colonial and colonial periods (Ijaw,Bini, Efik, Itsekiri) and ‘political minorities’ which  were marginalized and excluded both from power in the regions and the overall national power grid (see Ekeh, 1972 and 1996 for this progression). Osaghae (1998) on the other hand,has pointed to the multiple characteristics of minorities and identified
categories of powerful national minorities made up of: historically dominant minorities,which have been influential national actors;  northern and southern minorities;and religious minorities, all of which have unequal access and opportunities in thepower and resources arena. Finally, in the struggles for more equitable access to power in the 1990s, it became fashionable and expedient for several non-minority groups including the Igbo and some Yoruba subgroups to redefine themselves as ‘minorities’ in view of their alleged marginalization and exclusion from power and resources.  Such redefinitions have not however, changed the historical context of the majority-minority cleavage. There have been other important developments in the domain of ethnic politics. The creation of more states and local government areas has led to an expansion in the domain of salient identities, but at the same time, there has been a concentration of contestations and conflicts around local issues.This has provided the impetus for the sharpening of communal identities and conflicts, which have  manifested in conflicts between ‘indigenes’ and ‘non-indigenes’, ‘sons-of-the-soil’ and ‘migrants’ and‘settlers’. The resultant system of discriminatory citizenship has deep historical roots as we shall analyze below, however, the phenomenal rise of communal conflictsbeginning from the 1990s can be partly attributed to: shrinking state resources and the attendant recourse by groups to communal resources on the one hand; and, on the other hand, to a number of state policies, interventions and omissions, including the neglect and abuse of police and security bodies, thatare supportive of discriminatory practices.