How much land was the chief of the Bashkirs willing to sell to Pahom?

Leo Tolstoy's short story "How Much Land Does a Man Need?" is a fable about the perils of greed. Pahom is a peasant farmer who tills common land owned collectively by his village. He has never given much thought to his lot in life, until he overhears his wife defending it to her wealthy, city-fied sister:

"'Of course our work is rough and coarse. But, on the other hand, it is sure; and we need not bow to any one.'"

Pahom silently agrees with his wife and muses that his only complaint is not having his own land to farm. The seed of discontent, thus planted, begins to blossom in his mind, and Pahom begins to believe that only having his own land will satisfy him.

"'Look at that,' thought he, 'the land is all being sold, and I shall get none of it.' So he spoke to his wife. 'Other people are buying,' said he, 'and we must also buy twenty acres or so. Life is becoming impossible.'"

The couple spend all their savings and take out some loans to buy a small plot of land. Their investment is successful, and they are able to pay down their debts and make a small profit from their acreage. For a time, Pahom is satisfied, but once he adjusts to the new normal, he begins to itch for yet more land. This cycle repeats itself a few times: each time, Pahom purchases more land than he had before, enjoys good harvests, and makes a tidy profit. He has transformed within a few years from a subsistence farmer into a relatively wealthy landowner, but he is only ever briefly satisfied with each new acquisition. As soon as he settles into his larger estate, he wants something better.
When a stranger comes to town and tells him that the Bashkir nomads are selling vast tracts of their land, Pahom thinks, as he has before, that this new land will finally be enough. He travels to the Bashkir camp and meets with their chieftain, who says that Pahom can have any portion of their land that he desires, on one condition: he is limited to the amount of land whose perimeter he can walk fully around between sunrise and sunset of one day.

"'As much as you can go round on your feet in a day is yours, and the price is one thousand roubles a day.'
Pahom was surprised. 'But in a day you can get round a large tract of land,' he said.
The Chief laughed. 'It will all be yours!' said he. 'But there is one condition: If you don't return on the same day to the spot whence you started, your money is lost [...] we shall go to any spot you like, and stay there. You must start from that spot and make your round, taking a spade with you. Wherever you think necessary, make a mark. At every turning, dig a hole and pile up the turf; then afterwards we will go round with a plough from hole to hole. You may make as large a circuit as you please, but before the sun sets you must return to the place you started from. All the land you cover will be yours.'"

Pahom accepts this condition, and the next day, sets out to mark the boundaries of the tract he wants. However the same dissatisfaction that has spurred him on through all his previous acquisitions comes into play as he walks. Each time he thinks about turning to finish one side of his square and begin the next, he sees another bit of land beyond where he is standing, and decides that he has to have it.

"'I will go on for another three miles,' thought he, 'and then turn to the left. The spot is so fine, that it would be a pity to lose it. The further one goes, the better the land seems.'"

Pahom ends up going too far in one direction before turning, and too far in the second direction before turning again back towards his starting point. By the time he is moving back towards the starting point, the sun is beginning to set, and Pahom is rushing to reach the goal before his deal with the Bashkirs expires.

"'What shall I do,' he thought again, 'I have grasped too much, and ruined the whole affair. I can't get there before the sun sets.'[...]'There is plenty of land,' thought he, 'but will God let me live on it? I have lost my life, I have lost my life! I shall never reach that spot!'"

With a final burst of speed, Pahom manages to reach his starting point just as the sun sets, thus securing the land for himself as agreed with the chief. The effort, however, has killed him. Interestingly, the Bashkirs don't seem very surprised by this, simply clicking their tongues sympathetically as if this has happened before. They bury Pahom at his starting point, and the story ends.
When the Bashkir chief agrees to let Pahom have whatever he can circumambulate in a day, he is gambling that Pahom will either walk a reasonable distance, and thus the Bashkirs will part with a small piece of land, or that he will be compelled by greed to go too far, and thus the Bashkirs will keep his thousand roubles' payment and part with nothing. Perhaps the joy the Bashkirs show when Pahom comes to them is a result of finding another easy mark. The Bashkirs cannot lose in this deal, after all—they will sell a thousand roubles' worth of land to the reasonable prospectors, and pocket a thousand roubles for nothing in cases like Pahom's.

Pahom, the greedy Russian peasant, has been buying up increasingly large parcels of land. He's become obsessed with the acquisition of land, which has already made him a well-off man. But he's not satisfied and wants more and more, as much as he can get his hands on. So when he encounters the Bashkirs, he thinks that all his prayers have been answered.
The Bashkirs come across to Pahom as somewhat naive in the ways of the world. They have all this land and yet they're prepared to sell as much of it to Pahom as he can walk around in a single day. To the grasping Pahom, this seems like an unbeatable bargain. Unfortunately, his greed has got the better of him, and he dies in the attempt to grab as much of the Bashkirs' land as he can. The only land he ever really needed was that in which his coffin is to be buried.

College Algebra, Chapter 4, 4.5, Section 4.5, Problem 12

a.) Find all zeros of $P(x) = x^4 + 6x^2 + 9$ of $P$, real and complex

b.) Factor $P$ completely.



a.) We first factor $P$ as follows.


$
\begin{equation}
\begin{aligned}

P(x) =& x^4 + 6x^2 + 9
&& \text{Given}
\\
\\
=& w^2 + 6w + 9
&& \text{Let } w = x^2
\\
\\
=& (w + 3)^2
&& \text{Factor}
\\
\\
=& (x^2 + 3)^2
&& \text{Substitute } w = x^2

\end{aligned}
\end{equation}
$


We find the zeros of $P$ by setting each factor equal to :

Setting $(x^2 + 3)^2 = 0$, we get $x^2 + 3 = 0$ is a zero, so $x = \pm \sqrt{3} i$. Hence, the zeros of $P$ are $\sqrt{3} i$ and $- \sqrt{3} i$.

b.) By complete factorization,


$
\begin{equation}
\begin{aligned}

P(x) =& \left( x - \sqrt{3} i \right) \left[ x - \left( - \sqrt{3} i \right) \right]
\\
\\
=& \left( x - \sqrt{3} i \right) \left( x + \sqrt{3} i \right)

\end{aligned}
\end{equation}
$

In "Among the Hidden," what are some of the tactics the government employs to make ordinary families like Luke's feel powerless?

In the novel, families are only allowed to have two children. A third child is considered illegal, so the government forcefully sterilizes women after their second births. If any woman accidentally becomes pregnant a third time, she is required to abort her child.
So, the government intimidates families like Luke's by employing draconian laws to compel implicit obedience. As a means of preventing overpopulation, the government uses the Population Law to decide the size of families; to ensure unquestioning obedience, the Population Police are allowed to use violent measures against citizens. Illegal third children are called shadow children, and the police are allowed to kill them on sight.
In the story, Jen and the other shadow children are brutally murdered by the police for daring to protest the government's stance on population control.
Additionally, the government has also outlawed gender selection procedures; it claims that the drastic law is needed to prevent citizens from destabilizing the population. In the story, Jen confides in Luke that her mother and step-father secretly paid doctors large sums of money to ensure that she would be born female. Any gender selection procedures have to be done secretly so as to escape the detection of the Population Police.
The government even controls what citizens eat. For example, no one is allowed to consume soda or potato chips, snacks the government considers junk food. In the story, Jen tells Luke that the government outlawed junk food by shutting down the factories that produced them. Essentially, only healthy food that can sustain an optimum population is allowed. Additionally, farmers are also forced to move to land that can sustain greater agricultural output.

How does technology influence conformity in Fahrenheit 451?

The relationship between technology and conformity is an important one in Fahrenheit 451. The novel takes place in an imagined vision of the future where people are constantly surrounded by video screens blasting television shows as well as always hearing voices and news through their seashell ear pieces. All entertainment is sanctioned by the government, and writing and books forbidden.
The result is that all the information people consume comes from the systems of power that already exist. While our society has freedom of the press and you can pick up any number of books, documentaries, or other media from libraries that may contradict, critique, or enforce our society's beliefs, the same is not true of the world in Fahrenheit 451. By controlling the media that the people in that world consume, the power systems ensure that everybody will continue to conform.
All the media the characters of the book consume is concerned with distraction. The seashell ear pieces are loud and constantly on, rarely giving people time to think original thoughts. It's difficult to be an individual person when you don't have the ability to think outside what's being fed to you; at the end of the book, it's only the characters who have actively sought out forbidden literature that are able to break free of their society.
Similarly, the video screens function as entertainment and control. The citizens of this society engage with the films because they're entertaining, but they also encourage belonging. Characters like Mildred want to please the people in the films, which are interactive, making them even more appealing and important.
The society in Fahrenheit 451 prioritizes technology in their society as being the most important thing, with writing being forbidden. State-sanctioned entertainment means that characters aren't exposed to anything that might challenge their perspective, enforcing their emphasis on conformity. While it might not seem like entertainment could have that profound of an effect, when your access is restricted to alternative thoughts, especially with their thoughts being interrupted by the seashell ear pieces.
The way that technology influences conformity here is indirect--they're not using any kind of magical power or brainwashing techniques, but rather subtle technologies to keep people from thinking freely. When people can't think freely, they're less likely to question or challenge the dominant systems of power, making them docile, malleable citizens that conform to their society's wishes.

1. Compare or contrast one female character in one of Ann Beattie's stories from The Burning House with one female character in one of Amber Sparks' stories from The Unfinished World. 2. If Beattie's female character represents 1979 and Sparks' female character represents 2016, what has changed between 1979 and 2016?

Amy, the first-person narrator of Ann Beattie's short story "The Burning House," contrasts with the secondary character of the mother of the twins in Amber Sparks' short story "The Lizzie Bordon Jazz Babies."Amy is married to Frank and surrounded by all his male friends. The mother of the twins (who is not named in the story) is widowed and remarried to "the mensware salesman." She is surrounded, in a manner of speaking, by her twins, Patty (the eldest by a minute with a splotch of a birthmark on her heel) and Cat (who always agrees with Patty, until she doesn't).Amy occasionally smokes pot with Frank's brother Freddy; cooks; takes care of her son, six-year-old Mark; and has returned to college to earn herself an education. She is having an affair with Johnny to whom she was introduced by Frank's friend J.D., who tends toward obsession. She stares every morning at the early light refracted by the "twenty glass prisms" hung from an overhead beam above their bed. The twins' mother takes care of them and the mensware salesman, goes to church where she prays for sinners and her dead husband in "her nervous, insincere way." She always enjoyed watching her young twins dance and cavort on the front porch in their little girl way to Fats Waller jazz music until, on the threshold of puberty, the twins start gathering a crowd of overly interested men watching them, following them and sneaking into their windows.Amy looks forward to having time with Johnny while being conflicted about Frank wanting to leave her and drift away from her like the prism lights overhead after morning light beams pass by. The mother looks forward to her girls giving up jazz and taking ballet like "nice girls do" while being mildly distracted by the sins of bathing suit wearers. Amy learns that Frank is "already gone" and "looking down on all this from space" because men think they are "Spider-Man and Buck Rogers and Superman" and are "going to the stars." The mother learns that her twins become ununited--Patty taking up the strengthening and grounding sport of tennis and Cat taking up graceful, gentle ballet--unaware that while Cat dates and falls in love, Patty continues to plot murder at the library.Amy, despite her sorrow, depression, despondence and sense of being adrift, is alive, is perceptive, is interacting with other people's feelings and thoughts. The twins' mother, naive and gullible, is happy and fun loving and dutiful in caring for her family and in appreciating the house the mensware salesman has bought for them, but she is dull in sensibilities; praying, grieving and living insincerely, unaware of the feelings and thoughts of those closest to her, her own twins.

Describe Aram's first horse ride in "The Summer of the Beautiful White Horse."

Aram's first horse ride is an eventful one.
First, Aram is awakened by his cousin Mourad, who is seated on a beautiful white horse. After he recovers from his surprise, Aram dresses quickly and leaps down to the yard from his window.
Then, he jumps up onto the horse behind Mourad. On this first ride, Aram stays behind Mourad on the horse. The horse makes its way from Walnut Avenue (where Aram and his family live) to Olive Avenue. After riding together for a time, Aram gets down from the horse and lets Mourad ride alone.
As Aram watches, Mourad races the horse across a field towards an irrigation ditch. The horse successfully leaps over the ditch, and before long, Mourad circles back to Aram. This time, it is Aram's turn to ride alone. He leaps onto the horse and waits for it to move. Aram is so excited about the prospect of riding alone that he forgets to give the horse a signal. This is why the horse initially stands still.
Eventually, Aram kicks into the muscles of the horse, and the animal begins to run. However, there is more trouble ahead for Aram, as he has little knowledge of how he should steer a horse. Instead of running across the field to the irrigation ditch and heading back to Mourad, the horse takes off to the vineyard of Dikran Halabian. There, it leaps over seven vines, and Aram eventually falls.
Without looking back, the horse races ahead. It takes Mourad half an hour to find the horse. So, Aram's first horse ride is an eventful one; it certainly doesn't go as he initially envisions.

In "The Summer of the Beautiful White Horse," Aram's first horse ride begins when he is woken early one morning by his cousin, Mourad, and a "beautiful white horse." Realising that Mourad did not buy the horse (because the family is too poor), Aram is initially hesitant about riding a stolen horse. But he is so keen to ride that he gets dressed, jumps down from his window and climbs up on to the horse where he sits behind his cousin.
The pair ride out to the country behind Aram's horse and Mourad sings loudly as they let the horse run for "as long it felt like running." Then Mourad decides to ride the horse alone and, in doing so, demonstrates his experience and prowess. Keen to show off, Aram then takes a turn at riding alone but his is a disaster: the horse runs down to a vineyard and begins leaping over the vines which throws Aram to the ground. The horse is then free to run off and it takes Mourad half an hour to find it.
Finally, the boys take the horse to the barn of a deserted vineyard for safekeeping while Aram is determined to learn to ride as well as his cousin. 

Beginning Algebra With Applications, Chapter 3, 3.2, Section 3.2, Problem 126

Solve $5n+3 = 2n+1$ and check.


$
\begin{equation}
\begin{aligned}

5n+3 =& 2n+1
&& \text{Given equation}
\\
\\
5n-2n =& 1-3
&& \text{Subtract $2n$ and subtract $3$ to each side}
\\
\\
3n =& -2
&& \text{Simplify}
\\
\\
\frac{\cancel{3}n}{\cancel{3}} =& \frac{-2}{3}
&& \text{Divide by } 3
\\
\\
n =& \frac{-2}{3}
&&

\end{aligned}
\end{equation}
$


Checking:


$
\begin{equation}
\begin{aligned}

5 \left( \frac{-2}{3} \right) + 3 =& 2 \left( \frac{-2}{3} \right) + 1
&& \text{Substitute } n = \frac{-2}{3}
\\
\\
\frac{-10}{3} + 3 =& \frac{-4}{3} + 1
&& \text{Simplify}
\\
\\
\frac{-1}{3} =& \frac{-1}{3}
&&

\end{aligned}
\end{equation}
$