Skip to main content

Wikipedia Trails: From Rakshasa to Acre (the unit of measurement)

This week, for my Wikipedia trail, I started off learning about the Rakshasa, and ended up on the page for the acre. We will learn about two interesting intermediate steps along the way as well. First, I started on the page for:

Rakshasa. Rakshasas are a class of mythical beings within Indian mythology, the name translating to "man-eater." They are somewhat similar to what contemporary mythology might consider a demon or monster. Within the Ramayana, rakshasas are beings that are on the side of Ravana, the commander of the rakshasas, and there are many battles in the midpoint of the Ramayana about the rakshasas and the monkey armies. On the page of the Rakshasa was the page for:

The Bengali Language. Bengali is the main language of the nation Bangladesh, and it is the second most spoken language within the India-Asia region, only behind Hindu. It developed at some point around the first millennium BCE, and it came to prominence around 500 AD, though that year is argued between different individuals. On the page for the Bengali Language was the page for:

University of Karachi. The University of Karachi is one of the oldest public universities in Pakistan. It was established in 1951 and it enrolls around 24,000 students per year. It is ranked as one of the top 500 universities in the world, and was at one point, one of the top 250 universities in Asia. It's Department of Chemical and Biological Sciences has nearly 500 P.h.D students, and it is nine different faculty departments. On the page for the University of Karachi was the page for:

The acre. The acre is a unit of measure typically used for land measurement, and it is considered to be 1/640th of a square mile, or equivalently, 4047 square meters. It was originally considered to be the amount of land that could be plowed by a yoke of cattle in one day, back in Medieval times. There is also the customary acre, though this unit of measure only differs by less than 0.1% from the acre.


The University of Karachi. Source: Wikimedia Commons

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Story Lab: TED Talks

This week, I completed a Story Lab, in which I watched two separate TED Talks, the links can be found here . The first talk seems to epitomize the first impressions we develop from stories, while the second one delves into the relationships we make with characters. In the first talk, the idea of a first impression is further discussed, where the speaker notes how she had opinions of a country that had been built up solely from a few stories she had been told, and how when she encountered other people, they already had predispositions based on stories they had been told. This can be broadened to a wider audience to suggest that we often see short amounts of information, and then we make the conclusions ourselves. For example, people often just read the headlines of news articles and believe they know everything about that topic afterwards, as opposed to ever reading the article. The second talk digs into the connections we make with fictional characters, and why we spend so much tim...

Famous Last Words: Week before Terror

This Thursday, I was proctoring a pre-calculus test when our Complex Analysis professor announced that we would have a midterm in a week. Two days after my Thermodynamics midterm. Two days before my Fluid Dynamics Midterms. All within five days of my Numerical Analysis midterm. While this all seems super stressful, atleast once Fluid Dynamics is over, I can look forward to smooth sailing for a few weeks. This week, in contrast to the next few, is looking to be very peaceful as a whole. I got to play soccer with some friends this weekend. I had not played in a few months, but it was great to get back out on the field and run around a little. Even better, I finally decided on a Halloween costume as well- Russell from Up. The only hard thing has been finding badges. Finally, WE GOT A DOG. This part has been most exciting. She came by at some point this afternoon, a friend had brought her up. She basically explored the house for the first bit of the day, and now, she's getting more u...

Learning Challenge, I Wish My Teacher Knew

This week, I changed things up, and I decided to learn more about teaching skills. I read the article entitled, " What Kids Wished Their Teacher Knew " by Donna De La Cruz. This article is of interesting to me because I TA for two separate classes. Some of these are interesting for learning, such as "I wish my teacher knew that I wanted to learn more about history," while others are heartbreaking such as "I wish my teacher knew my family and I live in a shelter." The interesting topic between all of these are that teachers sometimes can make presumptions on students. The article confirms for me that children are excellent at hiding things. Whether it be poverty or a genuine interest in a field, they can mask that up to where there teacher would never know. One thing that I learned is that teachers often make presumptions about students based on their own upbringing and how they went through school themselves. This resonates with me pretty heavily, beca...