A medieval Middle-Eastern literary epic which tells the story of Scheherazade, a Sassanid Queen, who must relate a series of stories to her malevolent husband, the King, to delay her execution. The stories are told over a period of one thousand and one nights, and every night she ends the story with a suspenseful situation, forcing the King to keep her alive for another day. The individual stor…
Basically the Equation of Time (EoT) is the difference between clock time and time seen on a sundial. This is comparing “clock time”, as a mechanical measurement of time, and the sundial being time determined by the position of the Sun at any given moment. The figures listed are for 00h and 12h . Using the EoT you can get fairly accurate determination of when Meridian Passage (Local Apparen…
Despite intermittent upsurges of climate change scepticism among conservative politicians and journalists in the Anglosphere, there is now a near consensus among climate scientists – and indeed amongmost other scientists – that current levels of atmospheric greenhouse gas are sufficient to alter global weather patterns to possibly disastrous effect. Rec…
Plants are often considered of secondary importance to ani-mal or even insect species, even though they are equally threat-ened by rising temperatures and changing ecologies and function as cornerstones of any given ecology. Plants are vital resources for understanding current and future ecologies, and our parallel human culture and society. We hope to contribute to the revalu-ation of the sign…
Planet Earth is an ocean planet. We can hardly ignore the fact that the ocean covers almost two thirds of our planet. Since the dawn of time, humankind has had an ambivalent relationship with the immensity and hostility of this very specific environment. However, the ocean holds a strong attraction for human societies, with nearly 40% of the world’s population living less than 100 km from the…
In it’s broadest possible sense, music is defined as “organized sound.” This openended and safe definition is coherent regardless of era, style, culture, or the mechanics of musical organization. Each successive historical era produces musically artistic expressions of its own time, its own musical aura. The study of Music Theory is the means by which we investigate this. Among the commu…
The idea that we learn by interacting with our environment is probably the first to occur to us when we think about the nature of learning. When an infant plays, waves its arms, or looks about, it has no explicit teacher, but it does have a direct sensorimotor connection to its environment. Exercising this connection produces a wealth of information about cause and effect, about the consequence…
Bheki Mseleku is an exceptional artist. e intention of this study is to focus on the exquisite detail of his art through the analysis of his compositions and improvisatory style. e author presumes the reader has a knowledge of the musical style of jazz as well as an interest in and an understanding of its theoretical practice.1As an author, one is always subject to c…
This book is a manifesto promoting language diversity as a human advantage and human right. As such, it is addressed to policymakers, especially in the field of education, but also more broadly with respect to multilingualism in our societies. Diversity of languages needs to be supported as a rich source of creativity in the arts, and recognized for its vital importance …
At their first public demonstration in Paris in 1839, photographs seemed nothing short of miraculous in their ability to record a mirror image of actuality. From the moment its inventors promoted the camera's usefulness for documenting Egyptian hieroglyphs, photography has played a decisive role in the interpretation of antiquity. Early photographers focused their lenses on marble-pillared temp…