LAS MATEMÁTICAS NO SIRVEN PARA NADA

LAS MATEMÁTICAS NO SIRVEN PARA NADA

Alicia estaba sentada en un banco del parque que había al lado de su casa, con un libro y un cuaderno en el regazo y un bolígrafo en la mano. Lucía un sol espléndido y los pájaros alegraban la mañana con sus trinos, pero la niña estaba de mal humor. Tenía que hacer los deberes.

— ¡Malditas matemáticas! ¿Por qué tengo que perder el tiempo con estas ridículas cuentas en vez de jugar o leer un buen libro de aventuras? —Se quejó en voz alta—. ¡Las matemáticas no sirven para nada!

Como si su exclamación hubiera sido un conjuro mágico, de detrás de unos matorrales que había junto al banco en el que estaba sentada salió un curioso personaje: era un individuo larguirucho, de rostro melancólico y vestido a la antigua; parecía recién salido de una ilustración de un viejo libro de Dickens que había en casa de la abuela, pensó Alicia.

— ¿He oído bien, jovencita? ¿Acabas de decir que las matemáticas no sirven para nada? —preguntó entonces el hombre con expresión preocupada.

—Pues sí, eso he dicho. ¿Y tú quién eres? No serás uno de esos individuos que molestan a las niñas en los parques...

—Depende de lo que se entienda por molestar. Si las matemáticas te disgustan tanto como parecen indicar tus absurdas quejas, tal vez te moleste la presencia de un matemático,

— ¿Eres un matemático? Más bien pareces uno de esos poetas que van por ahí deshojando margaritas.

—Es que también soy poeta.

—A ver, recítame un poema.

—Luego, tal vez. Cuando uno se encuentra con una niña testaruda que dice que las matemáticas no sirven para nada, lo primero que tiene que hacer es sacarla de su error.

— ¡Yo no soy una niña testaruda! —Protestó Alicia—. ¡Y no voy a dejar que me hables de mates!

—Es una actitud absurda, teniendo en cuenta lo mucho que te interesan los números.

— ¿A mí? ¡Qué risa! No me interesan ni un poquito así—replicó ella juntando las yemas del índice y el pulgar hasta casi tocarse—. No sé nada de mates, ni ganas.

—Te equivocas. Sabes más de lo que crees. Por ejemplo, ¿cuántos años tienes?

—Once.

— ¿Y cuántos tenías el año pasado?

—Vaya pregunta más tonta: diez, evidentemente.

— ¿Lo ves? Sabes contar, y ése es el origen y la base de todas las matemáticas. Acabas de decir que no sirven para nada; pero ¿te has parado alguna vez a pensar cómo sería el mundo si no tuviéramos los números, si no pudiéramos contar?

—Sería más divertido, seguramente.

—Por ejemplo, tú no sabrías que tienes once años. Nadie lo sabría y, por lo tanto, en vez de estar tan tranquila ganduleando en el parque, a lo mejor te mandarían a trabajar como a una persona mayor.

— ¡Yo no estoy ganduleando, estoy estudiando matemáticas!

—Ah, estupendo. Es bueno que las niñas de once años estudien matemáticas. Por cierto, ¿sabes cómo se escribe el número once?

—Pues claro; así —contestó Alicia, y escribió 11 en su cuaderno.

—Muy bien. ¿Y por qué esos dos unos juntos representan el número once?

—Pues porque sí. Siempre ha sido así.

—Nada de eso. Para los antiguos romanos, por ejemplo, dos unos juntos no representaban el

Número once, sino el dos —replicó el hombre, y, tomando el bolígrafo de Alicia, escribió un gran II en el cuaderno.

—Es verdad —tuvo que admitir ella—. En casa de mi abuela hay un reloj del tiempo de los romanos y tiene un dos como ése.

—Y, bien mirado, parece lo más lógico, ¿no crees?

— ¿Por qué?

—Si pones una manzana al lado de otra manzana, tienes dos manzanas, ¿no es cierto?

—Claro.

—Y si pones un uno al lado de otro uno, tienes dos unos, y dos veces uno es dos.

—Pues es verdad, nunca me había fijado en eso. ¿Por qué 11 significa once y no dos?

— ¿Me estás haciendo una pregunta de matemáticas?

—Bueno, supongo que sí.

—Pues hace un momento has dicho que no querías que te hablara de matemáticas. Eres bastante caprichosa. Cambias constantemente de opinión.

— ¡Sólo he cambiado de opinión una vez! —Protestó Alicia—. Además, no quiero que me hables de matemáticas, sólo que me expliques lo del once.

—No puedo explicarte sólo lo del once, porque en matemáticas todas las cosas están

Relacionadas entre sí, se desprenden unas de otras de forma lógica. Para explicarte por qué el número once se escribe como se escribe, tendría que contarte la historia de los números desde el principio.

— ¿Es muy larga?

—Me temo que sí.

—No me gustan las historias muy largas; cuando llegas al final, ya te has olvidado del principio.

—Bueno, en vez de la historia de los números propiamente dicha, puedo contarte un cuento, que viene a ser lo mismo...

MISS BRACEGIRDLE'S NIGHT OF FEAR

MISS BRACEGIRDLE'S NIGHT OF FEAR

Stacey Aumonier

This was Miss Bracegirdle's first visit to France. She did not usually take holidays away from home.

Luckily she spoke a little French. 'It is not so difficult to live in France,' she thought. 'The thing to understand is that it is quite different from Easingstoke.'

She took her things one by one out of her bag and put them away carefully. She thought about her home in Easingstoke, with flowers in all the rooms and photographs of the family. She thought about her poor brother, working so hard. She felt a little sad, but only for a minute.

Her time in France was to be quite short. She was going to be home again soon. Now she must get a good night's sleep. But first that hot bath...

She took off her day things and put on her nightdress. Then she picked up her washing things and went to the bathroom, closing her bedroom door quietly. She lay in the hot water and thought about the nice young girl in the hotel getting her bath ready. People in this hotel were very friendly – always ready to help. There was so much she wanted to tell her brother when she got home.

She got out of the bath and put on her nightdress again. She cleaned the bath very carefully. She did not want French people to think that the English were dirty. Then she left the bathroom and went back to her bedroom. She went in quickly, put on the light and shut the door.

Then, one of those unlucky things happened: the door-handle came off in her hand. She tried to put the handle back on the door but she could not. 'How do I do it?' she thought. 'It is going to be very difficult to open the door now. Do I ask that nice girl to come and help me? Perhaps by now she is in bed.'

She turned away from the door, and suddenly, she saw something much, much worse than the door-handle. There was a man in her bed! She took one look at his thick black hair and his big black moustache and immediately felt quite ill with fear. For a minute or two, she could not think. Then her first thought was: 'I must not scream!' She stood there but she could not move. She just looked at the man's dark head and the big line of his back under the bedthings. She began to think very quickly.

Her next thought was: 'I am in the wrong room. It is the man's room.' She could see his jacket and trousers lying on a chair and his big black shoes on the floor. She must get out quickly. But how? She tried again to open the door with her fingers but she could not.

Here she was, shut in a hotel room with an unknown man – a Frenchman! She must think, she must think! She turned off the light.

'Perhaps with the light off, he is not going to wake up,' she thought.

'That gives me more time to do something. But if he does wake up, what do I do? He is not going to believe my story. Nobody is going to believe me.

In England perhaps but not here. How can they understand? So, I must get out of this room. By waking him? By screaming? By calling the young girl?

No, it is no good. If I scream or call out, people are going to come running immediately. And what do they find? Miss Bracegirdle from Easingstoke in a man's bedroom after twelve o'clock at night. Just think of all the talk back home when my friends hear about that!

And if I climb out of the window?' She thought of the big hairy man pulling her back by the legs as she tried to get out. He could wake up at any minute. She thought that she heard somebody going past outside the door. But it was too late to scream now.

Suddenly, she had an idea. It was now nearly one o'clock in the morning. Perhaps the sleeping man was not dangerous. At seven or eight o'clock, he must get up and go out to work. 'I can get under the bed and wait there until he goes. Men never look under the bed. When he sees the door-handle on the floor, he is going to open the door with something or call the girl to come. Later, I can come out from under the bed and go quietly back to my room. Nobody is going to know.'

She lay down on the floor and got under the bed. No sound came from the man above her, but from down here it was difficult to hear anything. She tried to think of her nice little bedroom in Easingstoke with its nice white bed but the floor was getting harder every minute. She tried to think what her room number was. One hundred and fifteen? Or was it one hundred and sixteen? She was always bad at remembering numbers.

She began to think of her schooldays and the interesting things she learned then. Suddenly, she felt that she was going to sneeze. She could not stop it. The sneeze came – a long, hard one. 'This is the end of me,' Miss Bracegirdle thought. 'Now this Frenchman is going to jump out of bed and turn on the light. Then he is going to look under the bed and pull me out.

And then...And then? What can I do then? I can scream if he puts his hands on me. Perhaps it is better to scream first, before that happens. If not, he can put his hand over my mouth and stop me from screaming.'

But no shout came out of her mouth. Her fear was much too strong. She stayed very quiet and listened. Was he going to hit her – with one of those heavy shoes, perhaps? But nothing happened. Miss Bracegirdle suddenly knew that she could not stay under that bed a minute longer. It was better to come out, wake up the man and tell him everything. With difficulty she got out from under the bed and stood up. She went over to the door and put on on the light. She turned to the bed and said, as strongly as she could, 'Monsieur!'

Nothing happened. She looked at the man and said again, 'Monsieur! Monsieur!'

But again there was no answer. She went closer to the bed. His hair and moustache were very black but his face had no colour in it. His mouth was open but his eyes were shut.

Then for the third time that night, Miss Bracegirdle nearly died of fear. Suddenly, her legs felt as weak as water. She nearly fell down. Because the man in the bed was dead! It was the first time that she stood face to face with a dead person, but there was no mistake. The man was dead. Miss Bracegirdle could only say, 'He's dead! He's dead!'

Her difficulties now were not important. She began to feel sorry for him, lying here dead in a hotel room. But a sudden sound broke into her thoughts. Somebody outside the door put down some shoes: the shoe-cleaning boy. She heard the sound of his feet die away and remembered where she was.

To be in an unknown man's bedroom was bad, but to be in a room with a dead man was much, much worse! If they found her here, people were going to think she killed him! A picture came into her head: the police taking her off to the police station, asking her questions, shutting her away... And her sister arriving in just a few hours' time too! She must get out of the room immediately. 'I cannot call for help now,' she thought, fighting back her fear. 'Do something, Millicent. It is now or never!'

But what? She went round the room, looking for something to open the door with. She could find nothing. Finally, she picked up the man's jacket. Inside it she found a small knife. She took the knife and put it in the side of the door. Very slowly she turned the knife and the door opened. She wanted to run out of the room immediately but she stopped first and listened. Nobody was there. Feeling very afraid, Miss Bracegirdle shut the door quickly behind her and ran as fast as she could to her bedroom.

She lay down on the bed and the fear slowly began to leave her. All was well!

But then she had another unhappy thought. The living fear came back.

Her washing things were in there. They were lying there in the dead man's room! And her name was on them. To go back again now was far worse than the first time but she had no choice. She could not leave her things lying there. 'If they find them, they are going to ask me how they got there,' she thought. She had to go back.

She went. She did not look at the bed. She quickly took her washing things and ran back again to her bedroom. Now that the danger was over, she suddenly felt very, very tired. She got into bed and put out the light. She lay in the dark, trying to forget her fears. Finally, she went to sleep.

It was eleven o'clock when she woke up. The sun was high in the sky and the fears of the night were far away. In the light of the day, it was all very difficult to believe. Miss Bracegirdle tried to think about other things.

Finally, the young girl arrived to wake her up. Her eyes showed that she was excited. 'Oh madame!' she said, 'a very bad thing happened here last night. The man in room one hundred and seventeen – he is dead!

Please do not say that I told you but the police were here, the doctor, everybody.'

Miss Bracegirdle said nothing. There was nothing to say. But the young woman was too excited to stop. 'And do you know who this dead man was, madame? They say that he was Boldhu, the famous killer, wanted by the police. Last year, he killed a woman and cut her up and threw her into the river. And last night, he died here in our hotel – in the room next door! We do not know how. Did you say coffee, madame?'

'No thank you, just a cup of tea – strong tea, please.'

'Very well, madame.'

Source: Simply Suspense (Penguin Readers)

READING ACTIVITY

THE FOLLOWING DAY, MISS BRACEGIRDLE WROTE A LETTER TO HIS BROTHER TELLING HIM ABOUT HER TERRIBLE NIGHT IN FRANCE. CHOOSE THE BEST ALTERNATIVES IN ORDER TO COMPLETE HER LETTER.

WORD BANK Dead, Believe, Under, Scream, Sneezed, Tension, Wake up, Bath, Handle, Escape, Scream, People, Thinking,  Wrong, Behave, Immediately.

My dear brother,

I am going to tell you a story that you will not   ______________________. Are you sitting

down? I spent yesterday night   ______________________________ a Frenchman's bed! 

I came back to my room after a   ______________. But when I saw a   _______________

man in the bed, I knew I was in the   ______________  room. I   ____________________

tried to leave the room, but then the door  ____________________  came off in my hand!

There was no   ________________. ‘What can I do? What will   ________________  think

of me? What will the man do to me?  I mustn’t   _________________________,’ I thought.

I didn't know how to   ________________________  in a situation like this, so I lay quietly

under the bed   ________________, when suddenly I   ___________________. The man

did not  ________________________. I couldn't stand the   _________________. Finally, 

I jumped up and put the light on, only to find that the man was   _____________________.

Oh God, it was really a terrible experience, wasn't it?

A big kiss.

SISTEMA CIRCULATORIO

Sistema Circulatorio Humano

Nuestro sistema circulatorio transporta la sangre, con oxígeno y nutrientes, hacia todos los tejidos del organismo y lleva los productos de desecho que ellos producen, hacia los pulmones y los riñones, donde son eliminados.
El sistema circulatorio realiza además dos funciones importantes, que son la coagulación y la defensa del organismo.
El sistema circulatorio consta de:
La sangre: Es un liquido de color rojo, compuesto por plasma y celulas sanguineas.
El plasma constituye la parte liquida de la sangre. En el se encuentra disueltas muchas sustancias como carbohidratos, proteínas, vitaminas, hormonas y lípidos.

Las células sanguíneas se encuentran suspendidas en el plasma y son de tres ti pos:

                                                                                                 
Glóbulos rojos son células sin núcleo que contienen una sustancia llamada hemoglobina, la cual le da el color rojo a la sangre. La hemoglobina es la encargada de transportar el oxígeno de los pulmones a las células y el dióxido de carbono en el sentido contrario.
Glóbulos blancos son de tamaño mucho mayor que los glóbulos rojos, poseen núcleo y su función consiste en defender el organismo contra el ataque de microorganismos dañinos.
Plaquetas son las células mas pequeñas de la sangre. Su función es la coagulación. es decir, taponan las heridas para que la persona no se desangre.Las plaquetas, los glóbulos blancos y los glóbulos blancos se forman en la médula de los huesos.

Las venas son vasos sanguíneos que transportan sangre con dióxido de carbono y productos de desecho, desde los tejidos hacia el corazón. Las paredes de las venas son mas delgadas y menos elásticas que de las arterias.
Las arterias son vasos sanguíneos que llevan la sangre rica en oxígeno y nutrientes desde el corazón hasta cada órgano del cuerpo. Las arterias son elásticas y se pueden contraer.

Los capilares son vasos microscópicos cuyas paredes apenas tienen una célula de espesor. Se encuentra cerca de casi todas las células del cuerpo. Su funciòn principal es permitir el intercambio de nutrientes y desechos entre la sangre y las células de los tejidos.

El corazón es la bomba muscular que impulsa la sangre por todo el cuerpo y posee un tabique que los separa en dos mitades; de esta manera, la sangre que fluye por el lado izquierdo no se mezcla con la que fluye con el lado derecho del corazón. Cada lado está dividido en dos cámaras. Las cámaras superiores se llaman aurículas y las inferiores, ventrículos.

Entre las aurículas y los ventrículos existen unas válvulas que controlan la entrada de la sangre e impiden que ésta se devuelvan. Esto asegura que la circulación se realice siempre en el mismo sentido.
Las venas recogen la sangre con dióxido de carbono de todos los órganos y la llevan al corazón. El corazón la bombea a los pulmones y allí se oxigena y elimina el dióxido de carbono. De los pulmones la sangre retorna al corazón cargada de oxígeno para ser impulsada a través de las arterias a todos los órganos del cuerpo.