The Ancient Greeks thought that the Cumaeans were really stupid. In fact, analysing the world’s oldest surviving joke book—the Philogelos—shows that “Cumeans are stupid” was part of what 4th-century-AD Greeks found hilarious. One joke recounts how a swimming Cumaean dove into the water to avoid getting wet in the rain. These Cumean jokes, on the other hand, are considered mild in comparison to some of the other forms of humour that the Greeks enjoyed; one entire section of the book is devoted to jokes with the punch line being death. Read full article here
Science
‘Ghostly’ neutrinos provide new path to study protons
In groundbreaking research, an international collaboration of scientists from the University of Rochester have used a beam of neutrinos to measure the size and shape of the protons that make up the nuclei of atoms. This feat, once thought impossible, provides scientists with a new way of looking at the small components of an atom’s nucleus and opens up a wealth of new information about the structure of an atom’s nucleus and the dynamics of the forces that affect neutrino interactions. The researchers solved the challenge of harnessing neutrinos in large numbers by using a neutrino detector containing a target of both hydrogen and carbon atoms, and over nine years of data collection at Fermilab’s accelerator. Read full article here
Merv
March 25, 2023
