Originally Published in ‘Georgian Journal’. Issue No.17 (102)
Original Link: http://www.kvirispalitra.ge/gj-site/2009/17-2009/stardust.html
Sometimes, when we try to understand nature by carefully observing all of its occurrences, we may come across various phenomena both high above in the sky and right here on the ground or in water, right in front of our eyes. While some of these occurrences can be incredibly colorful and come in various unusual and interesting geometrical shapes, others can be quite extraordinary and even, entirely impossible to understand. We perceive these phenomena as rainbows, mirages or halos but the Earth has much more fascinating natural phenomena to offer us and some of these are the ones we are about to discuss in this article…
Undoubtedly one of the most beautiful events to occur in our world, the Northern Lights, also known as the Aurora Australis in the southern hemisphere, have always fascinated people and on the occasions that citizens of our planet have observed them, the sight has always filled them with awe. As the name suggests, these ethereal lights especially related to the Polar Regions. They occur most frequently in a belt of radius 2500 km centered on the magnetic north pole. This so-called auroral zone extends over northern Scandinavia, Island, the southern tip of Greenland and continuing over northern Canada, Alaska and along the northern coast of Siberia. In Norway, for instance, the Northern Lights can be seen every other clear night, if not even more frequently, while from southern Scandinavia, sightings would be only a few times a month and in central Europe hardly more than a few times a year. Moreover, there is also a documented fact that this phenomenon has even been seen from the Mediterranean but only a few times each century.
When we try to look up the definition of war on the Internet, we come across an explanation given by a Prussian military theoretician Carl Von Clausewitz, who describes war as an interaction in which two or more militaries have a ‘struggle of wills’. Although, this whole set of actions can be easily considered as the most ridiculous way of solving conflicts by the opponents of war, this battle of desires is also sometimes caused by strange and bizarre circumstances. So, it is not surprising that while looking back at history, even those people who are interested in politics and in contrast to ordinary human beings, can clearly see what was a desired end-state of this or that confrontation, find some of these clashes both absurd and weird.
For over a half-century, the theme of ghost towns has been heavily exploited in almost all forms of media: from Yellow Sky directed by William A. Wellman in 1948 to 2002′s British post-apocalyptic science fiction film – 28 Days Later and from a popular survival horror video game – Silent Hill to The Road, the Pulitzer Prize winning novel by American writer Cormac McCarthy. Generally speaking, the rich image of completely abandoned cities has served as a perfect topic for dozens of films, books, video games, television shows and many other related mediums.
Despite endless discussions about the issue: what is appropriate for a museum to acquire, keep, research, publicize and finally – exhibit within its walls, the main role of museums in our everyday life, assigned to them centuries ago, remains intact. These unusual buildings in the very heart of almost every city in the world have always been at the service of society and enhanced its further development by offering to the ordinary people easily accessible means to learn things about their past, discover various specimens for boosting their inspiration or just spend time, touring museums.
Sport is a main element of physical culture – a set of various activities aimed at physical and sometimes – mental perfection or any other health-related result of a human. Accordingly, it can be easily considered as one of the methods of physical education as well. In addition to different professional sports competitions – from football to windsurfing – sports can be and are most often played just for fun by those people, who need to do physical exercise to stay in good physical condition. It is no wonder that every country has its own, sometimes unique, game traditions. While some of the local traditions have turned into the world’s most favorite sports competitions, there are still some regional games that seem too bizarre to the outsiders.
A modern deck of cards is a result of complicated development of this age-old game. Accordingly, it won’t surprise anyone if we say that playing cards have a long and somewhat dramatic history. An opinion that had existed for quite a long time concerning the fact that these pieces of specially prepared heavy paper were invented in France to entertain their mentally ill king – Charles VI the Mad – turned out to be just a beautiful legend because of the fact that it is already known that Ancient Egyptians used to play this game with certain kinds of cuttings with numbers indicated on them, while Indians used either ivory plates or shells for exactly the same matter. Moreover, playing cards that look almost like we know them today are known in China since the 12th century.
