Rubrik: Worth reading
Who doesn’t know Batman, the comic hero who fights the sinister subjects of the big city at night as a bat man with super powers. Who has not seen him in movies or held one of the comic books in his hand? What we are mostly interested in, at this point, are not however, his impressive appearance, nor the trendy outfit, but the affinity to the full moon. Batman can be seen standing in front of the circular moon in countless images, his black cape blowing in the wind. And also the famous batman logo is always portrayed in connection with the moon, whether hovering against the light or as a full-moon-like light projection in the black night sky (the so-called »Bat-Signal«).
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As is generally known, the moonlight is actually sunlight reflecting from the surface of the Moon and reaching us here on Earth. You ask yourself the question, whether the moonlight may have a different colour than the sunlight, especially since a nightly scenery usually appears to be bluish. Also movie scenes, are portrayed in blue and so are many pictures and photographs. We would like to forestall the answer: the moonlight is nearly white. The night appears blue due to other reasons.
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They have probably never met in person, Frank Sinatra (1915–1998), the American singer and entertainer and Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873–1943), the Russian pianist and composer, although, mathematically speaking, it might have been possible. However, almost two generations lay between both musicians and stylistically they are worlds apart. But there is a meeting point indeed, that even has to do with the full moon.
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In 2020 the full moon will fall on a 31st October and a Halloween party can take place in the full moon light. The imagination of people fits this well apparently, because no matter where you look, the full moon can be seen in all portrayals of Halloween. In historical terms, there is no connection, however. Halloween is the evening before All Saints’ Day (originally: »All Hallows’ Eve«). The basic idea of this festival is the remembrance of saints and it is connected to the wish to drive out bad spirits. This is how the gruesome costumes came into play.
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It is well known the tides are caused by the tidal forces that are formed through gravity between the Earth and the Moon (and also between the Earth and the Sun). To put it simply, you can say that the Moon moves masses of ocean waters. At the full moon and the new moon, the Sun, the Moon and the Earth are roughly in alignment, hence, the forces are greater and cause so called spring tides, thus a slightly higher tide. Now, many people conclude that the Moon – and in particular the full moon – ought to move and influence us people accordingly, because our bodies consist mostly of water. This claim contains several errors in reasoning, which we would like to explain in the following.
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Although, one could assume that the following concerns vampires or werewolves, we occupy ourselves with another kind of bite, namely the bite of animals to humans. There is a study of the E.R. department of the Bradford Royal Infirmatory in Bradford, England from 1997–1999. Here, the question, whether animals bite more often at the full moon, has been investigated. 1,621 patients were looked at, who had been treated for animal bites. The majority of affected patients had been bitten by dogs (95.1 %), others by cats (3.4 %), horses (0.8%) and rats (0.7 %). The surprising aspect of this study is, that indeed a significant connections could be detected between the full moon happenings and the animal bites. Hence, this should be the first study, known to us, which provides such a result!
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There are movies that live on Mount Olympus. The movie “It’s a wonderful life” by Frank Capra from 1946, belongs to them. However, at the time of the release, shortly before Christmas of the aforementioned year, this had not been the case yet. Commercially, this movie was a flop and did not turn into a cult movie until decades later. Today, the story about George Bailey (played by James Stewart), who does many good deeds in a small American town, quarrels with his destiny on Christmas Eve and eventually, through meeting an unconventional angel, learns to recognise the value of life, is considered to be one of the best movies in motion picture history.
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The Bible is undoubtedly one of the most important books in human history – most printed, most translated and worldwide the most widespread. It is the Holy Scripture of Christianity and Judaism (in different forms) and therefore the manifestation of God’s word in two of the major world religions.
The text contains, with its archaic, poetic language, many descriptions of nature and celestial events. So, it is obvious that the Sun, the Moon and the stars are mentioned. But is the full moon also to be found?
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When natural forces are involved, people are mostly torn between fear and fascination. They are looking for the challenge to come into contact with these forces. At the same time, everyone has to respectfully recognize these elemental forces, sooner or later. This becomes impressively apparent in surfing, when a person is gliding on a metre high wave on a surf board. If he manages to stay in front of the crest, and not to be rolled over by the breaking of the wave, he is the winner and in the belief to control the element. If he is not able to do so, it mostly turns dangerous or at least uncomfortable. It is a risky game.
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This disk, made of bronze and gold, with an age of around 3,600 years, belongs to the oldest find representing astronomical phenomena and thereby depicting planets and stars in the sky. It is thus of great value, because it is evidenced that people of the Bronze Age (2200-800 BC) did not only possess manual skills to create such a refined metal disk, but above all, had the knowledge about astronomical processes. They observed the celestial events with the naked eye and portrayed this in an artistic form.
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