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Socrates was a famous philosopher in ancient Greece. He was famous for his teachings and for the way he died. He was also famous for what he said. These are some of his famous sayings:

The unexamined life is not worth living.

All I know is that I know nothing.

Wisdom is knowing how little we know.

Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.

Could I climb to the highest place in Athens, I would lift my voice and proclaim, "Fellow citizens, why do you turn and scrape every stone to gather wealth and take so little care of your children to who one day you must relinquish it all."

False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.

Let him that would move the world first move himself.

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is a habit.

Wisdom begins in wonder.

Be of good cheer about death and know this as a truth, that no evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death.



http://www.socialstudiesforkids.com/articles/worldhistory/socratesquotes.htm



These sayings attributed to Socrates may be or may not be exactly true. He taught by question and answer and was quite a hard task master. He could loose his temper and be pretty cantankerous. He pronounced his name: Sew Kra Teez and not Sock Cra Teez.



He also said that Plato was his worst student. He didn't like him much. He said a lot of things but mostly asked questions. He liked to push people to their limit and make them think.

By BBC - BBC NEWS SCIENCE & ENVIRONMENT

Added: Tuesday, 26 July 2011 at 3:59 AM



Physicists have confirmed the ultimate speed limit for the packets of light called photons - making time travel even less likely than thought.



The speed of light in vacuum is the Universe's ultimate speed limit, but experiments in recent years suggested that single photons might beat it.



If they could, theory allows for the prospect of time travel.



Now, a paper in Physical Review Letters shows that individual photons too are limited to the vacuum speed limit.



That means that photons maintain the principle of causality laid out in Einstein's theory of special relativity - that is, an event's effect cannot precede its cause by traveling faster than light. It is violation of this causality that would, in principle, permit time travel.



While the limit in vacuum is a fixed number - some 300,000km per second - the speed of light can vary widely in different materials.



These differences explain everything from why a straw looks bent in a glass of water to experiments in cold gases of atoms in which light's speed is actively manipulated.



Some of those experiments showed "superluminal" behaviour, in which photons travelled faster than the speed of light in a given medium.



It remained, however, to determine whether or not individual photons could exceed the vacuum limit.



All relative

Now, Shengwang Du and colleagues at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology have measured what is known as an optical precursor.



Like the wind that moves ahead of a speeding train, optical precursors are the waves that precede photons in a material; before now, such optical precursors have never been directly observed for single photons.



By passing pairs of photons through a vapour of atoms held at just 100 millionths of a degree above absolute zero - the Universe's ultimate low-temperature limit - the team showed that the optical precursor and the photon that caused it are indeed limited to the vacuum speed of light.



"By showing that single photons cannot travel faster than the speed of light, our results bring a closure to the debate on the true speed of information carried by a single photon," said Professor Du.



Thus, photons cannot time travel, and moving information around at faster-than-light speeds is impossible.



But the work has more prosaic implications.



"Our findings will also likely have potential applications by giving scientists a better picture on the transmission of quantum information," said Professor Du.



Time travel by other means, however, is not entirely ruled out.



Einstein's theory of general relativity, in which space and time are two intertwined aspects of the same medium, would permit the bending of the medium to join two different times - a situation popularised as creating a "wormhole".



http://richarddawkins.net/articles/642319-time-travel-light-speed-results-cast-fresh-doubts

This explains a little concerning why the English in the US is slightly different.



1906 - Teddy Roosevelt Simplifies Spelling

By Jennifer Rosenberg, About.com Guide



In 1906, Andrew Carnegie was convinced that English could be a universal language used around the world, if only English was easier to read and to write. In an attempt to tackle this problem, Carnegie decided to fund a group of intellectuals to discuss this issue. The result was the Simplified Spelling Board.



The Simplified Spelling Board was founded on March 11, 1906 in New York. Included among the Board's original 26 members were such notables as author Samuel Clemens ("Mark Twain"), library organizer Melvil Dewey, U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Brewer, publisher Henry Holt, and former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Lyman Gage. Brander Matthews, professor of dramatic literature at Columbia University, was made chairman of the Board.



The Board examined the history of the English language and found that written English had changed over the centuries, sometimes for the better but also sometimes for the worse. The Board wanted to make written English phonetic again, as it was long ago, before silent letters such as "e" (as in "axe"), "h" (as in "ghost"), "w" (as in "answer"), and "b" (as in "debt") crept in. However, silent letters were not the only aspect of spelling that bothered these gentlemen.



There were other commonly used words that were just more complex than they needed to be. For instance, the word "bureau" could much more easily be spelled if it was written as "buro." The word "enough" would be spelled more phonetically as "enuf," just as "though" could be simplified to "tho." And, of course, why have a "ph" combination in "phantasy" when it could much more easily be spelled "fantasy."



Lastly, the Board recognized that there were a number of words for which there already were several options for spelling, usually one simple and the other complicated. Many of these examples are currently known as differences between American and British English, including "honor" instead of "honour," "center" instead of "centre," and "plow" instead of "plough." Additional words also had multiple choices for spelling such as "rime" rather than "rhyme" and "blest" rather than "blessed."



So as not to overwhelm the country with an entire new way of spelling at once, the Board recognized that some of these changes should be made over time. To focus their push for adaptation of new spelling rules, the Board created a list of 300 words whose spelling could be changed immediately.



The idea of simplified spelling caught on quickly, with even some schools beginning to implement the 300-word list within months of it being created. As the excitement grew around simplified spelling, one person in particular became a huge fan of the concept - President Teddy Roosevelt.



Unbeknownst to the Simplified Spelling Board, President Theodore Roosevelt sent a letter to the United States Government Printing Office on August 27, 1906. In this letter, Roosevelt ordered the Government Printing Office to use the new spellings of the 300 words detailed in the Simplified Spelling Board's circular in all documents emanating from the executive department.



President Roosevelt's public acceptance of simplified spelling caused a wave of reaction. Although there was public support in a few quarters, most of it was negative. Many newspapers began to ridicule the movement and lambasted the President in political cartoons. Congress was especially offended at the change, most likely because they had not been consulted. On December 13, 1906, the House of Representatives passed a resolution stating that it would use the spelling found in most dictionaries and not the new, simplified spelling in all official documents. With public sentiment against him, Roosevelt decided to rescind his order to the Government Printing Office.



The efforts of the Simplified Spelling Board continued for several more years, but the popularity of the idea had waned after Roosevelt's failed attempt at government support. However, when browsing the list of 300 words, one cannot help but notice how many of the "new" spellings are in current use today.



http://history1900s.about.com/od/1900s/qt/trspelling.htm

Mark Twain said, "A man's character may be learned from the adjectives which he habitually uses in conversation."





Americans living in Age of Profanity?





By Steve Pope, AP



You probably hear these words often, and more than ever before. But even though we can't print them, we can certainly ask: Are we living in an Age of Profanity?



Nearly three-quarters of Americans questioned last week — 74% — said they encounter profanity in public frequently or occasionally, according to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll. Two-thirds said they think people swear more than they did 20 years ago. And as for, well, the gold standard of foul words, a healthy 64% said they use the F-word — ranging from several times a day (8 percent) to a few times a year (15 percent). (Vote: What makes you use profanity?)



Just ask Joe Cormack. Like any bartender, Cormack, of Fort Dodge, Iowa, hears a lot of talk. He's not really offended by bad language — heck, he uses it himself every day. But sometimes, a customer will unleash the F-word so many times, Cormack just has to jump in.



"Do you have any idea how many times you've just said that?" he reports saying from time to time. "I mean, if I take that out of your vocabulary, you've got nothin!'"



And it's not just at the bar. Or on TV. (Or on the Senate floor, for that matter, where Vice President Dick Cheney used the F-word in a heated argument two years ago.)



At the community college where Cormack studies journalism, students will occasionally inject foul language into classroom discussions. Irene Kramer, a grandmother in Scranton, Pa., gets her ears singed when passing by the high school near her home.



"What we hear, it's gross," says Kramer, 67. "I tell them, 'I have a dictionary and a Roget's Thesaurus, and I don't see any of those words in there!' I don't understand why these parents allow it."



For Kramer, a major culprit is television. "Do I have to be insulted right there in my own home?" she asks. "I'm not going to pay $54 a month for cable and listen to that garbage." And yet she feels it's not a lost cause. "If people say 'Look, I don't want you talking that way,' if they demand it, it's going to have to change."



In that battle, Kramer has a willing comrade: Judith Martin, who writes the syndicated Miss Manners column.



"Is it inevitable?" Martin asked in a recent interview. "Well, if it were inevitable I wouldn't be doing my job." The problem, she says, is that people who are offended aren't speaking up about it.



"Everybody is pretending they aren't shocked," Martin says, "and gradually people WON'T be shocked. And then those who want to be offensive will find another way."



Perhaps not surprisingly, profanity seems to divide people by age and by gender.



Younger people admit to using bad language more often than older people; they also encounter it more and are less bothered by it. The AP-Ipsos poll showed that 62% of 18 to 34-year-olds acknowledged swearing in conversation at least a few times a week, compared to 39% of those 35 and older.



More women than men said they encounter people swearing more now than 20 years ago — 75%, compared to 60%. Also, more women said they were bothered by profanity — 74% at least some of the time — than men (60%.) And more men admitted to swearing: 54% at least a few times a week, compared to 39% of women.



Wondering specifically about the F-word? (For the record, we needed special dispensation from our bosses just to say 'F-word.') Thirty-two% of men said they used it at least a few times a week, compared to 23% of women.



"That word doesn't even mean what it means anymore," says Larry Riley of Warren, Mich. "It has just become part of the culture." Riley admits to using the F-word a few times a week. And his wife? "She never swears."



A striking common note among those interviewed, swearers or not: They don't like it when people swear for no good reason.



Darla Ramirez, for example, says she hates hearing the F-word "when people are just having a plain old conversation." The 40-year-old housewife from Arlington, Texas, will hear "people talking about their F-ing car, or their F-ing job. I'll hear it walking down the street, or at the shopping mall, or at Wal-Mart.



"What they do in their own home is their business, but when I'm out I don't need to hear people talking trashy," Ramirez says. She admits to swearing about once a month — but not the F-word.



And Donnell Neal of Madison Lake, Minn., notes how she'll hear the F-word used as a mere form of emphasis, as in: "That person scared the f—- out of me!" Neal, 26, who works with disabled adults, says she swears only in moments of extreme frustration, "like if someone cuts me off when I'm driving, or if I'm carrying something and someone shuts the door in my face." Even then, she says, she'll likely use "milder cuss words" — and never at work.



The AP poll questioned 1,001 adults on March 20-22, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.



For those who might find the results depressing, there's possibly a silver lining: Many of those who swear think it's wrong nonetheless.



Like Steven Price, a security guard in Tonawanda, N.Y., who admits to using swear words — including the F-word, several times a day — with colleagues or buddies, "like any old word."



Price, 31, still gets mad at himself for doing it, worries about the impact of profanity (especially from TV) on his children, and regrets the way things have evolved since he was a kid.



"As I get older, the more things change," says Price. "And I kind of wish they had stayed the same."



http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-03-28-profanity_x.htm





Interesting comment:

http://www.mylot.com/w/discussions/2343758.aspx





The people who use profanity in conversation are often found to be frustrated in their personal lives. There is a universal theory for conversation. People usually talk about the things they think about the most. If you are a musician, you will talk more often about music and you will be bored with people who don't understand much about music. If you are a physicist, it is quite expected that you will feel more comfortable with people who are attracted to physics. Now the people who have expertise in something unknowingly avoid profanity while talking about their field. This is because of the devotion. Yes, devotion, quite surprisingly eliminates the need for profanity. It suggests that you are actually enjoying the conversation to the highest level possible. People who use profanity in every occasion never enjoy any conversation. As they have nothing concrete to say, they try to draw attention with those strong words. Talk to them about something that interests them and they will totally avoid profanity. The other factor that plays a role here is the environment the person belongs to. Sometimes environment forces you to choose words that may sound rude to others. But the ultimate choice is always up to you. That is, you are free to choose your language. Accomplishments often eliminates profanity and all similar rough features from a man and then transforms him into a pleasant and amicable personality.





Another comment:

http://answerit.news24.com/Question/Question.aspx?QuestionID=30427



Language that was once considered crude and offensive has become an accepted part of everyday conversation. The use of profanity has been described as an attempt by a lazy and ignorant mind to express itself forcefully. Others have called profanity the refuge of the witless. People who have such a poor command of the language that they are unable to express themselves effectively often rely on profanity to impress and shock others. Above all else, profanity is an expression of disrespect for the hearers. In our attempt to instill self-esteem, we have lost the proper esteem for others. Those who choose to use profanity are showing an immature disregard for anyone but themselves. No matter how important or valuable their ideas may be, when they are surrounded by verbal pornography, any hope of honest communication is destroyed. Freedom of speech does not remove the responsibility for that speech. The person who speaks is responsible for the impact his words produce. And one more thing to consider — the words we choose to use reveal the kind of person we are. A person who is willing to use coarse, base, and offensive words, in public or in private, is a person whose character should be seriously questioned. Men and women of character learn to express their ideas in words that are both powerful and respectful in order to influence others for good.



What offends me the most and I don't want to hear or see it written is a four letter word that starts with a "c".