An Introduction to Ancient Greece

Ancient Greece left us many lasting legacies that still influence us today. From Language, to Math, to sports, to government, Ancient Greece was the best at almost everything. Things like the Olympics, the alphabet, and Mythology were all Greek ideas.

Greek Legacies that we still use: Language

The Greeks majorly improved language by introducing vowels into the alphabet and much more...

Language: Vowels

The Greeks introduced vowels into the alphabet. This is really important and changed language completely because there is not even a single word without a vowel even though there are 5 vowels and 21 consonants. To this day, vowels are still used constantly.

Language: Roots

Geography, microscope, technology etc...

Another way the Greeks advanced language was by introducing many important roots. Many roots that we still use now like tech or geo were made by the Greeks. This is still really important because it influences many words that are still commonly used today.

Here are a some examples of Greek roots and their meanings.

Root: Bio, meaning: life, examples: biology , biohazard, biography etc..

Root: Geo, meaning: earth , Examples: Geography, Geometry, Geometrical etc...

Math

The Greeks also influenced math a lot. They were pretty much the creators of geography. Geometry is actually a Greek word, that

means to measure land. With geometry, the Greeks figured out how many seeds they would need to fill up a whole field, and they could also figure out where and how to lay out a city. A Greek Mathematician named Euclid was also fascinated with math. He created a geometry textbook that has been used for more than 2,000 years.

All of these mathematical advancements have influenced us to keep using the world around us to our advantage and to be able to understand things we wouldn't have been able to understand without the major mathematical advancements of the Greeks.

What are Myths?

Back in Ancient Greece, people didn't have the resources or scientific understanding to know what actually caused things like weather, or the creation of the earth. That is why they created myths and gods. To explain the unexplainable. Our task was to create a myth about why hail happens, and we will show you how the Greeks could have interpreted it and how we predict and understand weather today.

Once upon a time, Zeus sat on his great throne on Mount Olympus, taking in the view. “Demetra?” he called “Where have you run off to my love.” But no one answered. “My love?” He then called for the messenger of the gods, Hermes, asking him to find his true love. The next day, Hermes returned looking stressed. “Did you find her?” Zeus wondered. “Yes I have found her,” he replied, “but she is not with me.

She is with your brother Hades, king of the Underworld.” “We must do something,” Zeus gasped. “I order you to go back and retrieve my true love Demetra.” With that, Hermes rushed back to the Underworld to find Hades.

“Hades, you must return the beautiful Demetra to the king of the hill Zeus.You do not want to feel the consequences of his wrath.” “I would rather feel his wrath than lose Demetra,” Hades whispered, and with that, Hermes left the king of the Underworld to deliver the bad news.

As Hades sat on his throne in the underworld, he heard a strange sound, almost like rain, but louder. The sound grew noisier and noisier and the king of the underworld grew madder and madder. “What is this noise,” he wondered aloud.

Meanwhile, on Mount Olympus, Zeus sat happily on his throne. He knew it was just a matter of time before Hades snapped, and would ask what the noise was, for only Zeus knew what the noise came from. He had created strange balls of ice that made a racket. Because he expected all gods to hail him, the opposite of what Hades was doing, that is what he decided to call the strange substance. Hail. To this day, every time something of Zeus’s gets stolen by Hades, he creates hail to get it back.

Let's quickly learn what weather is, shall we guys?

Weather is the state of the atmosphere at a concrete place and time regarding temperature, winds, snow and much more. Weather can also be described as the state of temperature, hail, snow,frost, rain, clouds or wind at a certain period of time.  For example, the weather of New York is 20 degrees Celsius right now, but in one hour, the temperature could be 15 degrees.

Let's get to our topic: Hail!

How does it actually happen?

Hail is caused by water droplets freezing completely in clouds and getting pulled towards the earth by gravity. It is like balls of ice falling from the sky. As the hail falls, water molecules can attach to the falling hail on its way to the ground, sometimes causing hail to grow to a size of 8 inches wide. This is an example of a hail forecast.

An example of a weather forecast in New York in december predicts below freezing temperatures (perfect for hail) and it also predicts hail by saying “periods of ice”

But this is a perfect example of weather. The average temperature in December in New York is actually 48 degrees, not 35. In December there are only 12 days of any sort of rain and 5 months get more precipitation than December. This shows that even if hail is common, is just part of your everyday weather and not climate.

I know what causes hail to happen! YAY! But how can we predict hail?

Come, let´ s learn how we and meteorologists can predict hail!

It is extremely difficult to know where a big amount of hail will hit but one hint that meteorologist have is that the temperature has to be under 0 degrees celsius and there has to be some type of precipitation, but really, hail can happen at any time in any season. If this type of precipitation is rain, then the water droplets being pulled down will possibly freeze while in the air turning into hail. However, the general region where hail can be expected is very predictable. Hail occurs in harmony with thunderstorms, particularly supercell thunderstorms. But even though there are some clues to help meteorologists, they do get their predictions wrong at times.