Bracketology = A Basketball Playoff System

March 26, 2007

HAVE YOU EVER WONDERED HOW A WORD, IDIOM OR PHRASE ORIGINATED IN THE AMERICAN LANGUAGE?

The NCAA Selection Committee uses a Ratings Percentage Index each year in March to seed teams into the college basketball tournament field by ranking all teams from 1st through 65^th.

Anyone who tries to guess the teams, their seeding, and placement in the NCAA Basketball Tournament is called a “bracketologist” and the method they use is called “bracketology.”

However, the original definition of bracketology has been expanded beyond the initial placement of the teams. It now applies to picking the winners through the whole tournament.

The college basketball March Madness has driven many crazed fans (both professional and amateur) to design mathematical strategies to wind their way through the more difficult early round upsets. Why, because even a novice bracketologist knows that the first-round games can flush away one’s future for success.

Although some say they do it simply for the bragging rights, most want to win one or more of the thousands of Internet and office pools that take place this time of year.

For more detail, please read the attached pdf posting. As always, I hope this stimulates your own research, and I would appreciate your feedback.

1) Did you find the posting informative?

2) How would you improve this posting?

3) Can you provide a better “Moment of Zen?”

Jim C Quiz - Bracketology.pdf

Spring Equinox = 12 Hours of Light & Dark

March 19, 2007

HAVE YOU EVER WONDERED HOW A WORD, IDIOM OR PHRASE ORIGINATED IN THE AMERICAN LANGUAGE?

Each year after a typical long and cold winter, we all yearn for more daylight, warmer weather, and the change of seasons. The key delimiter is called the Spring Equinox, which is March 21^st, the day when there is an equal amount of daylight and darkness.

Astronomy #1: The moment when the sun reaches one of two intersections between the ecliptic and the celstial equator. The attached pdf reflects a graphical representation of this intersection.

Astronomy #2: The date (near March 21 in the northern hemisphere) when night and day are nearly the same length and the sun crosses the celistial equator (i.e., declination 0) moving northward.

After the Spring Equinox, the Sun still continues to follow a higher and higher path through the sky, with the days growing longer and longer, until it reaches it highest point in the sky on the what is called the Summer Solstice.

Mythology: The Spring Equinox is sacred to dawn, youth, the morning star and the east; in addition, Eostre is a Saxon dawn goddess, like Aurora and Eos. Just as the dawn is the time of new light, this change of seasons is also known as a time of new life. By the way, the direction East and the holiday Easter are words derived from Eostre.

For more detail, please read the attached pdf posting. As always, I hope this stimulates your own research, and I would appreciate your feedback.

1) Did you find the posting informative?

2) How would you improve this posting?

3) Can you provide a better “Moment of Zen?”

Jim C Quiz – Spring Equinox.pdf

Daylight-Saving Time = Energy Savings + A Longer Afternoon

March 12, 2007

HAVE YOU EVER WONDERED HOW A WORD, IDIOM OR PHRASE ORIGINATED IN THE AMERICAN LANGUAGE?

The phrase researched this time is Daylight-Saving Time, which began in 1966 with passage of the Uniform Time Act.  The basic thought behind the act was to make better use of daylight in the Spring and Summer by moving an hour of daylight from the morning to the evening.  The time change to “spring forward” was always in April. 

Infoplease:  “The federal law that established “daylight time” in this country does not require any area to observe daylight saving time. But if a state chooses to observe DST, it must follow the starting and ending dates set by the law. From 1986 to 2006 this has been the first Sunday in April to the last Sunday in October, but starting in 2007, things have changed.”

Because of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, the “spring forward” took place a month earlier this year on the second Sunday of March (3/11/2007).

Another interesting fact is that not all U.S. residents set their clocks one hour forward in spring and one hour back in fall. Residents of Arizona and Hawaii, along with the U.S. territories of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, among others never deviated from standard time.

For more detail, please read the attached pdf posting. As always, I hope this stimulates your own research, and I would appreciate your feedback.

1) Did you find the posting informative?

2) How would you improve this posting?

3) Can you provide a better “Moment of Zen?”

Jim C Quiz – Daylight-Saving Time.pdf

Women’s History Month = Overdue Recognition

March 5, 2007

HAVE YOU EVER WONDERED HOW A WORD, IDIOM OR PHRASE ORIGINATED IN THE AMERICAN LANGUAGE?

The month of March is full of special events, many of which get a lot more play than Women’s History Month.  As I started to research this subject, it became very apparent that for centuries the role played by women in history has been under appreciated, as well as under reported.

Women’s history was rarely the subject of serious study in the United States before 1970. Since then the field has undergone a metamorphosis, because several significant factors, such as the following, contributed to the emergence of women’s history. 

• The women’s movement of the 1960s, which began to question their apparently invisibility in our history texts.
• The feminist movement raised the aspirations and opportunities of women, which produced a growing number of female historians.
• Aroused by feminist charges, historians began to trace the origins of women’s second-class status.

For more detail, please read the attached pdf posting. As always, I hope this stimulates your own research, and I would appreciate your feedback.

1) Did you find the posting informative?

2) How would you improve this posting?

3) Can you provide a better “Moment of Zen?”

Jim C Quiz – Women’s History Month.pdf