Audiostretto 59/4/24 English

In the world of music, a soloist is someone who plays their own part within a group, often very demanding, and so he or she stands out. They are the well-known, great musicians in these ensembles and receive special attention. In contrast to the solo, there is the com. Com as in communication or communion and perhaps even composer. It is the commonality that is in the foreground here: the communit...

In mathematics, the individual operators are not always of equal value when performing calculations. There is a mnemonic device that says: "Dot before dash". This means that in a calculation with several operations, divisions and multiplications are to be performed first, and only then subtractions or additions. However, it may be that you still want to perform a subtraction or addition...

Many of us wear a hat in winter. Its primary purpose is to insulate and prevent heat loss, thereby preventing or reducing the risk of freezing. But sometimes it is just a fashion accessory. In certain cultures it is a must: a rapper without a cap is probably unthinkable. Or in sport, it sometimes helps to absorb sweat and protect against the sun. In the catering trade it is used for hygiene, in ce...

Nobody likes to touch a hot potato, but sometimes it has to be done. I'll take the Pope as an example. There are people who don't care about him, don't take him seriously or see him as an old relic, or are annoyed by all the pomp, consider him completely superfluous, even harmful to the development of the church and in dealing with specific issues, etc. Others almost worship him like G...

When I started school as a child, we drew and wrote with coloured pencils and pencils. We kept these pencils in pencil boxes or more or less sorted in our pencil cases. To be able to use the pencils well and draw fine lines or write legibly, they had to be sharpened. We had a sharpener for this and it was a manual task to sharpen the pencils. This meant that the tip had to be ground down with a sh...

In the past, every bike had a kickstand, which was usually attached quite directly to the bike. Today, this is no longer a matter of course. Some bikes are optimised to be as light as possible and therefore a kickstand is unnecessary weight that you have to carry with you. That makes sense. The kickstand is only important for parking the bike, not at all while riding, it's just an annoying wei...

We humans are emotional beings. This can be seen when we observe our behaviour in relationships: we can rejoice with others and share in their joy and success, but also sympathise with their pain, disappointments and adversities that they experience. In cases of injustice, we often react very strongly and not only demand justice, but also revenge-driven retribution. So it is good that authorities...

There are animals that use more senses than just their eyes for night vision. Migratory birds orientate themselves by the earth's magnetic field. Bats use ultrasonic waves to find their way around. We humans can also recognise certain things at night - but: we actually recognise more when we are not looking closely. Looking at something closely and straining to do so does not help, because the...

Oak leaf lettuce and other similar lettuces have wavy leaves. In comparison to the leaves on trees, which are largely flat, these are wavy. This means that, from a geometric point of view, they have an irregular shape, one that is probably not very easy to represent mathematically in a function. When you eat the salad, you may neither notice nor care. But it fascinates me because it is not a simpl...

On hot days, a cool drink is a welcome refreshment. This is often served with ice cubes. These are often portioned as cubes in an ice cube mould or tray. You could actually put the same amount of water in another container in the freezer and then take out the frozen ice and use as much of it as you need. But it's difficult to get ice cream in the portions you want. It can't be cut like a s...

In statistics, particularly when visualising data, so-called outliers often stand out. In a bar chart, for example, these are the bars that stand out particularly high, noticeably higher than all the others. Or a distribution of points that forms a dense cluster, with only a few points clearly outside it. Depending on the subject and data material, a huge amount of resources are then used to deal...

The German name for the pig's nose is Schweinerüssel, a compound term: the animal's name - the pig - and the organ, the trunk. When I think of a trunk, I automatically think of an elephant. But a trunk is, by definition, an extended, movable part of the nose or mouth. And the pig needs this to dig up the ground to find food. But it also uses its snout to smell and it uses it to maintain so...

There was a time, when I was a child, when every household was supposed to keep a certain amount of emergency supplies on hand. It was your own responsibility to have these products in stock and to check whether and for how long these foods were valid. To this day, I sometimes find products in my stash that are past their expiry date. I then check whether I can still use these foods or, in the wor...

There are things such as braces that are very useful and functional - but only if they are connected to what they were made for: the braces without trousers can hardly be used for anything else, while the trousers can still be worn, even without braces. That seems unfair: you can do without one and the other is useless without the other. What is certain, however, is that the combination of both cr...

When I prepare Cicorino Rosso or iceberg lettuce in the kitchen, I hold a kind of leaf ball in my hands and separate the individual leaves, which lie very close together, from the whole. I've always wondered how these heads of lettuce grow. Are all the leaves there from the start and do they all grow together or layer by layer? I'm amazed at how they grow. The innermost core will probably...

In our culture, dragons - i.e. animals - are dangerous creatures that threaten people with their violence, power and evilness. In numerous stories, myths and tales, there are therefore always heroes who bravely face up to the fight against these creatures and heroically defeat them in the end. However, dragons are not considered evil in all cultures. In China, they are considered lucky charms and...

We humans smell with our noses – although we don't smell with the visible part of the nose, the olfactory process takes place in the nasal cavity. I am fascinated by the construction of the nose: it is not at the back of the head, but the most forward, exposed part of the face. It is open at the bottom, not at the top or front. This ensures that things that come from above, such as rain or hea...

Pistachios were unknown to me for a long time. It was only when I was a teenager at a camp that I was offered them for the first time. As it was a very positive camp for me with lots of wonderful encounters, I have inevitably associated pistachios with these memories ever since - that was over 40 years ago. It's amazing how such experiences can be formative and have a lasting effect. In this d...

In nature, I observe that growth arises from very small, delicate structures that then become larger and stronger over time. For example, plants grow from very small, delicate structures to larger ones. At the beginning, there is a delicate, thin, very vulnerable beginning of a branch. Over time, it becomes firmer, increases in size and stability and also in firmness of structure – until it finall...

In purely technical terms, images are nothing more than very small fields or areas, known as pixels, which are assigned a specific colour value and then, as a whole, produce an image. This applies to photos and digital images alike – and also to screens or monitors. On computers, so-called screen savers are often used to protect the screens. These are moving images or shapes that pass over the mon...

I have only ever seen pictures of the pyramids in Egypt. It must be enormous what you find there and extremely impressive when you consider how old these structures are and the modest means with which they were built compared to today. Of course, you can argue that many people had to work as slaves to build them and see the whole thing in a negative light. But if you look at the fact that somethin...

London was one of the first cities to systematically begin paving its streets and laying pavements in the 18th century. The kerb was an essential part of these urban infrastructure measures, which aimed to make the city cleaner and safer. This has continued to this day. However, safer is relative. If I'm cycling and a car overtakes me very close, the kerb means I only have a very limited oppor...

Does the word 'hopefully' occur frequently in your language? Hope is - as I observe it - one of those words that have a touch of optimism in our society but somehow without any real justification. In the sense of: it would be nice if... but things could turn out very differently and in the end we don't know and have no influence. In other words, a certain fatalism. I understand hope to...

When we go to bed at night, we usually cover ourselves with a blanket, thereby actively creating a state and an environment in which we can relax. The primary purpose of a blanket is to keep us warm during the physically passive resting phase. But it is more than that. It is also a means of providing us with comfort and protection, which also helps us in the active process of relaxation. Being abl...

The term intimacy is derived from the Latin interior, which means inside. Intimacy is the superlative of this, the highest form of intensification: the absolute innermost. I like the idea that there is an innermost place within us as a place of retreat, isolated from the rest of the often noisy world, where I am completely myself. Intimacy is a basic human need. I think this is also because we liv...