A Ton of Crap (105 page)

PASCAL’S TRIANGLE

Formula for Pascal’s Triangle
To find a value at any spot along the triangle, the formula is expressed as:

n
and
k
relate back to the lesson in combinations, where it looks like this:
nC
_k

So, Pascal’s triangle can also look like this:

EARLY HUMANS

Neanderthals
Homo neanderthalensis
was an entirely separate species from
Homo sapiens
. Neanderthals were much taller and stronger than the
Homo sapiens
, had larger brains than even current man, and buried their dead (implicating that perhaps this is the first sign of religion). At around 30,000 b.c., the Neanderthals died off, and no one is certain why. Some believe
Homo sapiens
killed them all, while others believe there was interbreeding between
Homo sapiens
and Neanderthals, and eventually the one species ceased to exist. In 2010, a study discovered that traces of Neanderthal DNA were found in modern human DNA.

SWAHILI

Swahili Today
Swahili is most commonly spoken in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, and Congo; however, it is also spoken along the eastern coast, and in parts of Somalia, Burundi, Rwanda, Mozambique, and the Comoros Islands. In Tanzania, Swahili is the official language used for government and education, and Kenya and Uganda also follow this policy (along with English). There are fifteen main dialects found in the language, with the dominant dialects being Kiunguja (found in mainland Tanzania and Zanzibar), Kimvita (found in Kenya and Mombasa), and Kiamu (found in coastal areas and the island of Lamu).

LANDING ON THE MOON

Apollo 11
Apollo 11
was launched on July 16, 1969. On July 20, Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin landed on the Moon and took their very first steps there. The lunar module spent twenty-one hours and thirty-six minutes on the surface of the Moon, and the crew spent two hours and thirty-one minutes outside the craft. Two days after arrival, the crew departed, taking with them 46 pounds of soil and lunar rocks. The mission lasted eight days and landed in the Pacific Ocean.
Apollo 11
was the first manned spacecraft to land on another planetary body and return home safely.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Authorship Controversy
Since the 1700s, there have been people, known as Anti-Stratfordians, questioning whether William Shakespeare actually wrote all of his plays or whether they had been written by contemporaries of his. There are three main candidates that people feel could have been the true authors of the plays Shakespeare takes credit for: Edward de Vere, Francis Bacon, and Christopher Marlowe. Edward de Vere, the seventeenth Earl of Oxford was a nobleman of Queen Elizabeth I, and many believe his life paralleled content found in Shakespeare’s plays. Perhaps the strongest candidate is Francis Bacon, whose book
Promus
features 4,400 parallels in terms of thought and expression. Christopher Marlowe was a playwright who was stabbed to death in a bar fight in 1593. Some believe that he was actually a spy and that he faked his own death, and continued to write plays under the pen name, William Shakespeare.

PASCAL’S TRIANGLE

Fibonacci Sequence
If you recall from earlier, the first eight numbers in the Fibonacci sequence are: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21. These values can be found in Pascal’s triangle.

1 1 2 3 5 8……

EARLY HUMANS

Homo Sapiens Sapiens
Homo sapiens sapiens
started to exist 90,000 years ago, and were spread across the world. In Europe,
Homo sapiens sapiens
were known as Cro-Magnons. It is with the
Homo sapiens sapiens
that we first see bows and arrows, constructed homes like huts and tents (used when following herds of animals), advanced weaponry, clothing, improved languages, and artwork. It is during this time that the famous cave paintings of Lascaux, France, were created. Anatomically speaking, the Cro-Magnons are almost identical to modern man of today.

SWAHILI