What elements in the Jewish culture can be traced back to other cultures?
There are two main themes in Hebrewism (what became Judaism after the north rebelled from the Tribe of Judah) I would trace back to even more ancient cultures.First, monotheism originates not in Judaism/Hebrewism so much (sorry if that offends!) but to a failed attempt in ancient Egypt. The Pharaoh Akhenaton (meaning, “follower of Aton”) tried to build a monotheistic religion around the sun god, Aton. However, the monotheistic cult of Aton — despite the full weight of Pharaoh — was rejected by the priests and scribes in favor of “That Old Time Religion” — paganism.Some historians have theorized that some supporter of monotheism from Egypt fled north and traveled to start a monotheistic religion in Canaan. This theory, if true, would lend a bit of truth to the legend of Moses leading the People of God out of Egypt.The other major influence is ancient Mesopotamia, especially Babylon. The Babylonian influence can be seen from almost the first line of the Hebrew Bible……and the mind of God moved upon the waters…Any skeptical person should ask, “The Mind of God moved upon the waters? Where the hell did all that water come from?”The answer is that in the ancient Mesopotamian Creation myths, all of creation starts at the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers… what is also called “the Swamplands” or “the Sealands” in ancient Iraq. The Mesopotamian Creation myths just start at that location without asking where that water came from.Much of Genesis comes from ancient Mesopotamian heritage, and many Hebrew names were originally Mesopotamian names (such as “Daniel” coming from “Daneel”). For example, the story of Noah and the Flood is contained within the Epic of Gilgamesh.
How is the NFL regular season and playoffs structured?
In the regular season each team plays 16 games. They play each team in their division twice, equaling six games. They play, on a seasonally rotating schedule, every team from one division within their conference, making four more games. They also, on a seasonally rotating schedule, play each team from on division in the opposite conference, again four more games. The remaining two games of the regular season are selected based on results from last season so they play teams of theoretically equal strength.For the post season, the winner of each division gets in as well as the two teams with the best records in their conference that did not win their division, so six teams from each conference. The wildcard teams, those that did not win their division, as well as the division winning teams with the worst record play, seeded by record, in the first round of the playoffs. The division winners with the best records get a bye in the first round, i.e. they don't have to play a game that round. The winners of the first round go on to play the teams that got a first round bye, again seeded by record. The winners of the third and last round of play off games goes to the Super Bowl.I don't know if you considered this a simple answer but that's how it works.
Is it illegal for a cop to follow you for over a mile then pull you over?
There are many versions of this urban myth. Here is the definitive answer:NO!There is no law that requires police stop following you under any condition. Over the years I’ve heard that they can’t follow if you stay under the speed-limit, pull into a neighborhood, or pull into a business. None of those are conditions that would require the officer to stop following you.One of my favorites is the myth that if you make three right turns in a row then the cop must stop you. Think about it … after three right turns you basically end up back on the same road. One fellow even told me that you can then follow the cop as long as you like.Okay … so why would a cop need to follow you for an extended period of time. First, chances are the officer is not following you, he/she just happens to be going in the same direction.From my own career, I once followed a fellow for almost three miles before I stopped him. He didn’t run from me, but he sure made a lot of right turns. The reason I waited so long is that I had information from a snitch that he had been involved in a big robbery of a local gun store. One of the guns taken was a Thomsom .45 cal machine gun with two drum clips. These are the guns that you see Chicago Gangsters (in the movies) shooting from the side of a 1930s era car.I knew the fellow had the gun with him, was planning another robbery using it, and that I had found him just in time to stop him. I was not STOOOOPID! I was not going to voluntarily stop him knowing he had a .45 cal machine gun with 100 rounds of ammunition ready between the two drums. All I had was a department issued S&W Model 10, which is a 6-shot .38 caliber revolver, and a Remington 870 shotgun loaded with 5 rounds. So I waited for backup to get in place before we used a tactical taken-down technique to nab him.
Why do Einstein and Langevin keep their right arm back in the Solvay 1927 photo?
They were playing Rock, Paper, Scissors with each other. :o)And if you look in the top row, you can see that Heisenberg (3rd from right) is trying to suppress a giggle, because he has just pinched Pauli’s right buttock (4th from right), causing Pauli to look at Verschaffelt (5th from right), thinking he had done it. Schrodinger (6th from right) knows what Heisenberg is doing, which is why he looks disapproving (Schrodinger had no sense of humour, and hated Heisenberg for being Bohr’s favourite wunderkind).Ehrenfest (top row, 3rd from left) has just spotted the bald patch at the back of Marie Curie’s head (front row, 3rd from left) and is thinking to himself ‘Shit, so playing with all that uranium in her garden shed really has made her hair fall out!’And the self-satisfied smirk on Dirac’s face (middle of the middle row) is because he’s just unified Einstein’s special relativity with quantum mechanics, and so he knows that he totally owns the more famous guy sitting in front of him, and thinks he’s an idiot for rejecting quantum mechanics.Lorentz (front row, 4th from left) is thinking daggers at the guy to his left, because he believes Einstein stole his ideas about relativity and took the credit for everything except the coordinate transformations that Einstein grudgingly named after him. Though he probably wanted to take the credit for those too, the fame-craving bastard!Oh, and Planck (front row, 2nd from left) is looking guilty because he’s got a bad case of flatulence, has just farted, and is trying to trap it with his hat, hoping the others haven’t noticed. But he hasn’t succeeded, because Curie heard it, which is why she is slightly turned away from him and looks like she has a bad smell under her nose.Is that enough over-analysis for you? :o)
Why do HVAC systems have chilled water supply at the bottom and return on top of the unit?
Most coils, both heating and cooling are piped bottom to top, to force air out of the coil.Secondarily to that, the chilled water supply is not only is piped into the bottom of the coil but toward the leaving-air side. The return, conversely, leaves at the top on the entering air side.The reason for this is counter-flow, the principle of which is to maintain the maximum temperature difference across the coil throughout the time the air is passing through it.To illustrate this, say you have a coil cooling air from 80F to 53F using chilled water at 42F supply and 56F return.In this instance, the warm and humid air enters the coil’s first row at say, 80F. This air sees the leaving chilled water which might be, say, 56 degrees, so a 14 degree delta-T right there.(Such a coil could be 6, 8, or even 10 rows deep, it is a long process!)As the air is leaving the last row, the air has been cooled closer to the 53F target but sees the coldest water, 42 degrees, giving the leaving air a good finish.If you reversed the process, that last row of air and water would be closer to the same temperatures (55 F or so each) and no heat transfer would take place.