ATHLETE

Athlete

Αθλητής – Athleetees

Origin:

From the word Athlon which means prize in a contest. Therefore, someone who competes for a prize.

Story:

The first written records of the Olympic Games date back to 776 BC, when a cook called Coroebus won the only event in the competition, an almost 200 metre running race called the Stade, which is where the word Stadium came from.  His prize was an olive branch. The games had become common by the 6th century BC. They were held every four years in August and September during a festival dedicated to Zeus.  Only free-born Greek males could take part. There were no women’s events, and indeed married women were prevented from attending even as a spectator. They fell out of fashion after the Romans conquered Greece.  They ceased when pagan festivals were banned in the 4th century AD, and then revived by the French Baron Pierre de Coubertin in 1896.

The first marathon followed the route of the Greek soldier Pheidippides, who ran to Athens from Marathon to bring news of the victory over the Persians in 490 BC. 

Famously, the Roman emperor Nero entered himself into an Olympic chariot race in 67 AD, and declared himself the winner, despite falling out of his chariot during the race.

See also:

Stadium, Marathon, Olympic

ATLAS

Άτλας – Atlas

Origin:

The name of a Titan, a race of deities in Greek mythology. There were 12 in all, the children of Uranus and Gaia.

Story:

Atlas was a Titan, who according to Greek mythology was doomed to support the heavens on his shoulders for eternity, as a punishment by Zeus.  He is synonymous with endurance, and instructed man in the art of Astronomy, vital to help sailors navigate, and farmers plant their crops.

The term Atlas has been used to describe a book of maps since the 16th century when the Flemish mapmaker Mercator published his work and dedicated it to the mythological Titan, whom he regarded as the first great geographer. 

The Atlantic Ocean actually means the Sea of Atlas, as he was thought to stand in the far west of the known world.  The mysterious continent of Atlantis, believed to lie to the west of the Pillars of Hercules – The Straits of Gibraltar – was swallowed up by the sea after a great earthquake.

See also:

Titanic, Astronomy, Synonym, Geography

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ATMOSPHERE

Ατμόσφαιρα – Atmosphera

Origin:

From the Greek Atmos meaning vapour and sphaira, meaning ball or globe.

Story:

Used in its modern sense since the 17th century, to mean the gases surrounding the planet. The Earth’s atmosphere is made up of 78.1 % Nitrogen and 20.9 % Oxygen and 0.93 % Argon.

The term was coined by Willibrord Snell van Royen, a Dutch Astronomer and Mathematician who in 1621 invented the Law of Refraction which is basic to modern geometrical optics and the creation of lenses. He was actually 600 years too late as the concept had already been pondered by the mathematician Ibn Sahl, a Persian mathematician who himself was s student of the works of Ptolemy

There are five layers of atmosphere – from inner to outer – Troposphere (turning or mixing), Stratosphere (layered), Mesosphere (middle), Thermosphere (heat) and (Outside) Exosphere.  Together they protect us from harmful rays from the Sun and regulate temperatures.

See also:

Sphere, Planet, Mathematics, Nitrogen, Oxygen

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ATOM

Άτομο - Atomo

Origin:

The Greek prefix ‘a’ meaning not, and temnein, to cut – so ‘Uncuttable, Indivisible.’

Story:

Coined by the philosopher Leucippus of Miletus and his pupil Democritus around 400 BC who believed that all matter could be reduced to small particles called Atoms, too small to be seen. 

The big questions was, is a single atom of water still water or simply a component of water, unrecognisable as water. This differed from the theories of Plato and Aristotle who believed all things could be divided into Air, Earth, Fire and Water.  Plato even wanted to burn all of Democritus’s books.

Revived as a concept by a 15th century alchemist and poet at the court of the English king Edward IV who mentioned it in one of his poetic works. As an idea it caught on in subsequent centuries and in 1803 John Dalton published his atomic theory and the periodic table.

The whole concept was superseded by subatomic research in the late 19th century, culminating in Rutherford discovering that atoms have an internal structure, namely Protons, Neutrons and Electrons.

Of course, nowadays we know that even protons and neutrons can be subdivided into Quarks and Gluons which are the smallest things physicists can measure - So far.

The word Quark by the way is totally made-up, allegedly by the nuclear physicists Murray Gell-Mann. He found the word in Finnegan’s Wake by James Joyce who claimed he had heard the word on a visit to a German farmer’s market referring to curd cheese.  Gell-mann suggested its actually meaning was the ‘cry of a gull’ and suggested perhaps it should be pronounced so that it rhymes with bark. Quarks exist in six flavours, grouped in pairs – namely ‘Up and Down,’ ‘Strange and Charm,’ and ‘Top and Bottom.’

See also:

Atomic, Platonic, Physics, Proton, Electron, Neutron

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