Greek Mythology [ 793 ]

The Myth of Minotaur, Theseas and the King of Athens Aegeas

Posted by admin in Interesting

Minos, who was the king of Knosos ,was the son of Zeus and Europe.
One of Minos’s brothers, Sarpidon ,was the king of Gortys but he wanted to usurp the throne of Minos. Minos said that he was the chosen by the Gods to be king of Knosos , and to prove it, asked Poseidon (the god of the sea) to send him a bull to sacrifice.

Poseidon did that, and everybody believed that Minos was right.

Minos however felt that the bull sent by Poseidon would improve his own stock, so he sacrificed another one and kept the one sent by the god.

Poseidon decided to punish Minos for this sacrilege by making his wife , Pasifae, fall in love with the bull. The offfspring of the union of Pasifae with the bull was, appropriately, a monster that ate human flesh, with a bull’s head and a human body, Minotaur.

Obviously, the Minotaur, was not someone that Minos liked to have running around in his palace, scaring (and sometimes eating ) his guests. So he locked him in a labyrinth constructed by Daedalus.

In order to deal with Minotaur’s weird tastes, Minos forced the Athenians, who have killed his son Androgeo, to send him fourteen young Athenians (seven male and seven female) every year to serve (as) dinner for the Minotaur.

Theseas, the son of the Athenian king Aegeas , asked his father to let him be one of the fourteen to go to Crete. When they arrived , Minos daughter, Ariadne, saw Theseas and felt in love with him.

So, when her father threw Theseas to the Labyrinth, she helped him kill the Minotaur, and escape.

I have to add :

Theseus departed for Crete. Upon his departure, Aegeus told him to put up the white sails when returning if he was successful in killing the Minotaur. However, when Theseus returned he forgot these instructions.

When Aegeus saw the black sails coming into Athens he jumped into the sea and drowned, mistaken in his belief that his son had been slain.Henceforth, this sea was known as the AEGEAN SEA (**).

Sophocles' tragedy Aegeus has been lost, but Aegeus features in Euripedes' Medea.

Pilot Chats with Iranian Air Defense Radar[ 792 ]

U.S. Marine Fighter Pilot Chats with Iranian Air Defense Radar

by: Scott Martin posted: 2009-04-06 17:15:00
Viewed 41232 times. 28 Comments.

According to a Marine Pilot?

In addition to communicating with the local Air Traffic Control facility, all aircraft in the Persian Gulf AOR are required to give the Iranian Air Defense Radar (military) a ten minute ?heads up? if they will be transiting Iranian airspace.

This conversation was recorded on the VHF Guard (emergency) frequency 121.5 MHz, while flying

from Europe to Dubai ..

Iranian Air Defense Radar: 'Unknown aircraft at (location unknown), you are in Iranian airspace. Identify yourself.'

Aircraft: 'This is a United States aircraft. I am not in Iranian airspace, I am in Iraqi airspace.'

Iranian Air Defense Radar: 'You are in Iranian airspace. If you do not depart our airspace we will launch interceptor aircraft!'

Aircraft: 'This is a United States Marine Corps FA-18 fighter. Send 'em up, I'll wait!'

Iranian Air Defense Radar: (no response .... total silence)

Russian Flying Fortresses[ 791 ]

Russian Flying Fortresses of 1930's

In 1930s Russian army was … by the idea of creating huge planes. At that times they were proposed to have as much propellers as possible to help carrying those huge flying fortresses into the air, jet propulsion has not been implemented at those times yet.

Not much photos were saved since that times, because of the high secrecy levels of such projects and because a lot of time passed already. Still on the photo below you can see one of such planes - a heavy bomber K-7.

Now modern history lovers in Russia try to reconstruct according the plans left in once to be top-secret Russian army archives their look in full color. This is one example based on ideas of Russian aviation engineers of that times.

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via levin

World's cleverest man....[ 790 ]

World's cleverest man turns down $1million prize after solving one of mathematics' greatest puzzles

NEWSonLine,,By Will Stewart

Last updated at 11:32 AM on 23rd March 2010

No need for greed: A rare photo of bearded and reclusive genius Dr Grigory Perelman

A Russian awarded $1million (£666,000) for solving one of the most intractable problems in mathematics said yesterday that he does not want the money.

Said to be the world's cleverest man, Dr Grigory Perelman, 44, lives as a recluse in a bare cockroach-infested flat in St Petersburg. He said through the closed door: 'I have all I want.'

The prize was given by the U.S. Clay Mathematics Institute for solving the Poincare Conjecture, which baffled mathematicians for a century. Dr Perelman posted his solution on the internet.

Four years ago, the maths genius failed to turn up to receive his prestigious Fields Medal from the International Mathematical Union for solving the problem.

At the time he stated: 'I'm not interested in money or fame. I don't want to be on display like an animal in a zoo.

'I'm not a hero of mathematics. I'm not even that successful, that is why I don't want to have everybody looking at me.'

Neighbour Vera Petrovna said: 'I was once in his flat and I was astounded. He only has a table, a stool and a bed with a dirty mattress which was left by previous owners - alcoholics who sold the flat to him.

'We are trying to get rid of cockroaches in our block, but they hide in his flat.'

It was in 2002 that Perelman, then a researcher at the Steklov Institute of Mathematics in St. Petersburg, began posting papers online suggesting he had solved the Poincare Conjecture, one of seven major mathematical puzzles for which the Clay Institute is offering $1 million each.

Rigorous tests proved he was correct.

The topological conundrum essentially states that any three-dimensional space without holes in it is equivalent to a stretched sphere.

The puzzle was more than 100 years old when Perelman solved it - and could help determine the shape of the universe.

After 2003 Perelman gave up his job at the Steklov Institute. Friends have been reported as saying he has resigned from mathematics altogether - finding the subject too painful to discuss.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1259863/Worlds-cleverest-man-turns-1million-prize-solving-mathematics-greatest-puzzles.html?ITO=1490#ixzz0j3AGCw9J

Digital Camera: Houston, Texas at Night [ 789 ]

Houston, Texas at Night

Posted March 22, 2010

download large image (1 MB, JPEG) acquired February 28, 2010

Houston, Texas, has been called the “energy capital of the world” due to its role as a major hub of the petroleum and other energy resource industries. The Houston metropolitan area covers almost 2,331,000 hectares (9,000 square miles) along the southeast Texas coastline, with an average elevation of 13 meters (43 feet) above sea level and a population of over 5 million (2006 US Census estimate).

The Houston metropolitan area is also noteworthy as being the largest in the United States without formal zoning restrictions on where and how people can build. This freedom has led to a highly diverse pattern of land use at the neighborhood scale; nevertheless, more general spatial patterns of land use can be recognized in remotely sensed data. These general patterns are particularly evident in nighttime photography of the urban area taken by astronauts on board the International Space Station.

The image depicts the roughly 100-kilometer (60-mile) east-west extent of the Houston metropolitan area. Houston proper is at image center, indicated by a “bull’s-eye” of elliptical white- to orange-lighted beltways and brightly lit white freeways radiating outwards from the central downtown area.

Suburban and primarily residential urban areas are indicated by both reddish-brown and gray-green lighted regions, which indicate a higher proportion of tree cover and lower light density.

Petroleum refineries along the Houston Ship Channel are identified by densely lit areas of golden yellow light. Rural and undeveloped land rings the metropolitan area, and Galveston Bay to the southeast (image lower right) provides access to the Gulf of Mexico. Both types of non-urban surface appear dark in the image.

You can see more nighttime imagery of cities and learn about techniques that astronauts use to photograph them in the Earth Observatory feature Cities at Night.

Astronaut photograph ISS022-E-78463 was acquired on February 28, 2010, with a Nikon D3 digital camera and is provided by the ISS Crew Earth Observations experiment and Image Science & Analysis Laboratory, Johnson Space Center. The image was taken by the Expedition 22 crew. The image in this article has been cropped and enhanced to improve contrast. The International Space Station Program supports the laboratory as part of the ISS National Lab to help astronauts take pictures of Earth that will be of the greatest value to scientists and the public, and to make those images freely available on the Internet. Additional images taken by astronauts and cosmonauts can be viewed at the NASA/JSC Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth. Caption by William L. Stefanov, NASA-JSC.

Instrument:

ISS - Digital Camera