h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The Slavic word for German (variations on nymsky, depending on which language, I think) also means "no words" - as the Slavs couldn't understand a word the Teutonic invaders spoke. Or so a Polish friend tells me.

Funny how these things then stick.

Wasn't Slav the word for slave? if the Germans invaded and made the Slavs slaves, calling the invaders "no words" must have seemed like the only retribution they could get away with.

I've often wondered that. Perhaps someone can enlighten us.

Slav (n.)
late 14c., Sclave, from Medieval Latin Sclavus (c.800), from Byzantine Greek Sklabos (c.580), from Old Church Slavonic Sloveninu "a Slav," probably related to slovo "word, speech," which suggests the name originally identified a member of a speech community

But our word slave came from the word Slav. The Romans called a slave "servus".

I think you may be right:

slave (n.)
late 13c., "person who is the chattel or property of another," from Old French esclave (13c.), from Medieval Latin Sclavus "slave" (source also of Italian schiavo, French esclave, Spanish esclavo), originally "Slav" (see Slav); so used in this secondary sense because of the many Slavs sold into slavery by conquering peoples.

This sense development arose in the consequence of the wars waged by Otto the Great and his successors against the Slavs, a great number of whom they took captive and sold into slavery. [Klein]


When was Otto the Great around?

10th century

I don't think he Otto have done that.

~ ~

Something I'm currently reading with a relevance on late 19th century Slavic issues:

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/51243

New to Gnomon's Guide today:

Entry A87868589 - The Ham Sandwich Theorem

Very good!

Steinhaus was also a pioneer of cake division mathematics - I mention him in that other entry.

Can we generalise this further by saying that we can divide by any given ratio with a single cut, not just 50:50?

Good question. I don't know the answer. I'd say probably yes.

Cool old Guy reading frontpage (Linear Algebra < A87858706 &gt
"Concidering *(1/2) or /2 as beeing the single cut

Sandwich/2 = Nparts (The Ham Sandwich Theorem < A87868589 &gt
Cake/2 = Nparts (Envy-Free Cake Division < A27360038 &gt

Food = Nparts in M dimensions, well not very tasty anymore.

Guess my Occam's razor is not sharp enough. "

What if the cake is small enough to eat in one bite, thus requiring no cutting at all?

It has to be possible to divide a cake in any ratio with one cut, as there are infinite parallel loci for placing the knife.

Ah, I should have read the entry before commenting. We're not talking about a single circular cake.

My entry is about dividing three things with a single slice. Icy's one is about dividing a cake so everyone is happy.

I thought it was about trisecting Toblerones?

Ah – I see, Icy's done:
A87816847 – How to Trisect a Toblerone
A27360038 – Envy-Free Cake Division
A17719220 - The Mathematician and the Blancmange

I didn't there were so many food mathematics entries!

<BB<

I didn't realize it either, but cake division is obviously very consequential. I thought it would be easy, but it's no piece of cake.