The sacred book of the Mayans

 Being created by the story of the life-world, religion, history, astronomy, Mayan legend, the Popol Vuh book attracted the attention of scholars around the planet.

Popol Vuh (meaning "Book of the Community", "The book of the people"), including the story of the birth sex, religion, mysterious phenomena, history, astronomy, and the legendary tradition of Mayans.

Popol Vuh provide valuable data about the culture, religion and many other areas of the Maya. For example, in section one, Mayan describes the birth of the animal world on the planet. According to them, nature created the animals before humans appeared.

"In those people, animals, birds, fish, crabs, trees, stones, caves, ravines, forests have not yet appeared. The sky is the only thing that exists. The ground is not formed. The sea was calm and the vast expanse of sky butt world domination ", a passage in the book describes the period before animals and humans appeared.

A CD containing the contents of the book Popol Vuh.

The legend has it that the first ones were created by earth and mud. They vanish after contact with water. The gods of wood used to create the second generation, but they do not have souls and thinking ability. So, after a while the gods have decided to remove them. Finally, four men with bones, flesh appearing. They have language, soul and intellect. The gods created the women while the men sleep four.

Popol Vuh origin is a mystery to this day, although it has been translated into many languages. Historians believe that the Indians were converted to Christianity rewrote it in English for the first time Quiche, one of 36 ethnic Mayan language used in different areas, in the mid-16th century However, no one knows the author of the original book.

In 1701, Francisco Ximenez, a Spanish priest, translated the book into Spanish. The manuscript of the book was translated stored at the Newberry Library in Chicago, Illinois, USA.

Popol Vuh policy today is an important part of the belief system of the people who speak Queche. Mayan descendants still maintain the habit of telling the legends in the book. Dated 22.08.2012, the Ministry of Culture Popol Vuh Guatemala declared as intangible cultural heritage of the country. About the writer and Western film production is also very interested in the Popol Vuh. Some legends in the book have appeared in the literature and cinema in the West.

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How does the brain of the genius work?

Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton or Mozart are all geniuses. So their brains operate like? Other than those who have normal or not?

In 1905, Albert Einstein developed the theory of relativity. He also proved the existence of atoms and discovered light operates as both particulate and wave form. On top of that, also in the same year, he found the famous equation E = mc² describes the relationship between matter and energy. Einstein achieved a new record of achievement when only 26 years old.

Albert Einstein

No doubt in concluding Einstein was a genius. Like the physicist Isaac Newton, he played a large role for the integral development, subjects which many people have difficulty in receiving. A more genius, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, began composing music when he was 5 years old. Mozart wrote hundreds of songs before he died at age 35 in 1760.

Isaac Newton

According to conventional wisdom, the genius, the other common people. They can think better and faster than others. In addition, many people believe that because of the extraordinary power of their brain that acts weird and eccentric. Although not difficult to discover the genius, but the determination is what makes a person become a genius is extremely difficult. Find out the cause of a genius who became a mystery still to be answered.

There are two things that the study of the genius becomes difficult:

- The identification of genius still very subjective. Some people believe that one IQ (IQ) higher than normal, that person is a genius. Others thought that IQ tests measure only a limited part of human intelligence. Some believe that the result was not very high IQ to identify a person's true genius or not.

- The concept of genius extremely abstract. Most research and medical science are based on data and information. Abstract field defined as genius is not easy to quantify, analyze or study.

So, before we learn about the genius thinking and how to work, the first thing should be precisely defined "genius" is. In the framework of this article, a genius does not simply have a high IQ, but instead a smart geniuses who excel and he broke the normal rules of discovery , inventor or his artwork. In short, a genius must be both smart and able to use the intelligence that an effective and impressive.

But what makes a human being is capable of doing these things? Is it due to differences in the brain, or due to the extraordinary intelligence? Or by the ability to pay attention to information that other people see it as irrelevant? We will begin to find answers to the questions above with understanding the human brain.

Genius and the brain

Brain regulate organ systems of the body. When you move, the brain sending signals through the nerves and muscles sure what to do. Your brain controls the senses: hearing, smell, taste, sight, touch and experience, handling emotions through the brain. Above all, the brain allows you to think, gather information and solve problems. But how does the brain make us smart?

Scientists still have not figured out all the functions of the brain, but they were determined to be somewhat helps you think. Cortex, the outermost part of the brain, where thoughts formed and reasoning. That's higher functions of the brain, lower functionality, related to survival skills, it lies deeper inside the brain.

Cortex is the largest part of the brain and it has wrinkles and folds help allow it to fit in the skull. If you remove the brain and lasted 1 adult, it will grow by several newspaper pages. The brain is divided into lobes, and each lobe regions will vary in handling different tasks.

Cortex has a tremendous impact on the way you think, but the exact study how the cortex makes you smart is extremely difficult, because:

- It is difficult to reach the brain, because it is encased deep inside the skull.

- Tools to observe the brain, such as magnetic resonance images of machines, require a completely in a state of immobility. This makes it difficult for doctors to observe the brain activity of people in real-life activities.

- The brain, like all organs in the body, undergo changes after a person dies. These changes may make the comparison brain while alive and his death became difficult. Also, check after death can not assess brain activity.

Despite all these challenges, the researchers have discovered a few things about how the brain affects intelligence. A 2004 study at the University of California, Irvine, showed that the volume of gray matter in parts of the cortex had a major impact on the intelligence than other parts of the brain. This shows the physical properties of the parts that constitute the brain - rather than an "intelligence center" focus - decide one's intelligence.

An analysis in 1999 by Albert Einstein's brain also seems to support this theory. Einstein's brain is smaller than average brains a bit. However, the parts of the brain's parietal lobe of his brain larger than most people. The larger area of his brain that is related to mathematics and spatial reasoning. Einstein's parietal lobe brain no cracks - traces that were found in the brains of most people. Analysts suggest that the absence of cracks means that the different parts of his brain can communicate better.

A 2006 article in the journal "Nature" suggests that a developing brain is more important than the size of the brain. A person's cerebral cortex becomes thicker in childhood and in adolescence thinner. According to the study, the brains of children with high IQs then thicken faster than other kids.

The study also found that, in a certain degree, children inherit from their parents intelligence. Some researchers hypothesize that this is due to the physical structure of the brain may be a genetic trait. In addition, the process of trying to be good at something just ask and encourage your brain to handle activities that work better.

Although scientists are not sure exactly but it is clear that the brain plays a role in determining a person's intelligence. But the difference between genius and what is intelligence? And what makes a person smarter than others? We'll see the link between intelligence and genius in the next section.

Smoking reduces intelligence

According to a study published in 2004, smokers and former smokers, it will not test well with non-smokers. 465 people made a test measuring cognitive ability at age 11 in 1947 From 2000 to 2004 they retake the test again. Based on the results, smoking causes 1% decline in cognitive function. A possible explanation for this correlation is smoke creates lung injury resulting in less oxygen for the human brain.

The smart babies

After studies showed that listening to Mozart can increase IQ, many parents start their children listen to Mozart, hoping to take advantage of the "Mozart effect". One explanation for the "effect" of this is music to make people alert and vigilant. On the other hand, the music of Mozart and the handling of mathematical reasoning or space based on the nerve cells in the brain similar.

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2 cosmic phenomena move faster than the speed of light

Cherenkov radiation, the inflation of the universe shortly after the Big Bang are cosmic phenomena can reach a state of "faster than light".

According to Business Insider, the famous equation E = mc2 relationship between energy and mass that Einstein made in 1905 mean that there is not a mass object can travel faster than light. The speed of light by 299,792,458 meters / second.

The LHC particle accelerator like can accelerate subatomic particles (electrons, protons, neutrons ...) up to 99.99% the speed of light, but as a physicist and Nobel laureate David Gross explained , these particles can never reach the speed of light. Single particle motion with the speed of light is a photon - massless particles.

However, physicists have found a certain phenomenon can reach faster than light status and still obey the laws of the universe were set up by special relativity, they are not refuted theory Einstein's only give us more insight about the strange behavior of light in quantum field.

Cherenkov radiation

When an object moving faster than sound, it will generate the ultrasound burst. Therefore, theoretically, if there is something moving faster than light, it must also create an effective "light bomb".

In fact, the bombings light persists daily and can be observed with the naked eye. It is called Cherenkov radiation, after Soviet scientist Pavel Alekseyevich Cherenkov, manifest is light blue in the nuclear reactor. He was the first measured it in 1934 and won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1958 for his discovery.

Cherenkov radiation in a nuclear reactor. Photo: Argonne National Laboratory

This radiation emitted by the core of the reactor is immersed in water for cooling. In the water, the speed of light is only 75% speed external vacuum region. Therefore, the electrons generated by the reaction in the furnace will go in the water faster than light. This process generates seismic waves of light, like the case of supersonic aircraft. These shockwaves are usually blue, or sometimes as the ultraviolet rays that are not visible to the naked eye.

However, in this case, the speed of the electrons just faster than the speed of light in water, not really reached the limit of 299,792,458 m / s.

Inflation after Big Bang

As mentioned above, the volume figure never reached the speed of light. In addition to photons, absolute vacuum can be considered as an "object" massless because no matter contained therein.

"Since no material contained inside, the vacuum can expand faster than the speed of light", the theoretical astrophysicist Michio Kaku said.

3D map of the universe with distance of 10.8 billion years light from Earth. Photo: Casey Stark (UC Berkeley) / Khee-Gan Lee (MPIA)

This is the phenomenon that physicists believe occur shortly after the Big Bang, the process is called inflation, first theorized in the 1980s by two physicists Alan Guth and Andrei Linde. In a billionth of a second first rate, continuous universe doubles in size, the result is a rapidly expanding outer edge, surpassing the speed of light.

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5 amazing scientific facts that we have missed at school

School time is limited, so it will have the knowledge, scientific information must be ignored. This article would mention such things. Human knowledge is endless. Over time, the endless treasures that continue to be open, which has the extremely interesting knowledge but very few people can grasp.

1. Water can boil and freeze at the same time

Everyone already knows that water exists under 3 forms: solid, liquid and gas. However, there is a point that may just boil water, just frozen at the same time. That was when the water reaches the junction of the liquid - the triple point.

Water can boil and freeze at once.

Meanwhile, the temperature and pressure of the water just enough for the 3 polymorphs of water coexist in thermodynamic conditions.

Specifically with water, the conditions required temperature is reached ° C and a pressure of 0.01 atm 0.00603659. The moment when the water boils, steam will bring energy, lowering the energy of the remaining water has frozen. This process will be repeated, while the temperature and pressure remain unchanged overall.

2. We can create "laser waterfall"

We can create "laser waterfall"

The reason for this phenomenon is caused by water jet is bent.

Light always moves in straight lines. However, the reason we can do this is because of a physical phenomenon is quite interesting: internal reflection.

This phenomenon occurs when light entering the interface between the two environments at a different angle - here is the water jet is bent - it is refracted, instead continue straight. And because this process occurs repeatedly, the entire beam of light will be bent under the water jet.

3. What happens when two black holes swallowing a star?

Cosmic black hole is one of the most mysterious region of space in the universe, with extremely strong gravity, enough attraction for anything, not even light.

Stars move closer to the black hole immediately gets sucked into.

But this does not mean just being sucked into the sink in a dark area. When black holes suck a star, too large energy sources will make it ... reflux - plasma ejected a column stretching hundreds of light years.

4. The strength of the explosion on the Sun.

The sun is an energy block was not calm, because it ... explosions throughout the day.

And you know, every explosion on the Sun are releasing the energy equivalent of 100 million ... 100 megaton nuclear bomb (1 megaton = 1 million tons of TNT). To better visualize the Fat Man bomb drop-down US Japan in 1945 only about 21 kilotons (equivalent to 21,000 tons of TNT) only.

5. "Life-hack" helps you see when forgotten glass

The body was then glass is shortsighted and haunting, because if someday accidentally "separation" - that day was a disaster. Eyes narrowed nose right back to themselves miserable and still could not see anything.

However, there is a little trick to help the team be more or less close look at what to look. It is seen through a small hole, as shown below.

The limited time views will help you see better.

The visual angle limit so will help us to focus light on the retina, through which the image will become clearer.

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