Month: September 2017

Florence Nightingale - Talents and Fame Beyond Nursing

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)The fact that Florence Nightingale - the Lady with the Lamp - is still famous as the founder of modern nursing is beyond doubt. What is little known is the fact that as a mathematician, she had pioneered inventions such as the pie-chart and the many analyst’s tools currently used by researchers in days before Excel and the Calculators, let alone the Computers. To illustrate this point, consider her use of the ‘polar area diagram’, published in “Notes on Matters Affecting the Health, Efficiency, and Hospital Administration of the British Army” in 1858. http://library.tedankara.k12.tr/IB/2012/mathesh/EX(6)/example06_annotations_e.pdf Polar-Area Diagram as invented by Florence […]

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Māori Language Week - Te Wiki o te Reo Māori ​

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Since 1975 New Zealand has a week every year dedicated to the use of the Maori Language. This year the Maori Language Week started from 11th September to 17th September. Maori cultural activities were organized in Schools, Libraries, and many local communities to promote the use of the Maori Language and the understanding of Maori culture. But, sad to say, I have found no one in Auckland whom I have met in the past week, yes, from 11th to 17th September, making any attempt to speak Maori. And, I am ashamed to say that not a single member of my family […]

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Rising Star - Obama

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The thickness of this book - a good 60cm - does scare me. Shall I read this from cover to cover? Initially, I tried. I read the first chapter entitled “The End of the World as they knew it” initially line by line but later (after page 13) paragraph head by paragraph head until the end of the chapter at page 41 and come to just one conclusion at this point. This chapter has no bearing on the topic of Obama that I am expecting. “Am I reading a general historical account of Chicago south side for the years March […]

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Analysing a Chess Game

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Chess is an interesting board game. Why do we learn how to play chess? Here are the five main reasons why we have to play the game of chess, as found in various articles on the subject from the internet: (1) Chess develops logical thinking. Chess requires some understanding of logical strategy. As an example, we will know that it is important to bring our pieces out into the game at the beginning, to keep our king safe at all times, not to make big weaknesses in our position and not to blunder our pieces away for free. (2) Chess develops […]

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