Page 49 - Young Wise

ACADEMIC CORNER

writers used flat pieces of clay or stone to or servants who travelled with them
write down laws and stories. They used a everywhere. These people were there to
sharp stick instead of a finger or a stylus. serve the king, just like the moon follows
the Earth.
It comes from the Old French ‘tablete’,
meaning a small flat surface or ‘slab’. It comes from the Latin word ‘satelles’,
meaning ‘attendant’.
Our modern tablets are much lighter and
BLUETOOTH
faster, but we still use them for the same We use it for the machines that orbit our
reason: to read, write, and learn on a flat planet. They are our ‘attendant’ in space, Why does your phone have a blue icon
th
surface. helping us with Internet and weather connected to a 10 -century king?
reports. When engineers developed this
technology, they wanted to connect
different devices, just as King Harald
Bluetooth connected Denmark and
Norway. They gave his nickname to the
project.

The king’s nickname ‘Bluetooth’ may
CAMERA CALCULATOR have come from a dark tooth or a love
Did you know that every time you take a What do your calculator and a small stone of blueberries; historians are not sure.
photo, you are talking about a ‘room’? have in common? But his ability to unite people inspired
the technology’s name.
Hundreds of years ago, before cameras Long before calculators or even paper,
had film, there was a device called the ancient people needed a way to count The Bluetooth logo combines two old
Camera Obscura. It was literally a ‘dark their sheep or trade goods. They used Norse letters (runes): H ( ) and B ( ),
room’ with a tiny hole in one wall. Light small, smooth stones to keep track of which are King Harald Bluetooth’s initials.
would come through the hole and project numbers.
an upside-down image of the outside It comes from the Latin word ‘calculus’,
world onto the opposite wall!
which means ‘small pebble’.
It comes from the Latin word ‘camera’,
Whether it’s a high-tech computer chip
which means ‘room’ or ‘vaulted chamber’.
or a complex maths problem, we are still
And also, the Turkish word ‘kamara’
‘counting pebbles’ in a very advanced way.
(a ship’s cabin) comes from this same Latin WIRELESS
root ‘camera’.
How can we send music or videos
Even though cameras are now tiny enough
through thin air?
to fit on a phone, we still use a word that
means ‘room’. When the radio was first invented,
people were shocked! They were used
to ‘telegraphs’ that needed long copper
wires to send messages. When they
saw a device that could receive sounds
ROBOT
without any strings attached, they
Are our metal friends actually ‘workers’?
called it ‘the wireless’.
The word was first used in a 1920 play
A simple combination of ‘wire’ + ‘less’
called ‘R.U.R.’.
SATELLITE (without).
It comes from the Czech word ‘robota’. It
Why do we call the moon or a GPS device means ‘hard work’ or ‘forced labour’ done We use it for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, but
a ‘satellite’? by workers for their lords in the old times. 100 years ago, it was the ‘magic’ name
for the very first radios.
In the past, powerful kings and queens Basically, a robot is something that does
were always followed by assistants the boring and hard work for us.
47