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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mira_Murati] | [TOKENS: 891] |
Contents Mira Murati Ermira "Mira" Murati (born 16 December 1988) is an Albanian-American business executive. She launched an AI startup called Thinking Machines Lab in February 2025. Previously she was the chief technology officer of OpenAI, and a senior product manager at Tesla. Early life and education Murati was born on 16 December 1988 in Vlorë, Albania. At age 16, she won a United World Colleges (UWC) scholarship to study at Pearson College on Vancouver Island in Canada, from which she received an International Baccalaureate in 2007. After Pearson, she went to the United States to pursue further studies through a dual-degree program, earning a BA from Colby College in 2011, and a Bachelor of Engineering degree from Dartmouth College's Thayer School of Engineering in 2012. Career Murati interned in 2011 as a summer analyst at Goldman Sachs in Tokyo, Japan. She then briefly worked for Zodiac Aerospace as an intern before joining the electric car company Tesla in 2013 as a product manager on the Model X. From 2016 to 2018, she worked for the augmented reality start-up Leap Motion (now Ultraleap). In 2018, she joined OpenAI as the VP of Applied AI and partnerships. She became chief technology officer (CTO) in May 2022. She led OpenAI's work on ChatGPT, Dall-E, Codex and Sora, while overseeing its research, product and safety teams. She oversaw technical advancements and direction of OpenAI's various projects, including the development of advanced AI models and tools. Murati worked on several of OpenAI's notable products, such as the Generative Pretrained Transformer (GPT) series of language models. Commenting about the potential loss of creative jobs to AI, Murati said that "maybe [the jobs] shouldn’t have been there in the first place". In October 2023, Murati was ranked 57th on Fortune's list of "The 100 Most Powerful Women in Business of 2023". In November 2023, Murati became interim chief executive officer of OpenAI following the removal of Sam Altman from the job. She had collaborated with Ilya Sutskever, whose 52-page memo outlining concerns about Altman relied heavily on screenshots and information she provided, which contributed to the board's decision to oust him. Murati was replaced by Emmett Shear three days later, who left when Altman was reinstated five days later. Following these events, Murati returned to her role as CTO. In June 2024, Dartmouth College awarded Murati an honorary Doctor of Science for having "democratized technology and advanced a better, safer world for us all". In September 2024, Murati announced that she was stepping down as CTO to allow her the opportunity to "do my own exploration". This move came amid a wider executive exodus as OpenAI chief research officer Bob McGrew and a vice president of research, Barret Zoph, also announced their departures soon after. In February 2025 Murati launched a new public benefit corporation called Thinking Machines Lab which claimed to aim to "to make AI systems more widely understood, customizable, and generally capable." She was reported to have hired "a team of about 30 leading researchers and engineers from competitors including Meta, Mistral, and OpenAI." People involved with the startup include OpenAI cofounder John Schulman, and advisors Alec Radford and Bob McGrew. The following month, Bloomberg reported that the company had reached an estimated valuation of $9 billion, with an "average founder stake value" of $1.4 billion. In April 2025, Thinking Machines Lab reportedly aimed for a $2 billion seed round (requiring a minimum investment of $50 million). The round was led by Andreessen Horowitz and included participation from the government of Albania, valuing the company at $12 billion. Thinking Machines Lab follows a governance structure wherein Mira Murati holds a deciding vote on board matters, weighted to provide her with a majority decision-making capability. In October 2025, Thinking Machines Lab announced its first product, Tinker, a tool used to create custom frontier AI models. Publications References External links |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_application] | [TOKENS: 2015] |
Contents Server (computing) A server is a computer or software system that provides data, resources, or services to other computers (clients) over a network. This architecture is called the client–server model. Servers can provide various functionalities, often called "services", such as sharing data or resources among multiple clients or performing computations for a client. A single server can serve multiple clients, and a single client can use multiple servers. A client process may run on the same device or may connect over a network to a server on a different device. Typical servers are database servers, file servers, mail servers, print servers, web servers, game servers, and application servers. Client–server systems are most frequently implemented by (and often identified with) the request–response model: a client sends a request to the server, which performs some action and sends a response back to the client, typically with a result or acknowledgment. Designating a computer as "server-class hardware" implies that it is specialized for running servers on it. This often implies that it is more powerful and reliable than standard personal computers, but alternatively, large computing clusters may be composed of many relatively simple, replaceable server components. History The use of the word server in computing comes from queueing theory, where it dates to the mid 20th century, being notably used in Kendall (1953) (along with "service"), the paper that introduced Kendall's notation. In earlier papers, such as the Erlang (1909), more concrete terms such as "[telephone] operators" are used. In computing, "server" dates at least to RFC 5 (1969), one of the earliest documents describing ARPANET (the predecessor of Internet), and is contrasted with "user", distinguishing two types of host: "server-host" and "user-host". The use of "serving" also dates to early documents, such as RFC 4, contrasting "serving-host" with "using-host". The Jargon File defines server in the common sense of a process performing service for requests, usually remote, with the 1981 version reading: SERVER n. A kind of DAEMON which performs a service for the requester, which often runs on a computer other than the one on which the server runs. The average utilization of a server in the early 2000s was 5 to 15%, but with the adoption of virtualization this figure started to increase the number of servers needed. Operation Strictly speaking, the term server refers to a computer program or process (running program). Through metonymy, it refers to a device used for (or a device dedicated to) running one or several server programs. On a network, such a device is called a host. In addition to server, the words serve and service (as verb and as noun respectively) are frequently used, though servicer and servant are not.[a] The word service (noun) may refer to the abstract form of functionality, e.g. Web service. Alternatively, it may refer to a computer program that turns a computer into a server, e.g. Windows service. Originally used as "servers serve users" (and "users use servers"), in the sense of "obey", today one often says that "servers serve data", in the same sense as "give". For instance, web servers "serve [up] web pages to users" or "service their requests". The server is part of the client–server model; in this model, a server serves data for clients. The nature of communication between a client and server is request and response. This is in contrast with peer-to-peer model in which the relationship is on-demand reciprocation. In principle, any computerized process that can be used or called by another process (particularly remotely, particularly to share a resource) is a server, and the calling process or processes is a client. Thus any general-purpose computer connected to a network can host servers. For example, if files on a device are shared by some process, that process is a file server. Similarly, web server software can run on any capable computer, and so a laptop or a personal computer can host a web server. While request–response is the most common client-server design, there are others, such as the publish–subscribe pattern. In the publish-subscribe pattern, clients register with a pub-sub server, subscribing to specified types of messages; this initial registration may be done by request-response. Thereafter, the pub-sub server forwards matching messages to the clients without any further requests: the server pushes messages to the client, rather than the client pulling messages from the server as in request-response. Purpose The role of a server is to share data as well as to share resources and distribute work. A server computer can serve its own computer programs as well; depending on the scenario, this could be part of a quid pro quo transaction, or simply a technical possibility. The following table shows several scenarios in which a server is used. Almost the entire structure of the Internet is based upon a client–server model. High-level root nameservers, DNS, and routers direct the traffic on the internet. There are millions of servers connected to the Internet, running continuously throughout the world and virtually every action taken by an ordinary Internet user requires one or more interactions with one or more servers. There are exceptions that do not use dedicated servers; for example, peer-to-peer file sharing and some implementations of telephony (e.g. pre-Microsoft Skype). Hardware Hardware requirement for servers vary widely, depending on the server's purpose and its software. Servers often are more powerful and expensive than the clients that connect to them. The name server is used both for the hardware and software pieces. For the hardware servers, it is usually limited to mean the high-end machines although software servers can run on a variety of hardwares. Since servers are usually accessed over a network, many run unattended without a computer monitor or input device, audio hardware and USB interfaces. Many servers do not have a graphical user interface (GUI). They are configured and managed remotely. Remote management can be conducted via various methods including Microsoft Management Console (MMC), PowerShell, SSH and browser-based out-of-band management systems such as Dell's iDRAC or HP's iLo. Large traditional single servers would need to be run for long periods without interruption. Availability would have to be very high, making hardware reliability and durability extremely important. Mission-critical enterprise servers would be very fault tolerant and use specialized hardware with low failure rates in order to maximize uptime. Uninterruptible power supplies might be incorporated to guard against power failure. Servers typically include hardware redundancy such as dual power supplies, RAID disk systems, and ECC memory, along with extensive pre-boot memory testing and verification. Critical components might be hot swappable, allowing technicians to replace them on the running server without shutting it down, and to guard against overheating, servers might have more powerful fans or use water cooling. They will often be able to be configured, powered up and down, or rebooted remotely, using out-of-band management, typically based on IPMI. Server casings are usually flat and wide, and designed to be rack-mounted, either on 19-inch racks or on Open Racks. These types of servers are often housed in dedicated data centers. These will normally have very stable power and Internet and increased security. Noise is also less of a concern, but power consumption and heat output can be a serious issue. Server rooms are equipped with air conditioning devices. A server farm or server cluster is a collection of computer servers maintained by an organization to supply server functionality far beyond the capability of a single device. Modern data centers are now often built of very large clusters of much simpler servers, and there is a collaborative effort, Open Compute Project around this concept. A class of small specialist servers called network appliances are generally at the low end of the scale, often being smaller than common desktop computers. A mobile server has a portable form factor, e.g. a laptop. In contrast to large data centers or rack servers, the mobile server is designed for on-the-road or ad hoc deployment into emergency, disaster or temporary environments where traditional servers are not feasible due to their power requirements, size, and deployment time. The main beneficiaries of so-called "server on the go" technology include network managers, software or database developers, training centers, military personnel, law enforcement, forensics, emergency relief groups, and service organizations. To facilitate portability, features such as the keyboard, display, battery (uninterruptible power supply, to provide power redundancy in case of failure), and mouse are all integrated into the chassis. Operating systems On the Internet, the dominant operating systems among servers are UNIX-like open-source distributions, such as those based on Linux and FreeBSD, with Windows Server also having a significant share. Proprietary operating systems such as z/OS and macOS Server are also deployed, but in much smaller numbers. Servers that run Linux are commonly used as Webservers or Databanks. Windows Servers are used for Networks that are made out of Windows Clients. Specialist server-oriented operating systems have traditionally had features such as: In practice, today many desktop and server operating systems share similar code bases, differing mostly in configuration. Energy consumption In 2024, data centers (servers, cooling, and other electrical infrastructure) consumed 415 terawatt-hours of electrical energy, and were responsible for roughly 1.5% of electrical energy consumption worldwide, and for 4.4% in the United States. One estimate is that total energy consumption for information and communications technology saves more than 5 times its carbon footprint in the rest of the economy by increasing efficiency. Global energy consumption is increasing due to the increasing demand of data and bandwidth. Environmental groups have placed focus on the carbon emissions of data centers as it accounts to 200 million metric tons of carbon dioxide in a year. See also Notes References Further reading |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lod#cite_note-here-82] | [TOKENS: 4733] |
Contents Lod Lod (Hebrew: לוד, fully vocalized: לֹד), also known as Lydda (Ancient Greek: Λύδδα) and Lidd (Arabic: اللِّدّ, romanized: al-Lidd, or اللُّدّ, al-Ludd), is a city 15 km (9+1⁄2 mi) southeast of Tel Aviv and 40 km (25 mi) northwest of Jerusalem in the Central District of Israel. It is situated between the lower Shephelah on the east and the coastal plain on the west. The city had a population of 90,814 in 2023. Lod has been inhabited since at least the Neolithic period. It is mentioned a few times in the Hebrew Bible and in the New Testament. Between the 5th century BCE and up until the late Roman period, it was a prominent center for Jewish scholarship and trade. Around 200 CE, the city became a Roman colony and was renamed Diospolis (Ancient Greek: Διόσπολις, lit. 'city of Zeus'). Tradition identifies Lod as the 4th century martyrdom site of Saint George; the Church of Saint George and Mosque of Al-Khadr located in the city is believed to have housed his remains. Following the Arab conquest of the Levant, Lod served as the capital of Jund Filastin; however, a few decades later, the seat of power was transferred to Ramla, and Lod slipped in importance. Under Crusader rule, the city was a Catholic diocese of the Latin Church and it remains a titular see to this day.[citation needed] Lod underwent a major change in its population in the mid-20th century. Exclusively Palestinian Arab in 1947, Lod was part of the area designated for an Arab state in the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine; however, in July 1948, the city was occupied by the Israel Defense Forces, and most of its Arab inhabitants were expelled in the Palestinian expulsion from Lydda and Ramle. The city was largely resettled by Jewish immigrants, most of them expelled from Arab countries. Today, Lod is one of Israel's mixed cities, with an Arab population of 30%. Lod is one of Israel's major transportation hubs. The main international airport, Ben Gurion Airport, is located 8 km (5 miles) north of the city. The city is also a major railway and road junction. Religious references The Hebrew name Lod appears in the Hebrew Bible as a town of Benjamin, founded along with Ono by Shamed or Shamer (1 Chronicles 8:12; Ezra 2:33; Nehemiah 7:37; 11:35). In Ezra 2:33, it is mentioned as one of the cities whose inhabitants returned after the Babylonian captivity. Lod is not mentioned among the towns allocated to the tribe of Benjamin in Joshua 18:11–28. The name Lod derives from a tri-consonantal root not extant in Northwest Semitic, but only in Arabic (“to quarrel; withhold, hinder”). An Arabic etymology of such an ancient name is unlikely (the earliest attestation is from the Achaemenid period). In the New Testament, the town appears in its Greek form, Lydda, as the site of Peter's healing of Aeneas in Acts 9:32–38. The city is also mentioned in an Islamic hadith as the location of the battlefield where the false messiah (al-Masih ad-Dajjal) will be slain before the Day of Judgment. History The first occupation dates to the Neolithic in the Near East and is associated with the Lodian culture. Occupation continued in the Levant Chalcolithic. Pottery finds have dated the initial settlement in the area now occupied by the town to 5600–5250 BCE. In the Early Bronze, it was an important settlement in the central coastal plain between the Judean Shephelah and the Mediterranean coast, along Nahal Ayalon. Other important nearby sites were Tel Dalit, Tel Bareqet, Khirbat Abu Hamid (Shoham North), Tel Afeq, Azor and Jaffa. Two architectural phases belong to the late EB I in Area B. The first phase had a mudbrick wall, while the late phase included a circulat stone structure. Later excavations have produced an occupation later, Stratum IV. It consists of two phases, Stratum IVb with mudbrick wall on stone foundations and rounded exterior corners. In Stratum IVa there was a mudbrick wall with no stone foundations, with imported Egyptian potter and local pottery imitations. Another excavations revealed nine occupation strata. Strata VI-III belonged to Early Bronze IB. The material culture showed Egyptian imports in strata V and IV. Occupation continued into Early Bronze II with four strata (V-II). There was continuity in the material culture and indications of centralized urban planning. North to the tell were scattered MB II burials. The earliest written record is in a list of Canaanite towns drawn up by the Egyptian pharaoh Thutmose III at Karnak in 1465 BCE. From the fifth century BCE until the Roman period, the city was a centre of Jewish scholarship and commerce. According to British historian Martin Gilbert, during the Hasmonean period, Jonathan Maccabee and his brother, Simon Maccabaeus, enlarged the area under Jewish control, which included conquering the city. The Jewish community in Lod during the Mishnah and Talmud era is described in a significant number of sources, including information on its institutions, demographics, and way of life. The city reached its height as a Jewish center between the First Jewish-Roman War and the Bar Kokhba revolt, and again in the days of Judah ha-Nasi and the start of the Amoraim period. The city was then the site of numerous public institutions, including schools, study houses, and synagogues. In 43 BC, Cassius, the Roman governor of Syria, sold the inhabitants of Lod into slavery, but they were set free two years later by Mark Antony. During the First Jewish–Roman War, the Roman proconsul of Syria, Cestius Gallus, razed the town on his way to Jerusalem in Tishrei 66 CE. According to Josephus, "[he] found the city deserted, for the entire population had gone up to Jerusalem for the Feast of Tabernacles. He killed fifty people whom he found, burned the town and marched on". Lydda was occupied by Emperor Vespasian in 68 CE. In the period following the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE, Rabbi Tarfon, who appears in many Tannaitic and Jewish legal discussions, served as a rabbinic authority in Lod. During the Kitos War, 115–117 CE, the Roman army laid siege to Lod, where the rebel Jews had gathered under the leadership of Julian and Pappos. Torah study was outlawed by the Romans and pursued mostly in the underground. The distress became so great, the patriarch Rabban Gamaliel II, who was shut up there and died soon afterwards, permitted fasting on Ḥanukkah. Other rabbis disagreed with this ruling. Lydda was next taken and many of the Jews were executed; the "slain of Lydda" are often mentioned in words of reverential praise in the Talmud. In 200 CE, emperor Septimius Severus elevated the town to the status of a city, calling it Colonia Lucia Septimia Severa Diospolis. The name Diospolis ("City of Zeus") may have been bestowed earlier, possibly by Hadrian. At that point, most of its inhabitants were Christian. The earliest known bishop is Aëtius, a friend of Arius. During the following century (200-300CE), it's said that Joshua ben Levi founded a yeshiva in Lod. In December 415, the Council of Diospolis was held here to try Pelagius; he was acquitted. In the sixth century, the city was renamed Georgiopolis after St. George, a soldier in the guard of the emperor Diocletian, who was born there between 256 and 285 CE. The Church of Saint George and Mosque of Al-Khadr is named for him. The 6th-century Madaba map shows Lydda as an unwalled city with a cluster of buildings under a black inscription reading "Lod, also Lydea, also Diospolis". An isolated large building with a semicircular colonnaded plaza in front of it might represent the St George shrine. After the Muslim conquest of Palestine by Amr ibn al-'As in 636 CE, Lod which was referred to as "al-Ludd" in Arabic served as the capital of Jund Filastin ("Military District of Palaestina") before the seat of power was moved to nearby Ramla during the reign of the Umayyad Caliph Suleiman ibn Abd al-Malik in 715–716. The population of al-Ludd was relocated to Ramla, as well. With the relocation of its inhabitants and the construction of the White Mosque in Ramla, al-Ludd lost its importance and fell into decay. The city was visited by the local Arab geographer al-Muqaddasi in 985, when it was under the Fatimid Caliphate, and was noted for its Great Mosque which served the residents of al-Ludd, Ramla, and the nearby villages. He also wrote of the city's "wonderful church (of St. George) at the gate of which Christ will slay the Antichrist." The Crusaders occupied the city in 1099 and named it St Jorge de Lidde. It was briefly conquered by Saladin, but retaken by the Crusaders in 1191. For the English Crusaders, it was a place of great significance as the birthplace of Saint George. The Crusaders made it the seat of a Latin Church diocese, and it remains a titular see. It owed the service of 10 knights and 20 sergeants, and it had its own burgess court during this era. In 1226, Ayyubid Syrian geographer Yaqut al-Hamawi visited al-Ludd and stated it was part of the Jerusalem District during Ayyubid rule. Sultan Baybars brought Lydda again under Muslim control by 1267–8. According to Qalqashandi, Lydda was an administrative centre of a wilaya during the fourteenth and fifteenth century in the Mamluk empire. Mujir al-Din described it as a pleasant village with an active Friday mosque. During this time, Lydda was a station on the postal route between Cairo and Damascus. In 1517, Lydda was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire as part of the Damascus Eyalet, and in the 1550s, the revenues of Lydda were designated for the new waqf of Hasseki Sultan Imaret in Jerusalem, established by Hasseki Hurrem Sultan (Roxelana), the wife of Suleiman the Magnificent. By 1596 Lydda was a part of the nahiya ("subdistrict") of Ramla, which was under the administration of the liwa ("district") of Gaza. It had a population of 241 households and 14 bachelors who were all Muslims, and 233 households who were Christians. They paid a fixed tax-rate of 33,3 % on agricultural products, including wheat, barley, summer crops, vineyards, fruit trees, sesame, special product ("dawalib" =spinning wheels), goats and beehives, in addition to occasional revenues and market toll, a total of 45,000 Akçe. All of the revenue went to the Waqf. In 1051 AH/1641/2, the Bedouin tribe of al-Sawālima from around Jaffa attacked the villages of Subṭāra, Bayt Dajan, al-Sāfiriya, Jindās, Lydda and Yāzūr belonging to Waqf Haseki Sultan. The village appeared as Lydda, though misplaced, on the map of Pierre Jacotin compiled in 1799. Missionary William M. Thomson visited Lydda in the mid-19th century, describing it as a "flourishing village of some 2,000 inhabitants, imbosomed in noble orchards of olive, fig, pomegranate, mulberry, sycamore, and other trees, surrounded every way by a very fertile neighbourhood. The inhabitants are evidently industrious and thriving, and the whole country between this and Ramleh is fast being filled up with their flourishing orchards. Rarely have I beheld a rural scene more delightful than this presented in early harvest ... It must be seen, heard, and enjoyed to be appreciated." In 1869, the population of Ludd was given as: 55 Catholics, 1,940 "Greeks", 5 Protestants and 4,850 Muslims. In 1870, the Church of Saint George was rebuilt. In 1892, the first railway station in the entire region was established in the city. In the second half of the 19th century, Jewish merchants migrated to the city, but left after the 1921 Jaffa riots. In 1882, the Palestine Exploration Fund's Survey of Western Palestine described Lod as "A small town, standing among enclosure of prickly pear, and having fine olive groves around it, especially to the south. The minaret of the mosque is a very conspicuous object over the whole of the plain. The inhabitants are principally Moslim, though the place is the seat of a Greek bishop resident of Jerusalem. The Crusading church has lately been restored, and is used by the Greeks. Wells are found in the gardens...." From 1918, Lydda was under the administration of the British Mandate in Palestine, as per a League of Nations decree that followed the Great War. During the Second World War, the British set up supply posts in and around Lydda and its railway station, also building an airport that was renamed Ben Gurion Airport after the death of Israel's first prime minister in 1973. At the time of the 1922 census of Palestine, Lydda had a population of 8,103 inhabitants (7,166 Muslims, 926 Christians, and 11 Jews), the Christians were 921 Orthodox, 4 Roman Catholics and 1 Melkite. This had increased by the 1931 census to 11,250 (10,002 Muslims, 1,210 Christians, 28 Jews, and 10 Bahai), in a total of 2475 residential houses. In 1938, Lydda had a population of 12,750. In 1945, Lydda had a population of 16,780 (14,910 Muslims, 1,840 Christians, 20 Jews and 10 "other"). Until 1948, Lydda was an Arab town with a population of around 20,000—18,500 Muslims and 1,500 Christians. In 1947, the United Nations proposed dividing Mandatory Palestine into two states, one Jewish state and one Arab; Lydda was to form part of the proposed Arab state. In the ensuing war, Israel captured Arab towns outside the area the UN had allotted it, including Lydda. In December 1947, thirteen Jewish passengers in a seven-car convoy to Ben Shemen Youth Village were ambushed and murdered.In a separate incident, three Jewish youths, two men and a woman were captured, then raped and murdered in a neighbouring village. Their bodies were paraded in Lydda’s principal street. The Israel Defense Forces entered Lydda on 11 July 1948. The following day, under the impression that it was under attack, the 3rd Battalion was ordered to shoot anyone "seen on the streets". According to Israel, 250 Arabs were killed. Other estimates are higher: Arab historian Aref al Aref estimated 400, and Nimr al Khatib 1,700. In 1948, the population rose to 50,000 during the Nakba, as Arab refugees fleeing other areas made their way there. A key event was the Palestinian expulsion from Lydda and Ramle, with the expulsion of 50,000-70,000 Palestinians from Lydda and Ramle by the Israel Defense Forces. All but 700 to 1,056 were expelled by order of the Israeli high command, and forced to walk 17 km (10+1⁄2 mi) to the Jordanian Arab Legion lines. Estimates of those who died from exhaustion and dehydration vary from a handful to 355. The town was subsequently sacked by the Israeli army. Some scholars, including Ilan Pappé, characterize this as ethnic cleansing. The few hundred Arabs who remained in the city were soon outnumbered by the influx of Jews who immigrated to Lod from August 1948 onward, most of them from Arab countries. As a result, Lod became a predominantly Jewish town. After the establishment of the state, the biblical name Lod was readopted. The Jewish immigrants who settled Lod came in waves, first from Morocco and Tunisia, later from Ethiopia, and then from the former Soviet Union. Since 2008, many urban development projects have been undertaken to improve the image of the city. Upscale neighbourhoods have been built, among them Ganei Ya'ar and Ahisemah, expanding the city to the east. According to a 2010 report in the Economist, a three-meter-high wall was built between Jewish and Arab neighbourhoods and construction in Jewish areas was given priority over construction in Arab neighborhoods. The newspaper says that violent crime in the Arab sector revolves mainly around family feuds over turf and honour crimes. In 2010, the Lod Community Foundation organised an event for representatives of bicultural youth movements, volunteer aid organisations, educational start-ups, businessmen, sports organizations, and conservationists working on programmes to better the city. In the 2021 Israel–Palestine crisis, a state of emergency was declared in Lod after Arab rioting led to the death of an Israeli Jew. The Mayor of Lod, Yair Revivio, urged Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu to deploy Israel Border Police to restore order in the city. This was the first time since 1966 that Israel had declared this kind of emergency lockdown. International media noted that both Jewish and Palestinian mobs were active in Lod, but the "crackdown came for one side" only. Demographics In the 19th century and until the Lydda Death March, Lod was an exclusively Muslim-Christian town, with an estimated 6,850 inhabitants, of whom approximately 2,000 (29%) were Christian. According to the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), the population of Lod in 2010 was 69,500 people. According to the 2019 census, the population of Lod was 77,223, of which 53,581 people, comprising 69.4% of the city's population, were classified as "Jews and Others", and 23,642 people, comprising 30.6% as "Arab". Education According to CBS, 38 schools and 13,188 pupils are in the city. They are spread out as 26 elementary schools and 8,325 elementary school pupils, and 13 high schools and 4,863 high school pupils. About 52.5% of 12th-grade pupils were entitled to a matriculation certificate in 2001.[citation needed] Economy The airport and related industries are a major source of employment for the residents of Lod. Other important factories in the city are the communication equipment company "Talard", "Cafe-Co" - a subsidiary of the Strauss Group and "Kashev" - the computer center of Bank Leumi. A Jewish Agency Absorption Centre is also located in Lod. According to CBS figures for 2000, 23,032 people were salaried workers and 1,405 were self-employed. The mean monthly wage for a salaried worker was NIS 4,754, a real change of 2.9% over the course of 2000. Salaried men had a mean monthly wage of NIS 5,821 (a real change of 1.4%) versus NIS 3,547 for women (a real change of 4.6%). The mean income for the self-employed was NIS 4,991. About 1,275 people were receiving unemployment benefits and 7,145 were receiving an income supplement. Art and culture In 2009-2010, Dor Guez held an exhibit, Georgeopolis, at the Petach Tikva art museum that focuses on Lod. Archaeology A well-preserved mosaic floor dating to the Roman period was excavated in 1996 as part of a salvage dig conducted on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority and the Municipality of Lod, prior to widening HeHalutz Street. According to Jacob Fisch, executive director of the Friends of the Israel Antiquities Authority, a worker at the construction site noticed the tail of a tiger and halted work. The mosaic was initially covered over with soil at the conclusion of the excavation for lack of funds to conserve and develop the site. The mosaic is now part of the Lod Mosaic Archaeological Center. The floor, with its colorful display of birds, fish, exotic animals and merchant ships, is believed to have been commissioned by a wealthy resident of the city for his private home. The Lod Community Archaeology Program, which operates in ten Lod schools, five Jewish and five Israeli Arab, combines archaeological studies with participation in digs in Lod. Sports The city's major football club, Hapoel Bnei Lod, plays in Liga Leumit (the second division). Its home is at the Lod Municipal Stadium. The club was formed by a merger of Bnei Lod and Rakevet Lod in the 1980s. Two other clubs in the city play in the regional leagues: Hapoel MS Ortodoxim Lod in Liga Bet and Maccabi Lod in Liga Gimel. Hapoel Lod played in the top division during the 1960s and 1980s, and won the State Cup in 1984. The club folded in 2002. A new club, Hapoel Maxim Lod (named after former mayor Maxim Levy) was established soon after, but folded in 2007. Notable people Twin towns-sister cities Lod is twinned with: See also References Bibliography External links |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_sulfide] | [TOKENS: 5560] |
Contents Hydrogen sulfide Hydrogen sulfide (preferred IUPAC name and American English) or hydrogen sulphide (Commonwealth English) is a chemical compound with the formula H2S. It is a colorless hydrogen chalcogenide gas, and is toxic, corrosive, and flammable. Trace amounts in ambient atmosphere have a characteristic foul odor of rotten eggs. Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele is credited with having discovered the chemical composition of purified hydrogen sulfide in 1777. Hydrogen sulfide is toxic to humans and most other animals by inhibiting cellular respiration in a manner similar to hydrogen cyanide. When it is inhaled or its salts are ingested in high amounts, damage to organs occurs rapidly with symptoms ranging from breathing difficulties to convulsions and death. Despite this, the human body produces small amounts of this sulfide and its mineral salts, and uses it as a signalling molecule. Hydrogen sulfide is often produced from the microbial breakdown of organic matter in the absence of oxygen, such as in swamps and sewers; this process is commonly known as anaerobic digestion, which is done by sulfate-reducing microorganisms. It also occurs in volcanic gases, natural gas deposits, and sometimes in well-drawn water. Properties Hydrogen sulfide is slightly denser than air. A mixture of H2S and air can be explosive. In general, hydrogen sulfide acts as a reducing agent, as indicated by its ability to reduce sulfur dioxide in the Claus process. Hydrogen sulfide burns in oxygen with a blue flame to form sulfur dioxide (SO2) and water: If an excess of oxygen is present, sulfur trioxide (SO3) is formed, which quickly hydrates to sulfuric acid: It is slightly soluble in water and acts as a weak acid (pKa = 6.9 in 0.01–0.1 mol/litre solutions at 18 °C), giving the hydrosulfide ion HS−. Hydrogen sulfide and its solutions are colorless. When exposed to air, it slowly oxidizes to form elemental sulfur, which is not soluble in water. The sulfide anion S2− is not formed in aqueous solution. H2S and H2O exchange protons rapidly. This behavior is the basis of technologies for the purification of deuterium oxide ("heavy water" or D2O), which exploits the easy distillation of these compounds. At pressures above 90 GPa (gigapascal – 900,000 atmospheres), hydrogen sulfide becomes a metallic conductor of electricity. When cooled below a critical temperature this high-pressure phase exhibits superconductivity. The critical temperature increases with pressure, ranging from 23 K at 100 GPa to 150 K at 200 GPa. If hydrogen sulfide is pressurized at higher temperatures, then cooled, the critical temperature reaches 203 K (−70 °C), which was the highest accepted superconducting critical temperature until the discovery of Lanthanum decahydride in 2019. By substituting a small part of sulfur with phosphorus and using even higher pressures, it has been predicted that it may be possible to raise the critical temperature to above 0 °C (273 K) and achieve room-temperature superconductivity. Under atmospheric pressure and in the absence of a catalyst, hydrogen sulfide decomposes around 1200 °C into hydrogen and sulfur. Hydrogen sulfide reacts with metal ions to form metal sulfides, which are insoluble, often dark colored solids. This behavior is the basis of the use of hydrogen sulfide as a reagent in the qualitative inorganic analysis of metal ions. In these analyses, heavy metal (and nonmetal) ions (e.g., Pb(II), Cu(II), Hg(II), As(III)) are precipitated from solution upon exposure to H2S. The components of the resulting solid are then identified by their reactivity. Lead(II) acetate paper is used to detect hydrogen sulfide because it readily converts to lead(II) sulfide, which is black. Hydrogen sulfide is also responsible for tarnishing on various metals including copper and silver; the chemical responsible for black toning found on silver coins is silver sulfide (Ag2S), which is produced when the silver on the surface of the coin reacts with atmospheric hydrogen sulfide. Coins that have been subject to toning by hydrogen sulfide and other sulfur-containing compounds may have the toning add to the numismatic value of a coin based on aesthetics, as the toning may produce thin-film interference, resulting in the coin taking on an attractive coloration. Coins can also be intentionally treated with hydrogen sulfide to induce toning, though artificial toning can be distinguished from natural toning, and is generally criticised among collectors. Production Hydrogen sulfide is most commonly obtained by its separation from sour gas, which is natural gas with a high content of H2S. It can also be produced by treating hydrogen with molten elemental sulfur at about 450 °C. Hydrocarbons can serve as a source of hydrogen in this process. The very favorable thermodynamics for the hydrogenation of sulfur implies that the dehydrogenation (or cracking) of hydrogen sulfide would require very high temperatures. A standard lab preparation is to treat ferrous sulfide with a strong acid in a Kipp generator: For use in qualitative inorganic analysis, thioacetamide is used to generate H2S: Many metal and nonmetal sulfides, e.g. aluminium sulfide, phosphorus pentasulfide, silicon disulfide liberate hydrogen sulfide upon exposure to water: This gas is also produced by heating sulfur with solid organic compounds and by reducing sulfurated organic compounds with hydrogen. It can also be produced by mixing ammonium thiocyanate to concentrated sulfuric acid and adding water to it. Hydrogen sulfide can be generated in cells via enzymatic or non-enzymatic pathways. Three enzymes catalyze formation of H2S: cystathionine γ-lyase (CSE), cystathionine β-synthetase (CBS), and 3-mercaptopyruvate sulfurtransferase (3-MST). CBS and CSE are the main proponents of H2S biogenesis, which follows the trans-sulfuration pathway. These enzymes have been identified in a breadth of biological cells and tissues, and their activity is induced by a number of disease states. These enzymes are characterized by the transfer of a sulfur atom from methionine to serine to form a cysteine molecule. 3-MST also contributes to hydrogen sulfide production by way of the cysteine catabolic pathway. Dietary amino acids, such as methionine and cysteine serve as the primary substrates for the transulfuration pathways and in the production of hydrogen sulfide. Hydrogen sulfide can also be derived from proteins such as ferredoxins and Rieske proteins. Sulfate-reducing (resp. sulfur-reducing) bacteria generate usable energy under low-oxygen conditions by using sulfates (resp. elemental sulfur) to oxidize organic compounds or hydrogen; this produces hydrogen sulfide as a waste product. H2S in the body acts as a gaseous signaling molecule with implications for health and in diseases. H2S is involved in vasodilation in animals, as well as in increasing seed germination and stress responses in plants. H2S can signal in three ways: by reacting with reactive oxygen species (ROS) and reactive nitrogen species (RNS), by binding or reduction of metal centers of iron-heme proteins, and by sulfhydration of protein cysteine residues. H2S has been shown to interact with the NO pathway resulting in several different cellular effects, including the inhibition of cGMP phosphodiesterases, as well as the formation of another signal called nitrosothiol. Hydrogen sulfide is also known to increase the levels of glutathione, which acts to reduce or disrupt ROS levels in cells. The field of H2S biology has advanced from environmental toxicology to investigate the roles of endogenously produced H2S in physiological conditions and in various pathophysiological states. H2S has been implicated in cancer, Down syndrome, and in vascular disease. At lower concentrations, it stimulates mitochondrial function via multiple mechanisms including direct electron donation. However, at higher concentrations, it inhibits Complex IV of the mitochondrial electron transport chain, which effectively reduces ATP generation and biochemical activity within cells. Uses Hydrogen sulfide is mainly consumed as a precursor to elemental sulfur. This conversion, called the Claus process, involves partial oxidation to sulfur dioxide. The latter reacts with hydrogen sulfide to give elemental sulfur. The conversion is catalyzed by alumina. Many fundamental organosulfur compounds are produced using hydrogen sulfide. These include methanethiol, ethanethiol, and thioglycolic acid. Hydrosulfides can be used in the production of thiophenol. Upon combining with alkali metal bases, hydrogen sulfide converts to alkali hydrosulfides such as sodium hydrosulfide and sodium sulfide: Sodium sulfides are used in the paper making industry. Specifically, salts of SH− break bonds between lignin and cellulose components of pulp in the Kraft process. As indicated above, many metal ions react with hydrogen sulfide to give the corresponding metal sulfides. Oxidic ores are sometimes treated with hydrogen sulfide to give the corresponding metal sulfides which are more readily purified by flotation.Metal parts are sometimes passivated with hydrogen sulfide. Catalysts used in hydrodesulfurization are routinely activated with hydrogen sulfide. Volcanoes and some hot springs (as well as cold springs) emit some H2S. Hydrogen sulfide can be present naturally in well water, often as a result of the action of sulfate-reducing bacteria.[better source needed] Hydrogen sulfide is produced by the human body in small quantities through bacterial breakdown of proteins containing sulfur in the intestinal tract; it therefore contributes to the characteristic odor of flatulence. It is also produced in the mouth (halitosis). A portion of global H2S emissions are due to human activity. By far the largest industrial source of H2S is petroleum refineries: The hydrodesulfurization process liberates sulfur from petroleum by the action of hydrogen. The resulting H2S is converted to elemental sulfur by partial combustion via the Claus process, which is a major source of elemental sulfur. Other anthropogenic sources of hydrogen sulfide include coke ovens, paper mills (using the Kraft process), tanneries and sewerage. H2S arises from virtually anywhere where elemental sulfur comes in contact with organic material, especially at high temperatures. Depending on environmental conditions, it is responsible for deterioration of material through the action of some sulfur oxidizing microorganisms. It is called biogenic sulfide corrosion.[citation needed] In 2011 it was reported that increased concentrations of H2S were observed in the Bakken formation crude, possibly due to oil field practices, and presented challenges such as "health and environmental risks, corrosion of wellbore, added expense with regard to materials handling and pipeline equipment, and additional refinement requirements". Besides living near gas and oil drilling operations, ordinary citizens can be exposed to hydrogen sulfide by being near waste water treatment facilities, landfills and farms with manure storage. Exposure occurs through breathing contaminated air or drinking contaminated water. In municipal waste landfill sites, the burial of organic material rapidly leads to the production of anaerobic digestion within the waste mass and, with the humid atmosphere and relatively high temperature that accompanies biodegradation, biogas is produced as soon as the air within the waste mass has been reduced. If there is a source of sulfate bearing material, such as plasterboard or natural gypsum (calcium sulfate dihydrate), under anaerobic conditions sulfate reducing bacteria converts this to hydrogen sulfide. These bacteria cannot survive in air, but the moist, warm, anaerobic conditions of buried waste that contains a high source of carbon is an excellent environment for the formation of hydrogen sulfide. In inert landfills, paper and glue used in the fabrication of products such as plasterboard can provide a rich source of carbon. In industrial anaerobic digestion processes, such as waste water treatment or the digestion of organic waste from agriculture, hydrogen sulfide can be formed from the reduction of sulfate and the degradation of amino acids and proteins within organic compounds. Sulfates are relatively non-inhibitory to methane forming bacteria but can be reduced to H2S by sulfate reducing bacteria, of which there are several genera. A number of processes have been designed to remove hydrogen sulfide from drinking water. Hydrogen sulfide is commonly found in raw natural gas and biogas. It is typically removed by amine gas treating technologies. In such processes, the hydrogen sulfide is first converted to an ammonium salt, whereas the natural gas is unaffected. The bisulfide anion is subsequently regenerated by heating of the amine sulfide solution. Hydrogen sulfide generated in this process is typically converted to elemental sulfur using the Claus Process. Safety The underground mine gas term for foul-smelling hydrogen sulfide-rich gas mixtures is stinkdamp. Hydrogen sulfide is a highly toxic and flammable gas (flammable range: 4.3–46%). It can poison several systems in the body, although the nervous system is most affected.[citation needed] The toxicity of H2S is comparable with that of carbon monoxide. It binds with iron in the mitochondrial cytochrome enzymes, thus preventing cellular respiration. Its toxic properties were described in detail in 1843 by Justus von Liebig. Even before hydrogen sulfide was discovered, Italian physician Bernardino Ramazzini hypothesized in his 1713 book De Morbis Artificum Diatriba that occupational diseases of sewer-workers and blackening of coins in their clothes may be caused by an unknown invisible volatile acid (moreover, in late 18th century toxic gas emanation from Paris sewers became a problem for the citizens and authorities). Although very pungent at first (it smells like rotten eggs), it quickly deadens the sense of smell, creating temporary anosmia, so victims may be unaware of its presence until it is too late. Safe handling procedures are provided by its safety data sheet (SDS). Since hydrogen sulfide occurs naturally in the body, the environment, and the gut, enzymes exist to metabolize it. At some threshold level, believed to average around 300–350 ppm, the oxidative enzymes become overwhelmed. Many personal safety gas detectors, such as those used by utility, sewage and petrochemical workers, are set to alarm at as low as 5 to 10 ppm and to go into high alarm at 15 ppm. Metabolism causes oxidation to sulfate, which is harmless. Hence, low levels of hydrogen sulfide may be tolerated indefinitely.[citation needed] Exposure to lower concentrations can result in eye irritation, a sore throat and cough, nausea, shortness of breath, and fluid in the lungs. These effects are believed to be due to hydrogen sulfide combining with alkali present in moist surface tissues to form sodium sulfide, a caustic. These symptoms usually subside in a few weeks. Long-term, low-level exposure may result in fatigue, loss of appetite, headaches, irritability, poor memory, and dizziness. Chronic exposure to low level H2S (around 2 ppm) has been implicated in increased miscarriage and reproductive health issues among Russian and Finnish wood pulp workers, but the reports have not (as of 1995) been replicated. Short-term, high-level exposure can induce immediate collapse, with loss of breathing and a high probability of death. If death does not occur, high exposure to hydrogen sulfide can lead to cortical pseudolaminar necrosis, degeneration of the basal ganglia and cerebral edema. Although respiratory paralysis may be immediate, it can also be delayed up to 72 hours. Inhalation of H2S resulted in about 7 workplace deaths per year in the U.S. (2011–2017 data), second only to carbon monoxide (17 deaths per year) for workplace chemical inhalation deaths. Treatment involves immediate inhalation of amyl nitrite, injections of sodium nitrite, or administration of 4-dimethylaminophenol in combination with inhalation of pure oxygen, administration of bronchodilators to overcome eventual bronchospasm, and in some cases hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT). HBOT has clinical and anecdotal support. Hydrogen sulfide was used by the British Army as a chemical weapon during World War I. It was not considered to be an ideal war gas, partially due to its flammability and because the distinctive smell could be detected from even a small leak, alerting the enemy to the presence of the gas. It was nevertheless used on two occasions in 1916 when other gases were in short supply. On September 2, 2005, a sewage line leak in the propeller room of a Royal Caribbean Cruise Liner docked in Los Angeles resulted in the deaths of 3 crewmen. As a result, all such compartments are now required to have a ventilation system. A dump of toxic waste containing hydrogen sulfide is believed to have caused 17 deaths and thousands of illnesses in Abidjan, on the West African coast, in the 2006 Côte d'Ivoire toxic waste dump. In September 2008, three workers were killed and two suffered serious injury, including long term brain damage, at a mushroom growing company in Langley, British Columbia. A valve to a pipe that carried chicken manure, straw and gypsum to the compost fuel for the mushroom growing operation became clogged, and as workers unclogged the valve in a confined space without proper ventilation the hydrogen sulfide that had built up due to anaerobic decomposition of the material was released, poisoning the workers in the surrounding area. An investigator said there could have been more fatalities if the pipe had been fully cleared and/or if the wind had changed directions. In 2014, levels of hydrogen sulfide as high as 83 ppm were detected at a recently built mall in Thailand called Siam Square One at the Siam Square area. Shop tenants at the mall reported health complications such as sinus inflammation, breathing difficulties and eye irritation. After investigation it was determined that the large amount of gas originated from imperfect treatment and disposal of waste water in the building. In 2014, hydrogen sulfide gas killed workers at the Promenade shopping center in North Scottsdale, Arizona, USA after climbing into 15 ft deep chamber without wearing personal protective gear. "Arriving crews recorded high levels of hydrogen cyanide and hydrogen sulfide coming out of the sewer." In November 2014, a substantial amount of hydrogen sulfide gas shrouded the central, eastern and southeastern parts of Moscow. Residents living in the area were urged to stay indoors by the emergencies ministry. Although the exact source of the gas was not known, blame had been placed on a Moscow oil refinery. In June 2016, a mother and her daughter were found dead in their still-running 2006 Porsche Cayenne SUV against a guardrail on Florida's Turnpike, initially thought to be victims of carbon monoxide poisoning. Their deaths remained unexplained as the medical examiner waited for results of toxicology tests on the victims, until urine tests revealed that hydrogen sulfide was the cause of death. A report from the Orange-Osceola Medical Examiner's Office indicated that toxic fumes came from the Porsche's starter battery, located under the front passenger seat. In January 2017, three utility workers in Key Largo, Florida, died one by one within seconds of descending into a narrow space beneath a manhole cover to check a section of paved street. In an attempt to save the men, a firefighter who entered the hole without his air tank (because he could not fit through the hole with it) collapsed within seconds and had to be rescued by a colleague. The firefighter was airlifted to Jackson Memorial Hospital and later recovered. A Monroe County Sheriff officer initially determined that the space contained hydrogen sulfide and methane gas produced by decomposing vegetation. On May 24, 2018, two workers were killed, another seriously injured, and 14 others hospitalized by hydrogen sulfide inhalation at a Norske Skog paper mill in Albury, New South Wales. An investigation by SafeWork NSW found that the gas was released from a tank used to hold process water. The workers were exposed at the end of a 3-day maintenance period. Hydrogen sulfide had built up in an upstream tank, which had been left stagnant and untreated with biocide during the maintenance period. These conditions allowed sulfate-reducing bacteria to grow in the upstream tank, as the water contained small quantities of wood pulp and fiber. The high rate of pumping from this tank into the tank involved in the incident caused hydrogen sulfide gas to escape from various openings around its top when pumping was resumed at the end of the maintenance period. The area above it was sufficiently enclosed for the gas to pool there, despite not being identified as a confined space by Norske Skog. One of the workers who was killed was exposed while investigating an apparent fluid leak in the tank, while the other who was killed and the worker who was badly injured were attempting to rescue the first after he collapsed on top of it. In a resulting criminal case, Norske Skog was accused of failing to ensure the health and safety of its workforce at the plant to a reasonably practicable extent. It pleaded guilty, and was fined AU$1,012,500 and ordered to fund the production of an anonymized educational video about the incident. In October 2019, an Odessa, Texas employee of Aghorn Operating Inc. and his wife were killed due to a water pump failure. Produced water with a high concentration of hydrogen sulfide was released by the pump. The worker died while responding to an automated phone call he had received alerting him to a mechanical failure in the pump, while his wife died after driving to the facility to check on him. A CSB investigation cited lax safety practices at the facility, such as an informal lockout-tagout procedure and a nonfunctioning hydrogen sulfide alert system. The gas, produced by mixing certain household ingredients, was used in a suicide wave in 2008 in Japan. The wave prompted staff at Tokyo's suicide prevention center to set up a special hotline during "Golden Week", as they received an increase in calls from people wanting to kill themselves during the annual May holiday. As of 2010, this phenomenon has occurred in a number of US cities, prompting warnings to those arriving at the site of the suicide. In 2020, H2S ingestion was used as a suicide method by Japanese pro wrestler Hana Kimura. In 2024, Lucy-Bleu Knight, stepdaughter of famed musician Slash, also used H2S ingestion to commit suicide. Hydrogen sulfide in the natural environment Hydrogen sulfide is a central participant in the sulfur cycle, the biogeochemical cycle of sulfur on Earth. In the absence of oxygen, sulfur-reducing and sulfate-reducing bacteria derive energy from oxidizing hydrogen or organic molecules by reducing elemental sulfur or sulfate to hydrogen sulfide. Other bacteria liberate hydrogen sulfide from sulfur-containing amino acids; this gives rise to the odor of rotten eggs and contributes to the odor of flatulence. As organic matter decays under low-oxygen (or hypoxic) conditions (such as in swamps, eutrophic lakes or dead zones of oceans), sulfate-reducing bacteria will use the sulfates present in the water to oxidize the organic matter, producing hydrogen sulfide as waste. Some of the hydrogen sulfide will react with metal ions in the water to produce metal sulfides, which are not water-soluble. These metal sulfides, such as ferrous sulfide FeS, are often black or brown, leading to the dark color of sludge. Several groups of bacteria can use hydrogen sulfide as fuel, oxidizing it to elemental sulfur or to sulfate by using dissolved oxygen, metal oxides (e.g., iron oxyhydroxides and manganese oxides), or nitrate as electron acceptors. The purple sulfur bacteria and the green sulfur bacteria use hydrogen sulfide as an electron donor in photosynthesis, thereby producing elemental sulfur. This mode of photosynthesis is older than the mode of cyanobacteria, algae, and plants, which uses water as electron donor and liberates oxygen. The biochemistry of hydrogen sulfide is a key part of the chemistry of the iron-sulfur world. In this model of the origin of life on Earth, geologically produced hydrogen sulfide is postulated as an electron donor driving the reduction of carbon dioxide. Hydrogen sulfide is lethal to most animals, but a few highly specialized species (extremophiles) do thrive in habitats that are rich in this compound. In the deep sea, hydrothermal vents and cold seeps with high levels of hydrogen sulfide are home to a number of extremely specialized lifeforms, ranging from bacteria to fish.[which?] Because of the absence of sunlight at these depths, these ecosystems rely on chemosynthesis rather than photosynthesis. Freshwater springs rich in hydrogen sulfide are mainly home to invertebrates, but also include a small number of fish: Cyprinodon bobmilleri (a pupfish from Mexico), Limia sulphurophila (a poeciliid from the Dominican Republic), Gambusia eurystoma (a poeciliid from Mexico), and a few Poecilia (poeciliids from Mexico). Invertebrates and microorganisms in some cave systems, such as Movile Cave, are adapted to high levels of hydrogen sulfide. Hydrogen sulfide has often been detected in the interstellar medium. It also occurs in the clouds of planets in the Solar System. Hydrogen sulfide has been implicated in several mass extinctions that have occurred in the Earth's past. In particular, a buildup of hydrogen sulfide in the atmosphere may have caused, or at least contributed to, the Permian-Triassic extinction event 252 million years ago. Organic residues from these extinction boundaries indicate that the oceans were anoxic (oxygen-depleted) and had species of shallow plankton that metabolized H2S. The formation of H2S may have been initiated by massive volcanic eruptions, which emitted carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere, which warmed the oceans, lowering their capacity to absorb oxygen that would otherwise oxidize H2S. The increased levels of hydrogen sulfide could have killed oxygen-generating plants as well as depleted the ozone layer, causing further stress. Small H2S blooms have been detected in modern times in the Dead Sea and in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Namibia. See also References Additional resources External links |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lod#cite_note-Holmesp64-83] | [TOKENS: 4733] |
Contents Lod Lod (Hebrew: לוד, fully vocalized: לֹד), also known as Lydda (Ancient Greek: Λύδδα) and Lidd (Arabic: اللِّدّ, romanized: al-Lidd, or اللُّدّ, al-Ludd), is a city 15 km (9+1⁄2 mi) southeast of Tel Aviv and 40 km (25 mi) northwest of Jerusalem in the Central District of Israel. It is situated between the lower Shephelah on the east and the coastal plain on the west. The city had a population of 90,814 in 2023. Lod has been inhabited since at least the Neolithic period. It is mentioned a few times in the Hebrew Bible and in the New Testament. Between the 5th century BCE and up until the late Roman period, it was a prominent center for Jewish scholarship and trade. Around 200 CE, the city became a Roman colony and was renamed Diospolis (Ancient Greek: Διόσπολις, lit. 'city of Zeus'). Tradition identifies Lod as the 4th century martyrdom site of Saint George; the Church of Saint George and Mosque of Al-Khadr located in the city is believed to have housed his remains. Following the Arab conquest of the Levant, Lod served as the capital of Jund Filastin; however, a few decades later, the seat of power was transferred to Ramla, and Lod slipped in importance. Under Crusader rule, the city was a Catholic diocese of the Latin Church and it remains a titular see to this day.[citation needed] Lod underwent a major change in its population in the mid-20th century. Exclusively Palestinian Arab in 1947, Lod was part of the area designated for an Arab state in the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine; however, in July 1948, the city was occupied by the Israel Defense Forces, and most of its Arab inhabitants were expelled in the Palestinian expulsion from Lydda and Ramle. The city was largely resettled by Jewish immigrants, most of them expelled from Arab countries. Today, Lod is one of Israel's mixed cities, with an Arab population of 30%. Lod is one of Israel's major transportation hubs. The main international airport, Ben Gurion Airport, is located 8 km (5 miles) north of the city. The city is also a major railway and road junction. Religious references The Hebrew name Lod appears in the Hebrew Bible as a town of Benjamin, founded along with Ono by Shamed or Shamer (1 Chronicles 8:12; Ezra 2:33; Nehemiah 7:37; 11:35). In Ezra 2:33, it is mentioned as one of the cities whose inhabitants returned after the Babylonian captivity. Lod is not mentioned among the towns allocated to the tribe of Benjamin in Joshua 18:11–28. The name Lod derives from a tri-consonantal root not extant in Northwest Semitic, but only in Arabic (“to quarrel; withhold, hinder”). An Arabic etymology of such an ancient name is unlikely (the earliest attestation is from the Achaemenid period). In the New Testament, the town appears in its Greek form, Lydda, as the site of Peter's healing of Aeneas in Acts 9:32–38. The city is also mentioned in an Islamic hadith as the location of the battlefield where the false messiah (al-Masih ad-Dajjal) will be slain before the Day of Judgment. History The first occupation dates to the Neolithic in the Near East and is associated with the Lodian culture. Occupation continued in the Levant Chalcolithic. Pottery finds have dated the initial settlement in the area now occupied by the town to 5600–5250 BCE. In the Early Bronze, it was an important settlement in the central coastal plain between the Judean Shephelah and the Mediterranean coast, along Nahal Ayalon. Other important nearby sites were Tel Dalit, Tel Bareqet, Khirbat Abu Hamid (Shoham North), Tel Afeq, Azor and Jaffa. Two architectural phases belong to the late EB I in Area B. The first phase had a mudbrick wall, while the late phase included a circulat stone structure. Later excavations have produced an occupation later, Stratum IV. It consists of two phases, Stratum IVb with mudbrick wall on stone foundations and rounded exterior corners. In Stratum IVa there was a mudbrick wall with no stone foundations, with imported Egyptian potter and local pottery imitations. Another excavations revealed nine occupation strata. Strata VI-III belonged to Early Bronze IB. The material culture showed Egyptian imports in strata V and IV. Occupation continued into Early Bronze II with four strata (V-II). There was continuity in the material culture and indications of centralized urban planning. North to the tell were scattered MB II burials. The earliest written record is in a list of Canaanite towns drawn up by the Egyptian pharaoh Thutmose III at Karnak in 1465 BCE. From the fifth century BCE until the Roman period, the city was a centre of Jewish scholarship and commerce. According to British historian Martin Gilbert, during the Hasmonean period, Jonathan Maccabee and his brother, Simon Maccabaeus, enlarged the area under Jewish control, which included conquering the city. The Jewish community in Lod during the Mishnah and Talmud era is described in a significant number of sources, including information on its institutions, demographics, and way of life. The city reached its height as a Jewish center between the First Jewish-Roman War and the Bar Kokhba revolt, and again in the days of Judah ha-Nasi and the start of the Amoraim period. The city was then the site of numerous public institutions, including schools, study houses, and synagogues. In 43 BC, Cassius, the Roman governor of Syria, sold the inhabitants of Lod into slavery, but they were set free two years later by Mark Antony. During the First Jewish–Roman War, the Roman proconsul of Syria, Cestius Gallus, razed the town on his way to Jerusalem in Tishrei 66 CE. According to Josephus, "[he] found the city deserted, for the entire population had gone up to Jerusalem for the Feast of Tabernacles. He killed fifty people whom he found, burned the town and marched on". Lydda was occupied by Emperor Vespasian in 68 CE. In the period following the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE, Rabbi Tarfon, who appears in many Tannaitic and Jewish legal discussions, served as a rabbinic authority in Lod. During the Kitos War, 115–117 CE, the Roman army laid siege to Lod, where the rebel Jews had gathered under the leadership of Julian and Pappos. Torah study was outlawed by the Romans and pursued mostly in the underground. The distress became so great, the patriarch Rabban Gamaliel II, who was shut up there and died soon afterwards, permitted fasting on Ḥanukkah. Other rabbis disagreed with this ruling. Lydda was next taken and many of the Jews were executed; the "slain of Lydda" are often mentioned in words of reverential praise in the Talmud. In 200 CE, emperor Septimius Severus elevated the town to the status of a city, calling it Colonia Lucia Septimia Severa Diospolis. The name Diospolis ("City of Zeus") may have been bestowed earlier, possibly by Hadrian. At that point, most of its inhabitants were Christian. The earliest known bishop is Aëtius, a friend of Arius. During the following century (200-300CE), it's said that Joshua ben Levi founded a yeshiva in Lod. In December 415, the Council of Diospolis was held here to try Pelagius; he was acquitted. In the sixth century, the city was renamed Georgiopolis after St. George, a soldier in the guard of the emperor Diocletian, who was born there between 256 and 285 CE. The Church of Saint George and Mosque of Al-Khadr is named for him. The 6th-century Madaba map shows Lydda as an unwalled city with a cluster of buildings under a black inscription reading "Lod, also Lydea, also Diospolis". An isolated large building with a semicircular colonnaded plaza in front of it might represent the St George shrine. After the Muslim conquest of Palestine by Amr ibn al-'As in 636 CE, Lod which was referred to as "al-Ludd" in Arabic served as the capital of Jund Filastin ("Military District of Palaestina") before the seat of power was moved to nearby Ramla during the reign of the Umayyad Caliph Suleiman ibn Abd al-Malik in 715–716. The population of al-Ludd was relocated to Ramla, as well. With the relocation of its inhabitants and the construction of the White Mosque in Ramla, al-Ludd lost its importance and fell into decay. The city was visited by the local Arab geographer al-Muqaddasi in 985, when it was under the Fatimid Caliphate, and was noted for its Great Mosque which served the residents of al-Ludd, Ramla, and the nearby villages. He also wrote of the city's "wonderful church (of St. George) at the gate of which Christ will slay the Antichrist." The Crusaders occupied the city in 1099 and named it St Jorge de Lidde. It was briefly conquered by Saladin, but retaken by the Crusaders in 1191. For the English Crusaders, it was a place of great significance as the birthplace of Saint George. The Crusaders made it the seat of a Latin Church diocese, and it remains a titular see. It owed the service of 10 knights and 20 sergeants, and it had its own burgess court during this era. In 1226, Ayyubid Syrian geographer Yaqut al-Hamawi visited al-Ludd and stated it was part of the Jerusalem District during Ayyubid rule. Sultan Baybars brought Lydda again under Muslim control by 1267–8. According to Qalqashandi, Lydda was an administrative centre of a wilaya during the fourteenth and fifteenth century in the Mamluk empire. Mujir al-Din described it as a pleasant village with an active Friday mosque. During this time, Lydda was a station on the postal route between Cairo and Damascus. In 1517, Lydda was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire as part of the Damascus Eyalet, and in the 1550s, the revenues of Lydda were designated for the new waqf of Hasseki Sultan Imaret in Jerusalem, established by Hasseki Hurrem Sultan (Roxelana), the wife of Suleiman the Magnificent. By 1596 Lydda was a part of the nahiya ("subdistrict") of Ramla, which was under the administration of the liwa ("district") of Gaza. It had a population of 241 households and 14 bachelors who were all Muslims, and 233 households who were Christians. They paid a fixed tax-rate of 33,3 % on agricultural products, including wheat, barley, summer crops, vineyards, fruit trees, sesame, special product ("dawalib" =spinning wheels), goats and beehives, in addition to occasional revenues and market toll, a total of 45,000 Akçe. All of the revenue went to the Waqf. In 1051 AH/1641/2, the Bedouin tribe of al-Sawālima from around Jaffa attacked the villages of Subṭāra, Bayt Dajan, al-Sāfiriya, Jindās, Lydda and Yāzūr belonging to Waqf Haseki Sultan. The village appeared as Lydda, though misplaced, on the map of Pierre Jacotin compiled in 1799. Missionary William M. Thomson visited Lydda in the mid-19th century, describing it as a "flourishing village of some 2,000 inhabitants, imbosomed in noble orchards of olive, fig, pomegranate, mulberry, sycamore, and other trees, surrounded every way by a very fertile neighbourhood. The inhabitants are evidently industrious and thriving, and the whole country between this and Ramleh is fast being filled up with their flourishing orchards. Rarely have I beheld a rural scene more delightful than this presented in early harvest ... It must be seen, heard, and enjoyed to be appreciated." In 1869, the population of Ludd was given as: 55 Catholics, 1,940 "Greeks", 5 Protestants and 4,850 Muslims. In 1870, the Church of Saint George was rebuilt. In 1892, the first railway station in the entire region was established in the city. In the second half of the 19th century, Jewish merchants migrated to the city, but left after the 1921 Jaffa riots. In 1882, the Palestine Exploration Fund's Survey of Western Palestine described Lod as "A small town, standing among enclosure of prickly pear, and having fine olive groves around it, especially to the south. The minaret of the mosque is a very conspicuous object over the whole of the plain. The inhabitants are principally Moslim, though the place is the seat of a Greek bishop resident of Jerusalem. The Crusading church has lately been restored, and is used by the Greeks. Wells are found in the gardens...." From 1918, Lydda was under the administration of the British Mandate in Palestine, as per a League of Nations decree that followed the Great War. During the Second World War, the British set up supply posts in and around Lydda and its railway station, also building an airport that was renamed Ben Gurion Airport after the death of Israel's first prime minister in 1973. At the time of the 1922 census of Palestine, Lydda had a population of 8,103 inhabitants (7,166 Muslims, 926 Christians, and 11 Jews), the Christians were 921 Orthodox, 4 Roman Catholics and 1 Melkite. This had increased by the 1931 census to 11,250 (10,002 Muslims, 1,210 Christians, 28 Jews, and 10 Bahai), in a total of 2475 residential houses. In 1938, Lydda had a population of 12,750. In 1945, Lydda had a population of 16,780 (14,910 Muslims, 1,840 Christians, 20 Jews and 10 "other"). Until 1948, Lydda was an Arab town with a population of around 20,000—18,500 Muslims and 1,500 Christians. In 1947, the United Nations proposed dividing Mandatory Palestine into two states, one Jewish state and one Arab; Lydda was to form part of the proposed Arab state. In the ensuing war, Israel captured Arab towns outside the area the UN had allotted it, including Lydda. In December 1947, thirteen Jewish passengers in a seven-car convoy to Ben Shemen Youth Village were ambushed and murdered.In a separate incident, three Jewish youths, two men and a woman were captured, then raped and murdered in a neighbouring village. Their bodies were paraded in Lydda’s principal street. The Israel Defense Forces entered Lydda on 11 July 1948. The following day, under the impression that it was under attack, the 3rd Battalion was ordered to shoot anyone "seen on the streets". According to Israel, 250 Arabs were killed. Other estimates are higher: Arab historian Aref al Aref estimated 400, and Nimr al Khatib 1,700. In 1948, the population rose to 50,000 during the Nakba, as Arab refugees fleeing other areas made their way there. A key event was the Palestinian expulsion from Lydda and Ramle, with the expulsion of 50,000-70,000 Palestinians from Lydda and Ramle by the Israel Defense Forces. All but 700 to 1,056 were expelled by order of the Israeli high command, and forced to walk 17 km (10+1⁄2 mi) to the Jordanian Arab Legion lines. Estimates of those who died from exhaustion and dehydration vary from a handful to 355. The town was subsequently sacked by the Israeli army. Some scholars, including Ilan Pappé, characterize this as ethnic cleansing. The few hundred Arabs who remained in the city were soon outnumbered by the influx of Jews who immigrated to Lod from August 1948 onward, most of them from Arab countries. As a result, Lod became a predominantly Jewish town. After the establishment of the state, the biblical name Lod was readopted. The Jewish immigrants who settled Lod came in waves, first from Morocco and Tunisia, later from Ethiopia, and then from the former Soviet Union. Since 2008, many urban development projects have been undertaken to improve the image of the city. Upscale neighbourhoods have been built, among them Ganei Ya'ar and Ahisemah, expanding the city to the east. According to a 2010 report in the Economist, a three-meter-high wall was built between Jewish and Arab neighbourhoods and construction in Jewish areas was given priority over construction in Arab neighborhoods. The newspaper says that violent crime in the Arab sector revolves mainly around family feuds over turf and honour crimes. In 2010, the Lod Community Foundation organised an event for representatives of bicultural youth movements, volunteer aid organisations, educational start-ups, businessmen, sports organizations, and conservationists working on programmes to better the city. In the 2021 Israel–Palestine crisis, a state of emergency was declared in Lod after Arab rioting led to the death of an Israeli Jew. The Mayor of Lod, Yair Revivio, urged Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu to deploy Israel Border Police to restore order in the city. This was the first time since 1966 that Israel had declared this kind of emergency lockdown. International media noted that both Jewish and Palestinian mobs were active in Lod, but the "crackdown came for one side" only. Demographics In the 19th century and until the Lydda Death March, Lod was an exclusively Muslim-Christian town, with an estimated 6,850 inhabitants, of whom approximately 2,000 (29%) were Christian. According to the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), the population of Lod in 2010 was 69,500 people. According to the 2019 census, the population of Lod was 77,223, of which 53,581 people, comprising 69.4% of the city's population, were classified as "Jews and Others", and 23,642 people, comprising 30.6% as "Arab". Education According to CBS, 38 schools and 13,188 pupils are in the city. They are spread out as 26 elementary schools and 8,325 elementary school pupils, and 13 high schools and 4,863 high school pupils. About 52.5% of 12th-grade pupils were entitled to a matriculation certificate in 2001.[citation needed] Economy The airport and related industries are a major source of employment for the residents of Lod. Other important factories in the city are the communication equipment company "Talard", "Cafe-Co" - a subsidiary of the Strauss Group and "Kashev" - the computer center of Bank Leumi. A Jewish Agency Absorption Centre is also located in Lod. According to CBS figures for 2000, 23,032 people were salaried workers and 1,405 were self-employed. The mean monthly wage for a salaried worker was NIS 4,754, a real change of 2.9% over the course of 2000. Salaried men had a mean monthly wage of NIS 5,821 (a real change of 1.4%) versus NIS 3,547 for women (a real change of 4.6%). The mean income for the self-employed was NIS 4,991. About 1,275 people were receiving unemployment benefits and 7,145 were receiving an income supplement. Art and culture In 2009-2010, Dor Guez held an exhibit, Georgeopolis, at the Petach Tikva art museum that focuses on Lod. Archaeology A well-preserved mosaic floor dating to the Roman period was excavated in 1996 as part of a salvage dig conducted on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority and the Municipality of Lod, prior to widening HeHalutz Street. According to Jacob Fisch, executive director of the Friends of the Israel Antiquities Authority, a worker at the construction site noticed the tail of a tiger and halted work. The mosaic was initially covered over with soil at the conclusion of the excavation for lack of funds to conserve and develop the site. The mosaic is now part of the Lod Mosaic Archaeological Center. The floor, with its colorful display of birds, fish, exotic animals and merchant ships, is believed to have been commissioned by a wealthy resident of the city for his private home. The Lod Community Archaeology Program, which operates in ten Lod schools, five Jewish and five Israeli Arab, combines archaeological studies with participation in digs in Lod. Sports The city's major football club, Hapoel Bnei Lod, plays in Liga Leumit (the second division). Its home is at the Lod Municipal Stadium. The club was formed by a merger of Bnei Lod and Rakevet Lod in the 1980s. Two other clubs in the city play in the regional leagues: Hapoel MS Ortodoxim Lod in Liga Bet and Maccabi Lod in Liga Gimel. Hapoel Lod played in the top division during the 1960s and 1980s, and won the State Cup in 1984. The club folded in 2002. A new club, Hapoel Maxim Lod (named after former mayor Maxim Levy) was established soon after, but folded in 2007. Notable people Twin towns-sister cities Lod is twinned with: See also References Bibliography External links |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jess_(programming_language)] | [TOKENS: 233] |
Contents Jess (programming language) Jess is a rule engine for the Java computing platform, written in the Java programming language. It was developed by Ernest Friedman-Hill of Sandia National Laboratories. It is a superset of the CLIPS language. It was first written in late 1995. The language provides rule-based programming for the automation of an expert system, and is often termed as an expert system shell. In recent years, intelligent agent systems have also developed, which depend on a similar ability. Rather than a procedural paradigm, where one program has a loop that is activated only one time, the declarative paradigm used by Jess applies a set of rules to a set of facts continuously by a process named pattern matching. Rules can modify the set of facts, or can execute any Java code. It uses the Rete algorithm to execute rules. License The licensing for Jess is freeware for education and government use, and is proprietary software, needing a license, for commercial use. In contrast, CLIPS, which is the basis and starting code for Jess, is free and open-source software. Code examples Code examples: Sample code: See also References External links |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Tunisia] | [TOKENS: 16717] |
Contents History of the Jews in Tunisia The history of the Jews in Tunisia dates back nearly two thousand years to the Punic era. The Jewish community of Tunisia grew following successive waves of immigration and proselytism before its development was hampered by the imposition of anti-Jewish measures in the Byzantine Empire in late antiquity. After the Muslim conquest of Tunisia, Tunisian Jews experienced periods of relative freedom or cultural apogee which were followed by periods of more marked discrimination and persecution; under Muslim rule, Jews were granted legal status as dhimmi, which legally assured protections of life, property, and freedom of religion, but imposed an increased tax burden on them. The community developed its own dialect of Arabic, but the use of Judeo-Tunisian Arabic has declined due to the community's relocation from Tunisia. The arrival of Jews expelled from the Iberian Peninsula, often through Livorno, greatly influenced the community's composition, inter-group relations, and customs. The economic, social and cultural position of the community was significantly compromised during the Second World War due to the occupation of the French protectorate of Tunisia by the Axis powers. The Israeli Declaration of Independence in 1948 and the ensuing 1948 Arab–Israeli War provoked a widespread anti-Zionist backlash in the Arab world, to which was added nationalist agitation, the nationalization of enterprises, the Arabization of education and the Arabization of part of the administration. Prior to Tunisian independence in 1956, the Jewish population was estimated at 100,000 individuals. These Jews lived mainly in Tunis, with communities also present on the island of Djerba. Jews left Tunisia en masse in subsequent years due notably to the Bizerte crisis in 1961 and the Six-Day War in 1967. The population had declined to 1500 by 2017. The Jewish diaspora of Tunisia is divided between Israel and France, where it has preserved its community identity through its traditions, mostly dependent on Sephardic law and customs, but retaining its own specific characteristics. Djerbian Judaism in particular is considered to be more faithful to tradition because it remained outside the sphere of influence of the modernist currents. The Tunisian Jews who have relocated to Israel have switched to using Hebrew as their home language. Tunisian Jews living in France typically use French as their first language, while the few still left in Tunisia tend to use either French or Judeo-Tunisian Arabic in their everyday lives. Historiography The history of the Jews of Tunisia (until the establishment of the French protectorate) was first studied by David Cazès in 1888 in his Essay on the History of the Israelites of Tunisia, André Chouraqui (1952), and later by Haim Zeev Hirschberg (1965), in the more general context of North African Judaism. The research on the subject was then enriched by Robert Attal and Yitzhak Avrahami. In addition, various institutions, including the Israel Folktale Archives in University of Haifa, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and the Ben Zvi Institute, have collected material evidence (traditional clothing, embroidery, lace, jewelry, etc.), traditions (folk tales, liturgical songs, etc.), and manuscripts as well as Judeo-Arabic books and newspapers. Paul Sebag is the first to provide in his 1991 book History of the Jews of Tunisia: from origins to our days a first development entirely devoted to the history of this community. In Tunisia, following the thesis of Abdelkrim Allagui, a group under the direction of Habib Kazdaghli and Abdelhamid Largueche brought the subject into the field of national academic research. Founded in Paris on June 3, 1997, the Society of Jewish History of Tunisia contributes to the research on the Jews of Tunisia and transmits their history through conferences, symposia and exhibitions.[citation needed] According to Michel Abitbol, the study of Judaism in Tunisia has grown rapidly during the progressive dissolution of the Jewish community in the context of decolonization and the evolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict while Habib Kazdaghli believes that the departure of the Jewish community is the cause of the low number of studies which are relevant to the topic. Kazdaghli, however, points out that the publication of them has increased since the 1990s, due to their authors' attachment to this community, and the belief that the Jews originated in one or another community (Ariana, Bizerte, etc.) or the belief that they originated in multiple Tunisian communities. As for the fate of the Jewish community during the period of the German occupation of Tunisia (1942–1943), it remains relatively unknown, and during the Symposium on the Jewish Community of Tunisia which was held at Manouba University in February 1998 (the first of its kind on this research theme), it was not mentioned. However, the work of memory of the community exists, with the testimonies of Robert Borgel and Paul Ghez, the novels The Statue of Salt by Albert Memmi and Villa Jasmin by Serge Moati, as well as the works of some historians. Antiquity Presently, the earliest verifiable record of the presence in Jews in Tunisia is from the second century. However, there are other, mostly speculative, ideas about when Jews first arrived in the land which is presently known as Tunisia: It is probable that these Israelites would have assimilated into the Punic population and offered sacrifices to its divinities, like Baal and Tanit. Thereafter, Jews from Alexandria or Cyrene could have settled in Carthage following the Hellenization of the eastern part of the Mediterranean Basin. The cultural context allowed them to practice Judaism more in keeping with ancestral traditions. Small Jewish communities existed in the later days of Punic domination over North Africa, without it being possible to say whether they developed or disappeared later. Jews had, in any case, settled in the new Roman province of Africa, and enjoyed the favors of Julius Caesar. The latter, in recognition of the support of King Antipater in his struggle against Pompey, recognized Judaism and the status of religio licita, and, according to Josephus, granted the Jews a privileged status under the Roman Empire. These Jews were joined by Jewish pilgrims, expelled from Rome for proselytizing, 20 by a number of defeated in the First Jewish–Roman War, deported and resold as slaves in North Africa, and also by Jews fleeing the repression of revolts in Cyrenaica and Judea under the reigns of the emperors Domitian, Trajan, and Hadrian. According to Josephus, the Romans deported 30,000 Jews to Carthage from Judea after the First Jewish-Roman War. It is very likely that these Jews founded communities on the territory of present-day Tunisia.[citation needed] A traditional account of the history of the descendants of the first Jewish settlers states that their ancestors settled in that part of North Africa long before the destruction of the First Temple in the 6th century BCE. After the fall of the Second Temple, many exiled Jews settled in Tunis and engaged in agriculture, cattle-raising, and trade. They were divided into clans which were governed by their respective heads (mokdem), and they had to pay the Romans a capitation tax of 2 shekels. Under the dominion of the Romans and (after 429) of the fairly tolerant Vandals, the Jews of Tunis increased and prospered to such a degree that early African church councils deemed it necessary to enact restrictive laws against them. Al-Qayrawani wrote that at the time of the conquest of Hippo Zaritus (present-day Bizerte) by Hasan ibn al-Nu'man in 698, the governor of that district was a Jew.[citation needed] When Tunis came under the dominion of the Arabs, or of the Arabian caliphate of Baghdad, another influx of Arabic-speaking Jews from the Levant into Tunis took place.[citation needed] Numerous studies have been conducted on the genetics of Jews in general, on North African Jews in particular, and specifically on Jews of Tunisian origin. They conclude that "the closest genetic neighbors to most Jewish groups were the Palestinians, Bedouins, and Druze in addition to the Southern Europeans". And that : The findings support the historical record of Middle Eastern Jews settling in North Africa during classical antiquity, converting non-Jews to Judaism and marrying local populations, thereby forming distinct populations that stayed largely intact for more than two millennia. [...] Two major subgroups within this overall population were identified – Moroccan/Algerian Jews and Djerban (Tunisian)/Libyan Jews. The two subgroups varied in their degree of European mixture, with Moroccan/Algerian Jews tending to be more related to Europeans, which most likely resulted from the expulsion of Sephardi Jews from Spain during the Inquisition starting in 1492. Furthermore, "The Tunisian Jews exhibited two apparent clusters—one with proximity to Libyan and Djerban Jews and the other proximal to the Moroccan and Algerian Jews." The first documents attesting to the presence of Jews in Tunisia date from the second century. Tertullian describes Jewish communities alongside which Pagan Jews of Punic, Roman and Berber origin and, initially, Christians; The success of Jewish proselytism led the pagan authorities to take legal measures, while Tertullian wrote a pamphlet against Judaism at the same time. On the other hand, the Talmud mention the existence of several Carthaginian rabbis. In addition, Alfred Louis Delattre demonstrates towards the end of the nineteenth century that the Gammarth necropolis, made up of 200 rock chambers, each containing up to 17 complex tombs (kokhim), contains Jewish symbols and funerary inscriptions in Hebrew, Latin and Greek. The Jewish community of Carthage was very pious, adhering strictly to traditions, eating kosher, and consuming matzah during Passover. They observed Yom Kippur, gathering outdoors to await the end of the fast. The community celebrated Shabbat with festive meals prepared on Friday evening, lighting a lamp, and holding public Torah readings at the synagogue. They also practiced frequent ritual ablutions. A distinctive feature of Jewish women in Carthage was covering their heads. Tertullian further maintains that Jewish worship was protected by Roman law. While a tax served as a reminder of Roman authority in the region, he suggests that the community was granted a certain level of autonomy for daily affairs: alongside the archisynagogue, the spiritual leader, there was the Archon, a kind of council of elders. For reasons likely both political—Jews were Roman citizens—and proselytizing among local populations, Latin was the predominant language in inscriptions, while Hebrew appeared only in a few phrases, such as greetings (e.g., Shalom). "Judaism, in Carthage as elsewhere, exerted a great influence on local populations: crowds gathered for the Saturday sermon, and pagans and Christians sometimes observed the Shabbat and other festivals and conversions were widespread". Despite some controversies, rivalries, or mockery between Jews and Christians, it appears that Christians (or Judeo-Christians) were accepted in the Jewish cemetery of Gammarth, a necropolis discovered in the late 19th century. The decoration of necropolises and magical tablets, which combine pagan abjurations with sacred Jewish formulas, illustrate the syncretism of the time. The success of Jewish proselytism thus prompted the pagan Roman authorities to take legal measures. The ruins of an ancient synagogue dating back to the 3rd–5th century CE was discovered by the French captain Ernest De Prudhomme in his Hammam-Lif residence in 1883 called in Latin as sancta synagoga naronitana ("holy synagogue of Naro") and motifs common across Roman Africa, attests to the affluence of its Israelite members and the quality of their interactions with other populations. Another synagogue, dating to the 5th century, was discovered in Clipea (modern-day Kélibia). Other Jewish communities are attested by epigraphic or literary references to Utique, Chemtou, Hadrumète or Thusuros (present Tozeur). As elsewhere in the Roman Empire, the Jews of Roman Africa were romanized after hundreds of years of subjection and would have adopted Latinized names, worn togas, and spoken Latin. According to St. Augustine, only their morals, modeled by Jewish religious precepts (circumcision, kashrut, observance of Shabbat, modesty of dress), distinguished them from the rest of the population. Some devoted themselves to translation for Christian clients and to the study of the Law; many rabbis were originally from Carthage. Others worked in agriculture, livestock and trade. Their situation was modified by the Edict of Milan (313), which legalized Christianity. Jews were gradually excluded from most public functions and proselytism was severely punished. The construction of new synagogues was prohibited towards the end of the fourth century, and by the fifth century even the upkeep of existing ones was subject by law to the approval of the imperial administration. Access to civil service positions was also restricted, and it was prohibited to disinherit Jewish children who converted to Christianity, circumcise them, or even own Christian slaves. However, various councils held by the Church of Carthage, in advising Christians not to follow certain practices of their Jewish neighbors, serve as testimony as to their ongoing influence. The arrival of the Vandals at the beginning of the 5th century marked a period of respite for the Jews, since the Arianism of the new rulers of Roman Africa was closer to Jewish monotheism than the Catholicism of the Church Fathers. Jews likely prospered economically and supported the Vandal kings against the armies of Emperor Justinian, who sought to reconquer North Africa. Justinian's victory in 535 began the period of the Exarchate of Carthage, which favored Nicene Christianity and persecuted Jews, Arians, Donatists, and pagans. Jews were once again stigmatized and excluded from public office. Jewish synagogues and pagan temples were converted into churches, their worship banned, and their gatherings prohibited. The administration strictly enforced the Theodosian Code against them, leading to forced conversions. Although Emperor Maurice attempted to repeal these measures, his successors reinstated them, culminating in an imperial edict mandating baptism. Some Jews reportedly fled cities under Eastern Roman control to settle in mountain regions or oases at the edge of the desert. There, with the support of Berber tribes, they resisted Roman rule, converting many Berbers to Judaism through proselytism. However, it is possible that the Judaization of the Berbers occurred four centuries earlier, following the arrival of Jews fleeing the repression of the revolt in Cyrenaica. This transition may have happened gradually through a syncretism of Jewish and pagan practices, including the worship of Tanit, which persisted after the fall of Carthage. This supports the legend of the Judeo-Berber queen of the Aurès Mountains, Kahina, who resisted the Islamization of the Maghreb. Regardless of the hypothesis, the 14th-century historian Ibn Khaldun confirmed their existence on the eve of the Muslim conquest of the Maghreb based on 11th-century Arab chronicles. However, this version is heavily contested: Haïm Zeev Hirschberg notes that Ibn Khaldun wrote his work centuries after the events, and Mohamed Talbi points out that the French translation is not entirely accurate, as it fails to convey Ibn Khaldun's sense of possibility. Gabriel Camps also asserts that the Djerawa and Nefzaouas mentioned were Christians allied with the Eastern Romans before the advent of Islam.[page needed] Regardless, while the hypothesis of mass tribal conversion to Judaism seems fragile, individual conversions appear more likely. Middle Ages With the Arab conquest and the arrival of Islam in Tunisia in the eighth century, the "People of the Book" (including Jews and Christians) were given a choice between conversion to Islam (which some Jewish Berbers have done) and legal status as dhimmi. The dhimmi is a term for non-Muslims, originally Jews and Christians as People of the Book, who live in an Islamic state and refers to the state's obligation to protect the lives of these communities as well as their freedom of religion and right to administer their own laws in certain regards (i.e. the Jewish halakhic courts), in return for the payment of the jizya, the poll tax. As well as several obligation and restrictions as refraining from building new places of worship. In addition, dhimmis were forbidden to engage in proselytism and could not marry Muslim women, although the reverse was permitted if the Jewish or Christian wife converted to Islam. Finally, dhimmi individuals were required to treat Muslims and Islam with respect and humility. Any violation of this pact could result in expulsion or even death. The living conditions of the Jews in Tunisia were relatively favorable during the reign of the Aghlabids and then Fatimid dynasties. Of the three principal Jewish communities that came into prominence by the 10th century, Ifriqiya (modern-day Tunisia) was the first to flourish, beginning with the establishment of the Shi'ite caliphate of the Fatimids in 909. The Fatimids, in general, were more tolerant towards dhimmi subjects than interpretations in orthodox Sunni Islam. Jews were employed in the civil service, sumptuary laws for non-Muslims were repealed, and the discriminatory tariffs were not imposed. Jews worked in the service of the dynasty, as treasurers, doctors, or tax collectors but their situation remained precarious. Kairouan (Qayrawan), now the capital of the Aghlabids, was the seat of the most important community in the territory, attracting migrants from Umayyad, Italy, and the Abbasid Empire. This community would become one of the major poles of Judaism between the ninth and eleventh centuries, both economically, culturally and intellectually, ensuring, through correspondence with the Talmudic academies in Babylonia. The Kairouan community became an important intermediary between communities in Spain and the Geonim of the Babylonian academies. Many major figures of Judaism are associated with the city. Among them is Isaac Israeli ben Solomon, a private doctor of the Aghlabide Ziadet Allah III and then of the Fatimids Abdullah al-Mahdi Billah and Al-Qa'im bi-Amr Allah and author of various medical treatises in Arabic which would enrich the medieval medicine through their translation by Constantine the African, adapting the teachings of the Alexandrian school to the Jewish dogma. Israeli's works in Arabic were studied in their Hebrew and Latin translations in both medieval and Renaissance Europe. Dunash ibn Tamim, his disciple, was the author (or final editor) wrote, along other works, a philosophical commentary on the Sefer Yetzirah, where he developed conceptions close to his master's thought. Another disciple, Ishaq ibn Imran is considered the founder of the philosophical and medical school of Ifriqiya. Jacob ben Nissim ibn Shahin, rector of the Center of Studies at the end of the tenth century, is the official representative of the Talmudic academies of Babylonia, acting as intermediaries between them and his own community. Jacob ibn Shahin was succeeded by his son, Nissim ben Jacob, considered the greatest of the Qayrawan sages. Another academy was founded by Chushiel ben Elchanan, originally from Bari, developed the simultaneous study of the Talmud of Babylon and the Jerusalem Talmud. His son and disciple Chananel ben Chushiel was one of the major commentators of the Talmud in the Middle Ages. After his death, his work was continued by another disciple of his father whom Ignác Goldziher calls Jewish mutazilite: Nissim ben Jacob, the only one among the sages of Kairouan to bear the title of Gaon, also wrote an important commentary on the Talmud and the Hibbour Yafe Mehayeshoua, which is perhaps the first tales collection in Jewish literature. On the political level, the community emancipated itself from the exile of Baghdad at the beginning of the eleventh century and acquired its first secular chief. Each community was placed under the authority of a council of notables headed by a chief (naggid) who, through the faithful, disposes of the resources necessary for the proper functioning of the various institutions: worship, schools, a tribunal headed by the rabbi-judge (dayan), etc. The maggid of Kairouan undoubtedly had the ascendancy over those of the communities of smaller size. The Jews participate greatly in the exchanges with Al-Andalus, Egypt, and the Middle East. Grouped in separate quarters (although many Jews settled in the Muslim districts of Kairouan during the Fatimid period), they had house of prayer, schools and a court. The port cities of Mahdia, Sousse, Sfax and Gabès saw a steady influx of Jewish immigrants from the Levant to the end of the eleventh century, and their communities participated in these economic and intellectual exchanges. Monopolizing the goldsmiths' and jewelers' crafts, they also worked in the textile industry, as tailors, tanners and shoemakers, while the smallest rural communities practiced agriculture (saffron, henna, vine, etc.) or breeding of nomadic animals. Nevertheless, the attitude of Islamic authorities regarding ghiyār (differentiation of non-Muslims from Muslims) begun to harden and in the late ninth century the Aghlabid ruler but also Maliki qadi of Kairuoan issued decrees that ordered dhimmis to wear a white patch on the shoulder of their garment. The patch for Jews had the image of an ape, an image based on Quranic interpretation that became standard in anti-dhimmi propaganda and was polemic when referring to Jews. It is not clear how long these humiliating decrees remained in force, but it is clear that the purpose of the patch was not merely ghiyār, but also dhull (humiliation) in keeping with the Quranic injunction (Sura 9:29) that non-Muslims should be humbled. The departure of the Fatimids to Egypt in 972 led their Zirid vassals to seize power and eventually break their bonds of political and religious submission in the middle of the eleventh century. The Banu Hilal and the Banu Sulaym, were sent in retaliation against Tunisia by the Fatimids, took Kairouan in 1057 and plundered it. Combined with the triumph of Sunnism and the end of the Babylonian gaonate, these events marked the end of the Kairouan community and reversed the migratory flow of the Jewish populations towards the Levant, with the elites having already accompanied the Fatimid court in Cairo. Jews migrated to the coastal cities of Gabes, Sfax, Mahdia, Sousse and Tunis, but also to Béjaïa, Tlemcen and Beni Hammad Fort. The conquest of Tunisia by the Almohad Caliphate in the 1150s proved disastrous to the Jews of Tunis. The city itself was captured in 1159 after refusing to surrender. The rise of the Almohad Caliphate shook both the Jewish communities of Tunisia and the Muslims attached to the cult of the saints, declared by the new sovereigns as heretics. Jews were forced to apostasy, flight, or death by Caliph Abd al-Mu'min. Abd al-Mu'min's harsh treatment of the residents of Tunis asked as a deterrent to the rulers of other provincial towns. In addition to forcing Christians and Jews to convert or die, half the property of all Muslims in Tunis was confiscated by the Almohad treasury. Many massacres took place, despite many formal conversions by the pronunciation of the Shahada. Indeed, many Jews, while outwardly professing Islam, remained faithful to their religion, which they observed in secret, as advocated by Rabbi Moses ben Maimon. Jewish practices disappeared from the Maghreb from 1165 to 1230.[citation needed] Still they were saddened by the sincere adherence of some to Islam, fears of persecution and the relativization of any religious affiliation. This Islamization of the morals and doctrines of the Jews of Tunisia, meant they as 'dhimmis' (after the disappearance of Christianity in the Maghreb around 1150) isolated from their other coreligionists, and was strongly criticized by the Maimonides. The first Almohad, 'Abd al-Mu'min, claimed that Muhammad had permitted the Jews free exercise of their religion for only five hundred years, and had declared that if, after that period, the messiah had not come, they were to be forced to embrace Islam. Accordingly, Jews as well as Christians were compelled either to embrace Islam or to leave the country. 'Abd al-Mu'min's successors pursued the same course, and their severe measures resulted either in emigration or in forcible conversions. Soon becoming suspicious of the sincerity of the new converts, the Almohadis compelled them to wear a special garb, with a yellow cloth for a head-covering. Throughout this, Jewish communities in Tunisia maintained connections throughout and beyond the Maghreb, particularly those in the Italian peninsula. Both a genizah fragment from the 1220s and two letters in 1227 to the mayor of Pisa attest to the presence of commercial relations between the Jewish communities in Tunis and Pisa. In 1267, a man named Moses of Tunis served as an Arabic interpreter to Genoese traders living in the city. These connections persisted for many years; surviving records include a treaty between Florence and Tunis translated by a Jew named Abraham in 1421, translated from Arabic to Italian. Other Jewish diplomats, translators, and court functionaries travelled between Tunis and city-states and kingdoms including Aragon, Majorca, and Barcelona into the 15th century. Under the Hafsid dynasty, which was established in 1236 as a breakaway from the Almohad dynasty, the condition of the Jews improved. Jews could again practice their religion and thus reconstituted the communities that existed before the Almohad period. Systematic persecution, social exclusion and hindrance to worship disappeared, but the dhimma was strict, especially in matters of dress. The Hafsids followed late Almohad practice and forced the Jews, who were the only non-Muslim religionists left, to wear yellow turban and garments and caliph Muhammad I al-Mustansir renewed these regulations in 1250. The yellow patch Tunisian Jews wore from this time until the nineteenth century became so emblematic that they became commonly referred to as shikliyyun. Besides Kairouan, there were at that time important communities in Mehdia, Kalaa, the island of Djerba, and the city of Tunis. Considered at first as foreigners, the Jews were not permitted to settle in the interior of Tunis, but had to live in a building called a funduq. Subsequently, however, a wealthy and humane Muslim, Sidi Mahrez, who in 1159 had rendered great services to the Almohad caliph Abd al-Mu'min, obtained for them the right to settle in a special quarter of the city. This quarter, called the "Hara," constituted until 1857 the ghetto of Tunis; it was closed at night. In 1270, in consequence of the defeat of Louis IX of France, who had undertaken a crusade against Tunis, the cities of Kairouan and Ḥammat were declared holy; and the Jews were required either to leave them or to convert to Islam. From that year until the conquest of Tunis by France (1857), Jews and Christians were forbidden to pass a night in either of these cities; and only by special permission of the governor were they allowed to enter them during the day. Although the difficulty of the economic context leads to a surge of probabilism, the triumph of Maliki Sunnism with little tolerance towards the "people of the book" meant material and spiritual misery. The massive settlement of Jewish-Spanish scholars fleeing from the Castile in 1391 and again in 1492 was mainly carried out in Algeria and Morocco, and the Tunisian Jews, abandoned by this phenomenon, were led to consult Algerian scholars such as Simeon ben Zemah Duran. In 1360, a treaty was declared between Abu Ishaq Ibrahim II and Peter IV of Aragon; the treaty included repeated mentions of both Christian and Jewish subjects, as well as guarantees of safety on roads and protection against bandits. Another article of the treaty started that no Tunisian Jew or Muslim was to be arrested in Aragon after the treaty had been concluded and, if any such prisoners were found, they were to be released. Possibly in response to the increasing Jewish participation in trade, the population of the Jewish community in Tunisia increased in the 14th century. According to a letter addressed to Simeon ben Zemah Duran, the influx of new settlers into Tunis had overwhelmed the capacity of the old synagogue in the funduq. The pogroms of 1391 drove still move Jewish refugees from Catalonia and Mallorca to Tunisia (and Algeria), further increasing the population. In the fifteenth century, each community was autonomous – recognized by power from the moment it counts at least ten major men – and has its own institutions; Their communal affairs were directed by a chief (zaken ha-yehudim) nominated by the government, and assisted by a council of notables (gdolei ha-qahal) made up of the most educated and wealthy family heads. The chief's functions consisted in the administration of justice among the Jews and collection of Jewish taxes. Three kinds of taxes were imposed on Tunisian Jews: In addition to these, every Jewish tradesman and industrialist had to pay an annual tax to the guild. After the 13th century, taxes were collected by a qaid, who also served as an intermediary between the government and the Jews. His authority within the Jewish community was supreme. The members of the council of elders, as well as the rabbis, were nominated at his recommendation, and no rabbinical decision was valid unless approved by him. During the conquest of Tunis by the Spaniards in 1535, many Jews were made prisoners and sold as slaves in several Christian countries. After the victory of the Ottomans over the Spaniards in 1574, Tunisia became a province (pashalik) of the Ottoman Empire under Koca Sinan Pasha. During the Spanish occupation of the Tunisian coasts (1535–74) the Jewish communities of Bizerte, Susa, Sfax, and other seaports suffered greatly at the hands of the conquerors; while under the subsequent Turkish rule the Jews of Tunis enjoyed a fair amount of security. They were free to practice their religion and administer their own affairs. Nevertheless, they were subject to the caprices of princes and outbursts of fanaticism. Petty officials were allowed to impose upon them the most difficult drudgery without compensation. They were obliged to wear a special costume, consisting of a blue frock without collar or ordinary sleeves (loose linen sleeves being substituted), wide linen drawers, black slippers, and a small black skull-cap; stockings might be worn in winter only. They might ride only on asses or mules, and were not permitted to use a saddle. Beginning of the Modern Era From the 16th century Tunisia and more particularly Tunis had an influx of Sephardi Jewish families, who initially settled in Livorno (Tuscany, Italy), and who later moved to work in other trading centers. These new settlers, called granas in Arabic or gorneyim (Hebrew: גורנים) in Hebrew after the name of the city in both languages, were wealthier than the Jewish natives called tuansa. They spoke and wrote in Italian but gradually adopted the local Arabic while introducing their traditional liturgy to their new host country. According to a 1710 agreement, the Grana were considered Italian citizens; only the Tuansa were subject to the dhimmi restrictions. From the beginning of the 18th century the political status of the Jews in Tunis improved. This was due to the increasing influence of the political agents of the European powers, who, while seeking to ameliorate the condition of the Christian residents, had to plead also the cause of the Jews, whom Muslim legislation classed with Christians. Haim Joseph David Azulai, who visited Tunis in 1772, praised this development. In 1819, the United States consul in Tunis, Mordecai Manuel Noah, gave the following account of the situation of the Tunisian Jews: With all the apparent oppression, the Jews are the leading men; they are in Barbary the principal mechanics, they are at the head of the custom-house, they farm the revenues; the exportation of various articles, and the monopoly of various merchandise, are secured to them by purchase, they control the mint and regulate the coinage of money, they keep the bey's jewels and valuable articles, and are his treasurers, secretaries, and interpreters; the little known of arts, science, and medicine is confined to the Jews. If a Jew commits a crime, if the punishment affects his life, these people, so national, always purchase his pardon; the disgrace of one affects the whole community; they are ever in the presence of the bey, every minister has two or three Jewish agents, and when they unite to attain an object, it cannot be prevented. These people, then, whatever may be said of their oppression, possess a very controlling influence, their friendship is worthy of being preserved by public functionaries, and their opposition is to be dreaded. From the early 17th century, Marrano families who had re-embraced Judaism after settling in Livorno at the end of the 15th century left Tuscany to settle in Tunisia as part of the establishment of trade relations. These new arrivals, called Granas in Arabic and Gorneyim (גורנים) in Hebrew, were wealthier and fewer in number than their indigenous coreligionists, known as Twansa. They spoke and wrote Tuscan, and sometimes still Spanish, forming a highly influential economic and cultural elite within the broader Italian community. Their surnames reflect their Spanish or Portuguese origins. Quickly introduced to the Beylic Court, they performed executive functions of court – collectors of taxes, treasurers and intermediaries without authority over – and noble professions in medicine, finance or diplomacy. Even if they settled in the same neighborhoods, they had virtually no connection with the Tuansa, to which Jews from the rest of the Mediterranean Basin have assimilated. The Tuansa spoke the Judeo-Tunisian dialect, and occupied a modest social position. This is why, contrary to what was happening elsewhere in the Maghreb, these new populations were hardly accepted, which gradually leads to the division of the Jewish community into two groups. In this context, the Jews played a major role in the economic life of the country, in commerce and crafts, but also in trading and banking. Despite the tariffs being higher than those paid by Muslim or Christian traders (10% vs. 3%), the Granas managed to control and prosper trade with Livorno. Their trading houses also engaged in credit banking activities and participated in the purchase of Christian slaves captured by privateers and resold. The Tuansa saw themselves conceding the monopoly of the leather trade by the Muradid and then Husainid beys. Jews who were traveling as Tunisians worked in the retail trade in the souks of Tunis, thus shipping imported products from Europe under the leadership of a Muslim amine, or in the Jewish quarter. In 1710, a century of friction between the two groups led to a coup de force of the Livornese community, with a tacit agreement of the authorities. By creating its own community institutions, it creates a schism with the indigenous population. Each of them had their council of notables, their grand rabbi, their rabbinical court, synagogues, schools, butcher's shop and a separate cemetery. This state of affairs was endorsed by a takkanah (rabbinic decree) signed in July 1741 between the great rabbis Abraham Taïeb and Isaac Lumbroso. This agreement was renewed in 1784 before being annulled in 1899. This takkanah sets, among other rules, the fact that every Israelite from a Muslim country was attached to the Tuansa, while every Israelite from a Christian country was from the Granas. Moreover, the Granas – a richer community, although only 8% of the total population – then accounted for one third of the payment of the jizya against two-thirds for the Tuansa. This last point indicated that the Livornese community, previously protected by the European consuls, has sufficiently integrated into Tunisia so that its members were considered dhimmis and taxed like the Tuansa. The socio-cultural and economic differences between these two communities have increased in the nineteenth century. The Granas, due to their European origins and higher standard of living, but also to their economic, family and cultural ties with Livorno, found it difficult to cope with their indigenous coreligionists, the Tuansa, who were considered less "civilized". The Granas were an important contributions whereas they represented only a minority of the Jews of Tunisia. On the other hand, indigenous elites didn't wish to give up their power to newcomers, unlike their Maghreb neighbors, probably due to the later arrival of the Granas in Tunisia. The Granas also differed geographically from the Tuansa, settling in the European district of Tunis, thus avoiding the Hara, and more culturally approach the Europeans than their co-religionists. However, the two groups keep the same rites and uses with only a few variants and, outside Tunis, the same community institutions continue to serve all the faithful. Moreover, all the Jews remain under the authority of a single qaid chosen from the Tuansa, presumably to avoid interference with foreigners. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Jews were still subjected to harassing and discriminatory measures, particularly on the part of the judicial system which was arbitrary in their regard, with the exception of the more tolerant Hanafi courts. Jews were still subjected to the collective payment of the jizya – the annual amount of which varied according to the year, from 10,332 piastres in 1756 to 4,572 piastres in 1806 – and had to pay additional taxes (ghrâma) whenever the sovereign's treasury was in difficulty, as the Muslims sometimes did. Moreover, they were periodically obliged to carry out public works and were subjected to forced labor which affected mainly the poorest of the communities. Regarding dress code, the chechia that served as their headdress had to be black and wrapped in a dark turban, unlike the Muslims who wore a red chechia surrounded by a white turban. The Granas, dressed in European fashion, wore wigs and round hats like Christian merchants. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, the political status of the Jews improved somewhat thanks to the growing influence of the political agents of the European powers who, seeking to improve the living conditions of the Christian residents, also pleaded the Jews. But if the wealthy Jews – who held positions in administration or trade – succeeded in being respected, especially through the protection of influential Muslim personalities, poor Jews were often victims of bullying and even murder, and the authorities didn't seem to intervene. An observer declared that the Jews were recognized "not only in their black costume, but also in the imprint of a curse they carry on their foreheads". However, despite this difficult climate, Jews were not subjected to outbreaks of religious fanaticism or racism leading to massacres. Although looting accompanied by violence was occasionally reported, it always occurred in the context of unrest affecting the broader population, such as in June 1752 and September 1756 in Tunis. Furthermore, there were no instances of mass expulsions, and Jews enjoyed an almost complete freedom of religion — often involving their Muslim neighbors in their celebrations — in contrast to the practices in Europe at the time. At the end of the eighteenth century, Hammouda Pasha denied Jews the right to acquire and possess real estate properties, while the learning of literal Arabic and the use of the Arabic alphabet was also prohibited during this period. Finally, the behavior of the Muslim population towards the communities varied from the will to rigorous application of the dhimma by the Ulama to the absence of hostility of the rural population, marginalized urban fringes but assured of impunity. Communities were structured under the authority of a leader of the "Jewish nation" with the title of hasar ve ha-tafsar, a prestigious and powerful post containing both the qaid charge of the Jews (qdyd el yihud) and that of Receiver General of Finance under the authority of the Treasurer of the Kingdom (khaznadar). He was an intermediary between the bey and his community and therefore enjoyed entry to the court. He had a very important bureaucratic power over those co-religionaries in whom he apportioned the payment of the jizya – of which they were collectively liable – according to the resources of each household. It also refers to those who performed the duties imposed by the authorities. A state farmer, surrounded by some of the most fortunate and educated notables, also collected taxes such as the tithes, the tax on kosher meat and the offerings of the faithful. These allow him to pay for his services, those of his deputies and the rabbis-judges and finance the synagogues, the schools linked to them, the ritual abattoir, the cemetery, the relief fund for the needy and the sick and the rabbinical court, which were only in large cities under the presidency of the Grand Rabbi. Administrator of the affairs of the community designated the local secular or religious leaders – with the written approval of the Tunisian authorities – and gives them broad orientations. From the reign of Abu l-Hasan Ali I (1735–1756), he also served as treasurer of the Bey and many of the key posts in the administration of finance – collection of taxes and customs duties, scheduling of expenditure, handling of cash, keeping books of account or paying the salaries of the Janissaries – were occupied by Jewish agents. Despite the split between the groups, the figure of the Grand Rabbi had considerable authority among his followers. By virtue of his function as president of the rabbinical court, he watches over Jewish law, relying on the Shulchan Aruch, the standard legislative code, and the Talmud. The rabbinic jurisdictions deal with personal status matters, but also with civil and commercial cases when only Jews were concerned, whether the faults were religious or secular. In small towns, the dayan was responsible for rendering justice, with the rabbinical court serving as a chamber of appeal. One of the most rigorous penalties that the latter could pronounce was the herem, the Jewish version of excommunication, made public in the synagogue. However, some questioned the authority of the religious leaders: a Jewish broker, working for a French trading house and condemned to beating in May 1827 for invoking the name of God, appealed the decision to the consul of France. Following the protest of the latter to the bey, it was decided that the rabbinical court would no longer pronounce sentence for religious offense to a Jew placed under French protection. On the intellectual level, the growing exchanges between Jews from Tunisia and Livorno facilitated the circulation of printed works in Tuscany and their widespread distribution in Tunisia and the rest of the Maghreb. This led to an important revival of the Tunisian Hebrew studies at the beginning of the eighteenth century, embodied in particular by the rabbis Semah Sarfati, Abraham Ha-Cohen, Abraham Benmoussa, Abraham Taïeb and Joseph Cohen-Tanugi. Among the works of the Chumash, the Talmud, or the Kabbalah of note include: With the exception of Isaac Lumbroso's Zera Itshak, all the works were printed in Livorno, Tunis, which didn't have a well-known printing press, the only attempt to make one was in 1768 was considered a failure because of the lack of knowledge on the subject. Rabbi Chaim Yosef David Azulai, who visited Tunis in 1773–74, noted that the city had some 300 young talmudists and considered that the rabbis he met "had very extensive knowledge". Jewish-Arabic texts also celebrate legendary figures such as the poet Rabbi Fraji Chaouat, famous for his extensive Hebrew diwan, and Rabbi Yossef El Maarabi. A long poem also recounts the epidemic of plague that struck the country in the 17th century. Aborted reforms of the nineteenth century In the mid-19th century, Tunisian Jews had few literate individuals in Arabic, and only a small number could read and write in Hebrew. Moreover, they generally adhered strictly to religious precepts due to their exclusively religious education. They had little knowledge of Arab-Muslim literature, unlike Jews in other Muslim countries. Nevertheless, interactions between Tunis and Europe contributed to a certain desire for emancipation and freedom in their assigned dress. Mahmoud Bey then decided in January 1823 to require all Jews living in Tunisia to wear a skullcap. A Jew from Gibraltar who refused the decree was beaten. His protest to his consul triggered a strong reaction from the United Kingdom. This situation benefited the Granas, who secured the replacement of the chechia with a white skullcap (kbîbes) and a specific sefseri for their women, as a way to distinguish themselves from the Twansa, who were still required to wear black skullcaps. However, this concession contradicted a relatively strict policy adopted by the authorities during the early decades of the century, as reported by the bey's physician, Louis Franck, and the United States consul Mordecai Manuel Noah. In socio-economic terms, the Jewish population was highly heterogeneous. In the country's ports, European Jewish merchants, along with Christians, controlled foreign trade and dominated more than half of the commercial houses operating in the country. Alongside this affluent class of merchants and bankers, primarily Livornese, was a middle class of traders and artisans. These Jews played a significant role in retail trade, particularly in the capital, where they were heavily concentrated in two souks of the medina: one specializing in colonial goods, hardware, and items imported from Paris, and another specializing in draperies and silk fabrics from England and France. Many were also engaged in Tunisian handicrafts, such as working gold and silver, over which they held a monopoly, as well as tailoring and shoemaking. They also served as lenders to farmers and artisans. In rural areas such as Nabeul, Gabès, and Djerba, Jews worked in vine cultivation, date palm farming, fruit tree cultivation, and livestock farming. There was also a poor class of Jews who lived off small trades and could not survive without the charity organized by their community. The inclusion of Jews in the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen on 27 September 1791, and the Napoleonic decrees of 1808, fostered a certain sympathy for France among the Jews of Tunisia, who were all subjects of the bey, For instance, the Spanish chargé d'affaires reported in 1809 that "the Jews are the most fervent supporters of Napoleon." It was even reported that some Jews, including Granas following the example of their co-religionists in Italy, wore a tricolor cockade, an act harshly repressed by Hammouda Pasha, who refused any attempt by France to place its Jewish subjects originating from Tuscany, newly conquered by Napoleon I, under French protection. Napoleon had liberated the Jewish ghettos in Italy and simultaneously abolished discrimination against Jews in Italy, often similar to those in Tunisia. In this context, article 2 of the treaty signed on 10 July 1822 with the Grand Duchy of Tuscany set the duration of the Granas’ stay in Tunisia to two years; beyond this period, they fell under the sovereignty of the bey and were considered equal to the Twansa. At the same time, as Tunisia gradually opened to external influences but also faced European pressures, the sovereign Ahmed I Bey initiated a policy of reforms. Under an act amending the 1822 Tunisian-Tuscan treaty, signed on 2 November 1846, the Granas who settled in Tunisia after the treaty, or those who would arrive later, were granted the right to retain their Tuscan nationality without any time limitation, unlike the Granas who had arrived before 1822. This provision encouraged many Granas of Italian origin to emigrate to Tunisia, where they formed a foreign minority—90 individuals in 1848, reinforced by a few French and British Jews—under the protection of the Tuscan consul and settled in the free district of Tunis, unlike the older Granas who lived in the Hara. Those who arrived after the unification of Italy also benefited from this provision. From then on, political action was seen as a means to end the exceptional status affecting Jews, representing "a true rupture in the mental universe of Jewish communities, a rupture that broke the old world of submission to the order of things." In 1853, the caid of the Tunisian Jewish community, Nessim Samama, secured the abolition of the forced labor obligations that had previously burdened his co-religionists. Despite everything, Jews remained subject to the payment of the jizya and exceptional taxes demanded by the bey as needed, and they also faced discrimination. In terms of clothing, they were required to wear a black chechia instead of a red one, a black or dark blue turban instead of a white one, and black shoes instead of brightly colored ones. They were not allowed to live outside the neighborhoods assigned to them and could not own real estate. Finally, when they were victims of harassment or violence, they did not always receive reparations for the harm suffered. However, the relationship between Jews and Muslims changed radically from the mid-century due to the intrusion of European colonial powers in Tunisia, particularly France. These powers relied on the presence of Jews to promote their economic and commercial interests, as their situation—often marked by unfair treatment in Tunisian courts—served as a pretext for exerting pressure on the bey. The Sfez affair in 1857 illustrates this new context and provided an opportunity for France and the United Kingdom to intervene in the name of defending human rights and fighting absolutism and fanaticism to advance their interests. Batou Sfez was a Jewish coachman serving the caïd of his community, Nessim Samama. Following a traffic incident and an altercation with a Muslim, he was accused of insulting Islam, with witnesses later confirming the scene before a notary. Charged and found guilty under Maliki law despite his protests, he was sentenced by the Sharia court to death for blasphemy and decapitation, and was executed by sword on June 24. The ruler Mohammed Bey sought through this act to appease resentment stemming from the execution of a Muslim accused of killing a Jew and to demonstrate that his justice system treated all subjects fairly. Nevertheless, the severity of the sentence caused great consternation within the Jewish community and among the French and British consuls, Léon Roches and Richard Wood. They used the incident to pressure the ruler into adopting liberal reforms similar to those enacted in the Ottoman Empire in 1839. Moreover, the historian Ibn Abi Dhiaf referred to Tunisian Jews as "brothers in the homeland" (Ikhwanoun fil watan), although he criticized some for excessively seeking the protection of foreign consuls. The arrival of a French squadron in the roadstead of Tunis forced the bey to proclaim the Fundamental Pact on 10 September 1857, with the support of Ibn Abi Dhiaf. He seemed to represent the most favorable attitude towards Jews among the reformers, while others were more skeptical. The text radically changed the status of non-Muslims: Tunisian Jews, previously considered second-class subjects, escaped the secular status of dhimma. Article 1 guaranteed "complete security" for persons and their property; Article 4 stated that "Jewish subjects will not be coerced into changing their religion and will not be prevented from practicing their faith"; Article 6 specified that "when the criminal court rules on the penalty incurred by a Jewish subject, Jewish assessors will also be appointed to the said court"; and Article 8 stated that all Tunisians, regardless of faith, now enjoyed the same rights and duties. Free access to property ownership and public office was also guaranteed to all. The beylical decree of 15 September 1858 authorized Jews to wear a red chechia like Muslims and explicitly granted them the right to acquire real estate outside designated quarters. Additionally, it appears that the jizya ceased to be collected with the introduction of the mejba, which applied to all the bey's subjects, and that customs duties were now based on the origin or destination of goods rather than the merchant's religion. Sadok Bey, successor to Mohammed Bey, replaced the text with an organic law, equivalent to a full-fledged constitution, on 21 April 1861, and supplemented it on 25 February 1862 with a civil and criminal code. However, rising public expenditures due to new institutions and public works led to an increase in the mejba tax, sparking a revolt in April 1864, exacerbated by embezzlement and worsening economic conditions. During these events, Jews—accused of benefiting from these reforms—were physically attacked, their property targeted, and synagogues vandalized in Sousse, Gabès, Nabeul, Sfax, and Djerba. These disturbances lasted several years, with further outbreaks of violence in Tunis in 1869, where 17 Jews were killed without their murderers being brought to justice. Although the constitution was suspended shortly after the revolt—ultimately suppressed—the previous reforms remained in effect, and Jews who suffered losses were compensated by the government. Nevertheless, Tunisian courts continued to show particular severity towards Jews, leading Jewish notables to seek the protection of consuls. Crimes against Jews also went unpunished. The country became a battleground for European influence, with some Jewish notables receiving protection patents that allowed them to retain Tunisian nationality while placing themselves under the jurisdiction of consular courts. The European powers that favored these protections could thereby justify their interventions in the country's internal affairs. By the late 19th century, both Granas and Twansa spoke Judeo-Tunisian Arabic, a Judeo-Arabic dialect transcribed in Hebrew script but similar to that spoken by Muslims, except for a few pronunciation variations, a reduced emphasis on certain emphatic consonants, and rare Hebrew borrowings strictly in a religious context. At the same time, despite growing criticism of the traditional education system, Talmudic studies still produced notable rabbis such as Judah Lévy, Joseph Borgel, Joshua Bessis, Abraham Cohen, and Abraham Hagège. In terms of clothing, both groups had adopted Muslim dress with slight variations (men were required to wear dark-colored turbans, and women wore a pointed headdress called qufiya) even recently arrived Granas and wealthy Twansa wore European-style clothing. Religious observance remained strong: Saturday was a rest day, religious holidays were celebrated with varying levels of festivity, and pilgrimages were made to Jerusalem. However, superstitions persisted—such as the protective power of the Hamsa against the evil eye or the fear of djinns—shared with Muslims. In 1878, shortly before the establishment of French control, the first Alliance Israélite Universelle school opened in Tunisia. The school offered instruction in French; while it included Jewish religious and cultural material as part of the curriculum, it marked a turning point for the community as children began to receive a secular education. French Protectorate (1881–1956) On the eve of French colonisation of Tunisia, the Jewish population was approximately 25,000, most of which was concentrated in Tunis. The Jews of Tunisia felt much safer under the French protectorate.[citation needed] Contact with the French colonizers of Tunisia and the official presence of the French facilitated the assimilation of the Jews of Tunisia to French culture and their emancipation. Relying on the French revolutionary promise of Liberté, égalité, fraternité, the Jews hoped for a better life and were very receptive to the new French influences, despite their Christian European source. For the generation born under the protectorate, the French language replaced Judeo-Arabic as the mother tongue of the Jews of French Tunisia. Additionally, more Jewish children began attending state schools throughout the country, which slowly lead to the diffusion of French culture and lifestyle within the Jewish community. Initially, the newly arrived Jews did not suffer significantly from antisemitism. Nevertheless, the newspaper La Tunisie française frequently published attacks. From March 26 to 29 March 1898, a fight between Jews and Arabs escalated into riots during which Jews were assaulted, their homes looted, and their shops ransacked, without police intervention (a form of "pogrom"). Despite convictions being handed down, the responsibility for the unrest was never clearly established. The tense context of the Dreyfus affair further added to fears of violence, though its resolution helped strengthen the Jews' attachment to France and encouraged them to make demands. While the French presence led to the continued francization of the Jewish community, the desired rapprochement sought by its elites was not without challenges. Extending French jurisdiction to Tunisian Jews, along with the abolition of the rabbinical court and the possibility of individual naturalization, became key priorities for the modernist intelligentsia who had attended French universities. These priorities were first articulated by Mardochée Smaja in 1905 and later championed in the weekly newspaper La Justice founded in 1907. Although representatives of the French community in Tunisia supported these ideas, the protectorate administration, the French government under the French Third Republic, and conservative rabbinical authorities, backed by the most popular factions of the Jewish community, opposed them. Modernist Muslims also criticized these reforms, seeing them as undermining sovereignty and creating inequality among citizens of the same state. Proposals to reform naturalization requirements faced hostility from authorities seeking to encourage French settlement and protect relations with the government and Muslim population. Community institution reforms were also rejected, as authorities feared they might come under the control of the Granas, who were sympathetic to Italy. Though the colonial authorities sought support within the community to strengthen their authority, this secular and liberal elite was quickly excluded from influential positions. Facing Italian ambitions over Tunisia and the desire to increase the number of French settlers, a relaxation of naturalization conditions for Tunisian subjects was finally decided on 3 October 1910. Although the process remained selective and individual, it opened the possibility for Jews to become French citizens. Tunisian subjects over 21 who demonstrated fluency in French were eligible for naturalization if they met one of the following conditions: voluntary service in the French Armed Forces, earning a diploma, prize, or medal in higher education, marriage to a Frenchwoman with children, rendering important services to French interests in Tunisia for over ten years, or rendering exceptional services to France. These strict conditions kept the number of naturalizations low (93 between 1911 and 1914), respecting the opinions of both French and Muslim populations in Tunisia; however, they fell short of Jewish community expectations. Community organizational reforms were also implemented: the position of caid was abolished, and the Relief and Welfare Fund of Tunis was entrusted to an administrative committee appointed by ministerial decree; all cities with significant communities were given similar structures. After an intermediate period, the protectorate administration recognized only one chief rabbi from the Twansa community, whose authority was extended across the country, bringing initial unity to the country's community institutions. Due to its intermediate socio-cultural position, the francized native Jewish elite identified with republican and secular values, rejecting the existing Arab and Muslim order. This position allowed for both the social and cultural advancement of the community and the preservation of a strong identity through partnerships with other communities and guarantees provided by France. The ideology of the republican school also inspired great enthusiasm within the community. The universalist culture it transmitted offered an escape from national questions while providing a path out of domination through socio-professional advancement after centuries of relative stagnation, leading to the acquisition of a more valued social status. However this attitude was not universally shared among Tunisian Jews. In October 1900, a group "belonging to two traditions, the Portuguese and the Tunisian", sent a letter to Zadoc Kahn, the chief rabbi of France and honorary president of the Alliance Israélite Universelle, voicing their anger at the Alliance itself, at the education and values it promoted, and at its attempts to displace and usurp their own traditions with French ones. The authors wrote, "Do not forget that the Jews of Tunisia are not merely Jews, which in itself separates them from the French, but they are also Eastern Jews, Arab Jews, and as such so dramatically different from the French". The relative opening of society, with the emergence of independent social spaces such as schools, cafés, theaters, and sports clubs, contributed to the emancipation of individuals from their groups and religion and the decline of traditional Judeo-Arab culture, which nevertheless persisted in rural communities. While new synagogues were built in all cities, a notable decline in religious practice was observed, even if it remained the domain of a minority among the wealthy and educated. This phenomenon was associated with a reduction in knowledge of Hebrew due to its absence from public school curriculums, where a majority of children of both genders were enrolled, although Talmud Torah schools continued to operate in major cities. By the end of the century, families with sufficient financial resources sent their children to secondary or even higher education. At the same time, the community prospered by taking advantage of the colonial economy. While Jews continued to practice traditional trades in commerce, trading, and craftsmanship, young people graduating from schools and training centers were increasingly employed in workshops, shops, and offices. They also joined the network of bank and insurance branches established by French companies, ventured into new professions, participated in the creation of early industries, or started agricultural enterprises. The proportion of employees increased significantly as young people fluent in French had sufficient mastery of the Arabic dialect to act as intermediaries between their French employers and Tunisian clients. The next generation was encouraged to go beyond primary education and enter liberal professions, such as medicine, pharmacy, or law, often after studying in France or Italy. Westernized Jewish families abandoned their traditional dwellings (oukalas) in the Hara of Tunis to settle in individual apartments on its outskirts or, for the wealthiest, in the new neighborhoods of Tunis. These economic transformations led to a restructuring of Jewish society: a commercial, industrial, and even agricultural bourgeoisie; a liberal class (lawyers, doctors, pharmacists, and architects); a middle class (traders, artisans, employees, and civil servants); a still-small working class; and a mass of unqualified laborers, the sick, and the disabled with modest means, who survived only through community support and were often concentrated in the Hara. Schooling played a significant role in the acculturation of new generations. As a result, French became a maternal language alongside Arabic, sometimes even replacing it, enabling individuals’ emancipation and social mobility. At the same time, European first names replaced Hebrew or Arabic ones, European clothing was adopted, weekly work rhythms were embraced, and superstitious beliefs and practices shared with Muslims were abandoned. Women also emancipated themselves through changes in clothing, although at a slower pace than men and with intergenerational and intrafamilial gaps. Many Tunisian Jews became eligible for French citizenship under the Morinaud laws of 1923. Simultaneously, marital and paternal authority was moderated by the development of female education, the growing influence of modernist values, and the higher education levels of new generations. Additionally, the age of marriage increased, consanguineous marriages became rarer, intermarriages between Twansa and Granas became more frequent, and nuclear families became more distinct from extended families. With the dissemination of Hebrew printing in Tunis, a few years after the establishment of the protectorate, a new era of significant intellectual and social activity began, encompassing poetry, prose essays, and journalism. Many individuals found their vocation as poets, songwriters, storytellers, essayists, or journalists. Over 25 periodicals in Judeo-Tunisian Arabic emerged, although this phenomenon faded quickly after World War I. Religious works, Arabic literature, folklore, translations of European literature, and original creations were published. Other writings, often long ballads or rhymed narratives, described events within the community, whether social, cultural, or domestic, but especially the evolving customs and behaviors of a modernizing community. Distributed as leaflets or small booklets, these texts were sometimes written in loosely transcribed Latin characters and were always based on popular tunes. Quickly, traditional local poetic genres emerged. In a bibliography compiled between 1904 and 1907 by Eusèbe Vassel, he cataloged poetic works by prolific pioneers like Simah Levy. Vassel also cited Haï Vita Sitruk and Malzouma on the Disappointments of This World, written by an anonymous author. Hundreds of popular poems, initially composed in Tunis and later in other communities like Djerba and Sousse, told Jewish traditions in a novel way that some traditionalist authors considered "threatening". These creations also allowed, for the first time in printed form, the dissemination of lyrical or romantic texts, influenced by both local production and Arab-Muslim works from Egypt, which were very popular in Tunisia at the time. During this period, Jewish artists like Leïla Sfez, Habiba Msika, and Cheikh El Afrit gained widespread fame and contributed to the revival of Tunisian music. A cultural shift also occurred with the emergence of Jewish painters such as Moses Levy, Maurice Bismouth, David Junès, and Jules Lellouche.[additional citation(s) needed] Albert Samama-Chikli directed the first short film in the history of Tunisian cinema, Zohra, in 1922.[citation needed] World War II Following the armistice of 22 June 1940, the French Protectorate of Tunisia became part of Vichy France, the new French state ruled by collaborationist Marshal Philippe Pétain during France's occupation by Nazi Germany in World War II. Under the rule of Pétain's collaborationist regime, the Jews of Vichy France and Vichy Tunisia were subjected to the two antisemitic Statut des Juifs (Jewish Statutes of October 3, 1940 and June 2, 1941), like the Jews in mainland France. Thus, discriminatory legislation defined the Jews, restricted them in the public service, in educational institutions and journalism, and in liberal professions (numerus clausus), counted them (Jewish census), and forced them to register their property to be subsequently aryanized. Consequently, Jews found themselves in their prior inferior status of "natives" and were impoverished. In August 1941, Xavier Vallat, head of the Office for Jewish Affairs (Commissariat Général aux Questions Juives), came from Metropolitan France to check the matter of the Jewish question. According to an article on the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) website, "The history of the Holocaust in France's three North African territories (the three departments, 91, 92, and 93, in French Algeria, the two French protectorates of Morocco and Tunisia) is intrinsically tied to France's fate during this period." Holocaust scholar Martin Gilbert specified that the persecution of the Jews of French North Africa was an integral part of the Holocaust in France. "The German government was unable to implement in Tunisia the 'Final Solution' that it had already decided to apply to the Jewish question. Nazi Germany could not organize the extermination of the Jewish population on-site without risking revealing to the world what it intended to conceal for as long as possible. Nor could it consider transporting the Jews of Tunisia to the extermination camps established in Eastern Europe, as this would have required using ships and planes that were needed for more pressing military needs." The Jews of Vichy-French North Africa were relatively fortunate because their distance from Nazi concentration camps in Central and Eastern Europe permitted them to avoid the fate of their coreligionists in Metropolitan France. Immediately after the Allied landings in Vichy-Algeria and Vichy-Morocco, the Germans occupied Vichy Tunisia. On November 23, 1942, the Germans arrested Moises Burgel, the president of the Tunis Jewish community, and several other prominent Jews. The Jews of Vichy Tunisia were spared the mass deportations and mass murder that happened in Europe. When the Nazis invaded Vichy Tunisia, the country was home to some 100,000 Jews. According to Yad Vashem, the Nazis imposed antisemitic policies including forcing Jews to wear the yellow badge, fines, and confiscation of property. More than 5,000 Jews were sent to forced labor camps, where 265 are known to have been murdered. An additional 160 Jews of Tunisia living in France were sent to extermination camps in continental Europe. Khaled Abdul-Wahab, a Muslim Arab of Vichy Tunisia, "the Arab Schindler," was the first Arab nominated for the Israeli Righteous Among the Nations award. Post-War period Between the end of World War II and the independence of Tunisia in March 1956, there was deep debate in the Tunisian Jewish community over Zionism. Anti-Jewish attacks in Hafsia in 1952 and conflict surrounding the independence struggle resulted in the first wave of emigration. In June 1950, the AIU services recorded a Jewish population of 5,500 people in Sousse, 500 in Moknine, 300 in Mahdia, 150 in Kairouan, 70 in Monastir, and 60 in Enfidaville. After the emigration of their main leaders to Israel in 1952, they were dismantled but reconstituted in 1955 by the Mossad and its armed branch, known as Misgeret. Shlomo Havillio, chief commander of Misgeret in Paris between 1955 and 1960 and responsible for operations in the Maghreb, later admitted that "the initial fears about possible reactions from Tunisian nationalists against Jews were much more imaginary than real [...] The only concern could come from the presence of revolutionaries in Tunisian society after independence." In this context, the leaders of the Neo Destour, while not supporting Zionism, stated they would not prevent Jews from leaving Tunisia for Israel. For instance, Habib Bourguiba declared in August 1954: The Neo-Destourians are entirely opposed to antisemitism and discrimination against Tunisian Jews. They stand for full equality of rights [...] The Tunisian government and the Neo-Destourians will do everything to ensure the well-being of Jews, but if some Jews prefer to emigrate to Israel for one reason or another, we will not make any difficulties for them. Upon its legalization in Tunisia, the Jewish Agency opened a special office in Tunis and later branches in other cities. These offices, run by Israeli representatives and local Jewish activists, organized the emigration of a significant portion of the Jewish populations from cities such as Sousse, Sfax, and Tunis, as well as southern regions like Ben Gardane, Médenine, Gafsa, Gabès, and Djerba. This phenomenon primarily affected the more traditionalist and poorer communities with little to lose. In total, over 25,000 individuals emigrated between 1948 and 1955. Consequently, the Jewish population declined by 18.6% over ten years, with decreases of 7.7% in the Tunis region, 33.5% in the North, 26.9% in the center, 38.9% in the South, and 44.4% in the extreme South. While the less assimilated, working-class groups primarily emigrated to Israel, the intellectual elite split between France and Israel. The cultured and now French-speaking Livornese community saw few members ultimately settle in Italy. Independence of Tunisia In post-independence Tunisia, the economic and political situation led to the departure of most Jews who had chosen to remain in the country after independence. Most lawyers, affected by the Arabization of the judicial system, decided to settle in France, where their clientele relocates, as did doctors and dental surgeons. Public officials were excluded from certain ministries, such as Foreign Affairs, National Defense, and State Security, and did not always benefit from promotions based on seniority and competence. Furthermore, the administration systematically favored companies owned by Muslim Tunisians, while businesses owned by Jewish Tunisians were subjected to stricter tax audits and heavier taxation. The socialist turn in the government's economic policy ultimately stifles most of these businesses, which had disappeared by the early 1970s. In this context, the Bizerte crisis, which occurred in the summer of 1961, raised fears of reprisals and a violent outbreak of antisemitism following rumors that Jews had assisted French troops.[citation needed] This led to the departure of 4500 people from the country in 1962. It was followed by an even larger wave of emigration, including the singer Acher Mizrahi during the Six-Day War. Thousands of demonstrators filled the streets of Tunis on 5 June 1967, destroying Jewish-owned shops and setting fire to places of worship, including the Grand Synagogue of Tunis, where books and Torah scrolls were burned. However, there were no reports of violence against individuals. Despite President Bourguiba's condemnation of the events, apologies to Tunisia's chief rabbi Mordekhai Meiss Cohen, [citation needed] and promises the same evening to uphold the rights and safety of the community, an additional 7000 Jews emigrated to France and 2,362 to Israel. In general, the Jewish population that remains, about 12,000 people (including 10,000 of Tunisian nationality), three-quarters of whom are concentrated in the Tunis region at the beginning of the 1970s, consists of bourgeois families with substantial wealth justifying their presence in Tunisia, members of the middle class convinced they can continue practicing their profession under similar conditions, members of the intelligentsia wanting to contribute to the country's development, and individuals unable to find better opportunities abroad due to a lack of resources. In 1971, the assassination of a rabbi in the heart of the capital triggered a new wave of emigration. The Yom Kippur War in October 1973, the Operation Peace for Galilee on June 6, 1982, the establishment of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) headquarters in Hammam Chott, and its bombing by the Israeli Air Force on October 1, 1985, further spurred additional waves of emigration. Several incidents also occurred, such as during Yom Kippur in 1982, when Jews were targeted in Zarzis, Ben Gardane, and Djerba. In October 1983, the Zarzis Synagogue was ravaged by a fire attributed by the Jewish community to extremist groups. In 1985, a soldier guarding the Ghriba synagogue in Djerba opened fire on worshippers, killing five people, including four Jews.[citation needed] According to Frédéric Lasserre and Aline Lechaume, the shooter was a policeman on duty outside a synagogue on the island who, officially described as acting "in a fit of madness," killed two worshippers and injured six. Another incident occurred toward the end of President Bourguiba's tenure: the Club Med in Korba was vandalized after an operator had vacationers sing the Israeli national anthem. Following these incidents, the government implemented measures to protect the Jewish community. Following independence, a mixed picture emerged. Arab Spring (post-2011) After the Tunisian revolution, Ennahda became the leading political force in the country, elected as the largest party in the transitional government. The party's leader, Rached Ghannouchi, sent a delegation to the Jews in Djerba, assuring them that they have nothing to worry about in a democratic Tunisia, where the Islamists would play a larger role. He even sent gifts to the Jewish nursing homes in Tunis. In November 2012, the community asked for the army's protection when a policeman was arrested after plotting to kidnap a young Jew for a ransom. In 2011, the Israeli cabinet announced that it had allocated funding to help Tunisian Jews move to Israel due to growing manifestations of antisemitism and the difficult economic situation. In January 2014, the Ennahda-led government voluntarily stepped aside and a transitional government, appointed to rule during the drafting of the new constitution until democratic elections would be held later in the year, took office. The new secular constitution for the first time explicitly protected not only freedom of religion, but freedom of conscience (freedom to become atheist, leave or change religions), and explicitly protected minorities such as Jews from official or unofficial discrimination. The new Tunisian constitution is the first of its kind in the Maghreb and the Arab world in embracing both Arabism and liberal secularism, and is seen as a model for other countries to adopt. The democratically elected constitutional committee, dominated by Ennahda, also rejected terms which would have forbidden relations with Israel. Education and culture The Jewish community in Tunis operates three primary schools, two secondary schools, and a yeshiva. The Jewish community in Djerba operates one kindergarten, two primary schools, two secondary schools, and a yeshiva. There is also a Jewish primary school and synagogue in the coastal city of Zarzis. The Jewish community also has two homes for the aged. Tunisia's first Jewish museum opened in 2012. In 2015, Tunis' last kosher restaurant closed due to security concerns. Synagogues The most famous synagogue in Tunisia is the El Ghriba synagogue in the village of Hara Sghira on Djerba. The current building was constructed in late 19th or early 20th century, but the site is believed to have had a synagogue on it for the past 1,900 years. Tunisian Jews have for centuries made an annual pilgrimage to the synagogue on Lag Ba'Omer. On April 11, 2002, a truck full of explosives was detonated close to the synagogue, killing 21 people (of whom 14 were German tourists and 2 Frenchmen), and wounding over 30. Al Qaeda claimed responsibility. Hayyim Madar was the chief rabbi until his death on December 3, 2004. Memorial services were held at the Beit Mordekhai Synagogue in La Goulette, Tunis, and the El Ghriba synagogue on the island of Djerba. In May 2023, a Tunisian police officer killed four in a shooting near El Ghriba synagogue on Djerba, also the site of 2002's Ghriba synagogue bombing. An attacker fired a gun into a crowd visiting the house of worship during an annual pilgrimage event. In October 2023, during pro-Palestine ptotests riots sparked by blame on Israel for the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital bombing, hundreds of rioters hammered away the building's walls, set fire and planted Palestinian flags at the site of a historic synagogue in Tunisia, El Hamma synagogue, with videos showing people attacking it without police intervention. Films and documentaries See also References Bibliography |
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Contents Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun. It is also known as the "Red Planet", for its orange-red appearance. Mars is a desert-like rocky planet with a tenuous atmosphere that is primarily carbon dioxide (CO2). At the average surface level the atmospheric pressure is a few thousandths of Earth's, atmospheric temperature ranges from −153 to 20 °C (−243 to 68 °F), and cosmic radiation is high. Mars retains some water, in the ground as well as thinly in the atmosphere, forming cirrus clouds, fog, frost, larger polar regions of permafrost and ice caps (with seasonal CO2 snow), but no bodies of liquid surface water. Its surface gravity is roughly a third of Earth's or double that of the Moon. Its diameter, 6,779 km (4,212 mi), is about half the Earth's, or twice the Moon's, and its surface area is the size of all the dry land of Earth. Fine dust is prevalent across the surface and the atmosphere, being picked up and spread at the low Martian gravity even by the weak wind of the tenuous atmosphere. The terrain of Mars roughly follows a north-south divide, the Martian dichotomy, with the northern hemisphere mainly consisting of relatively flat, low lying plains, and the southern hemisphere of cratered highlands. Geologically, the planet is fairly active with marsquakes trembling underneath the ground, but also hosts many enormous volcanoes that are extinct (the tallest is Olympus Mons, 21.9 km or 13.6 mi tall), as well as one of the largest canyons in the Solar System (Valles Marineris, 4,000 km or 2,500 mi long). Mars has two natural satellites that are small and irregular in shape: Phobos and Deimos. With a significant axial tilt of 25 degrees, Mars experiences seasons, like Earth (which has an axial tilt of 23.5 degrees). A Martian solar year is equal to 1.88 Earth years (687 Earth days), a Martian solar day (sol) is equal to 24.6 hours. Mars formed along with the other planets approximately 4.5 billion years ago. During the martian Noachian period (4.5 to 3.5 billion years ago), its surface was marked by meteor impacts, valley formation, erosion, the possible presence of water oceans and the loss of its magnetosphere. The Hesperian period (beginning 3.5 billion years ago and ending 3.3–2.9 billion years ago) was dominated by widespread volcanic activity and flooding that carved immense outflow channels. The Amazonian period, which continues to the present, is the currently dominating and remaining influence on geological processes. Because of Mars's geological history, the possibility of past or present life on Mars remains an area of active scientific investigation, with some possible traces needing further examination. Being visible with the naked eye in Earth's sky as a red wandering star, Mars has been observed throughout history, acquiring diverse associations in different cultures. In 1963 the first flight to Mars took place with Mars 1, but communication was lost en route. The first successful flyby exploration of Mars was conducted in 1965 with Mariner 4. In 1971 Mariner 9 entered orbit around Mars, being the first spacecraft to orbit any body other than the Moon, Sun or Earth; following in the same year were the first uncontrolled impact (Mars 2) and first successful landing (Mars 3) on Mars. Probes have been active on Mars continuously since 1997. At times, more than ten probes have simultaneously operated in orbit or on the surface, more than at any other planet beyond Earth. Mars is an often proposed target for future crewed exploration missions, though no such mission is currently planned. Natural history Scientists have theorized that during the Solar System's formation, Mars was created as the result of a random process of run-away accretion of material from the protoplanetary disk that orbited the Sun. Mars has many distinctive chemical features caused by its position in the Solar System. Elements with comparatively low boiling points, such as chlorine, phosphorus, and sulfur, are much more common on Mars than on Earth; these elements were probably pushed outward by the young Sun's energetic solar wind. After the formation of the planets, the inner Solar System may have been subjected to the so-called Late Heavy Bombardment. About 60% of the surface of Mars shows a record of impacts from that era, whereas much of the remaining surface is probably underlain by immense impact basins caused by those events. However, more recent modeling has disputed the existence of the Late Heavy Bombardment. There is evidence of an enormous impact basin in the Northern Hemisphere of Mars, spanning 10,600 by 8,500 kilometres (6,600 by 5,300 mi), or roughly four times the size of the Moon's South Pole–Aitken basin, which would be the largest impact basin yet discovered if confirmed. It has been hypothesized that the basin was formed when Mars was struck by a Pluto-sized body about four billion years ago. The event, thought to be the cause of the Martian hemispheric dichotomy, created the smooth Borealis basin that covers 40% of the planet. A 2023 study shows evidence, based on the orbital inclination of Deimos (a small moon of Mars), that Mars may once have had a ring system 3.5 billion years to 4 billion years ago. This ring system may have been formed from a moon, 20 times more massive than Phobos, orbiting Mars billions of years ago; and Phobos would be a remnant of that ring. Epochs: The geological history of Mars can be split into many periods, but the following are the three primary periods: Geological activity is still taking place on Mars. The Athabasca Valles is home to sheet-like lava flows created about 200 million years ago. Water flows in the grabens called the Cerberus Fossae occurred less than 20 million years ago, indicating equally recent volcanic intrusions. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has captured images of avalanches. Physical characteristics Mars is approximately half the diameter of Earth or twice that of the Moon, with a surface area only slightly less than the total area of Earth's dry land. Mars is less dense than Earth, having about 15% of Earth's volume and 11% of Earth's mass, resulting in about 38% of Earth's surface gravity. Mars is the only presently known example of a desert planet, a rocky planet with a surface akin to that of Earth's deserts. The red-orange appearance of the Martian surface is caused by iron(III) oxide (nanophase Fe2O3) and the iron(III) oxide-hydroxide mineral goethite. It can look like butterscotch; other common surface colors include golden, brown, tan, and greenish, depending on the minerals present. Like Earth, Mars is differentiated into a dense metallic core overlaid by less dense rocky layers. The outermost layer is the crust, which is on average about 42–56 kilometres (26–35 mi) thick, with a minimum thickness of 6 kilometres (3.7 mi) in Isidis Planitia, and a maximum thickness of 117 kilometres (73 mi) in the southern Tharsis plateau. For comparison, Earth's crust averages 27.3 ± 4.8 km in thickness. The most abundant elements in the Martian crust are silicon, oxygen, iron, magnesium, aluminum, calcium, and potassium. Mars is confirmed to be seismically active; in 2019, it was reported that InSight had detected and recorded over 450 marsquakes and related events. Beneath the crust is a silicate mantle responsible for many of the tectonic and volcanic features on the planet's surface. The upper Martian mantle is a low-velocity zone, where the velocity of seismic waves is lower than surrounding depth intervals. The mantle appears to be rigid down to the depth of about 250 km, giving Mars a very thick lithosphere compared to Earth. Below this the mantle gradually becomes more ductile, and the seismic wave velocity starts to grow again. The Martian mantle does not appear to have a thermally insulating layer analogous to Earth's lower mantle; instead, below 1050 km in depth, it becomes mineralogically similar to Earth's transition zone. At the bottom of the mantle lies a basal liquid silicate layer approximately 150–180 km thick. The Martian mantle appears to be highly heterogenous, with dense fragments up to 4 km across, likely injected deep into the planet by colossal impacts ~4.5 billion years ago; high-frequency waves from eight marsquakes slowed as they passed these localized regions, and modeling indicates the heterogeneities are compositionally distinct debris preserved because Mars lacks plate tectonics and has a sluggishly convecting interior that prevents complete homogenization. Mars's iron and nickel core is at least partially molten, and may have a solid inner core. It is around half of Mars's radius, approximately 1650–1675 km, and is enriched in light elements such as sulfur, oxygen, carbon, and hydrogen. The temperature of the core is estimated to be 2000–2400 K, compared to 5400–6230 K for Earth's solid inner core. In 2025, based on data from the InSight lander, a group of researchers reported the detection of a solid inner core 613 kilometres (381 mi) ± 67 kilometres (42 mi) in radius. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a surface that consists of minerals containing silicon and oxygen, metals, and other elements that typically make up rock. The Martian surface is primarily composed of tholeiitic basalt, although parts are more silica-rich than typical basalt and may be similar to andesitic rocks on Earth, or silica glass. Regions of low albedo suggest concentrations of plagioclase feldspar, with northern low albedo regions displaying higher than normal concentrations of sheet silicates and high-silicon glass. Parts of the southern highlands include detectable amounts of high-calcium pyroxenes. Localized concentrations of hematite and olivine have been found. Much of the surface is deeply covered by finely grained iron(III) oxide dust. The Phoenix lander returned data showing Martian soil to be slightly alkaline and containing elements such as magnesium, sodium, potassium and chlorine. These nutrients are found in soils on Earth, and are necessary for plant growth. Experiments performed by the lander showed that the Martian soil has a basic pH of 7.7, and contains 0.6% perchlorate by weight, concentrations that are toxic to humans. Streaks are common across Mars and new ones appear frequently on steep slopes of craters, troughs, and valleys. The streaks are dark at first and get lighter with age. The streaks can start in a tiny area, then spread out for hundreds of metres. They have been seen to follow the edges of boulders and other obstacles in their path. The commonly accepted hypotheses include that they are dark underlying layers of soil revealed after avalanches of bright dust or dust devils. Several other explanations have been put forward, including those that involve water or even the growth of organisms. Environmental radiation levels on the surface are on average 0.64 millisieverts of radiation per day, and significantly less than the radiation of 1.84 millisieverts per day or 22 millirads per day during the flight to and from Mars. For comparison the radiation levels in low Earth orbit, where Earth's space stations orbit, are around 0.5 millisieverts of radiation per day. Hellas Planitia has the lowest surface radiation at about 0.342 millisieverts per day, featuring lava tubes southwest of Hadriacus Mons with potentially levels as low as 0.064 millisieverts per day, comparable to radiation levels during flights on Earth. Although Mars has no evidence of a structured global magnetic field, observations show that parts of the planet's crust have been magnetized, suggesting that alternating polarity reversals of its dipole field have occurred in the past. This paleomagnetism of magnetically susceptible minerals is similar to the alternating bands found on Earth's ocean floors. One hypothesis, published in 1999 and re-examined in October 2005 (with the help of the Mars Global Surveyor), is that these bands suggest plate tectonic activity on Mars four billion years ago, before the planetary dynamo ceased to function and the planet's magnetic field faded. Geography and features Although better remembered for mapping the Moon, Johann Heinrich von Mädler and Wilhelm Beer were the first areographers. They began by establishing that most of Mars's surface features were permanent and by more precisely determining the planet's rotation period. In 1840, Mädler combined ten years of observations and drew the first map of Mars. Features on Mars are named from a variety of sources. Albedo features are named for classical mythology. Craters larger than roughly 50 km are named for deceased scientists and writers and others who have contributed to the study of Mars. Smaller craters are named for towns and villages of the world with populations of less than 100,000. Large valleys are named for the word "Mars" or "star" in various languages; smaller valleys are named for rivers. Large albedo features retain many of the older names but are often updated to reflect new knowledge of the nature of the features. For example, Nix Olympica (the snows of Olympus) has become Olympus Mons (Mount Olympus). The surface of Mars as seen from Earth is divided into two kinds of areas, with differing albedo. The paler plains covered with dust and sand rich in reddish iron oxides were once thought of as Martian "continents" and given names like Arabia Terra (land of Arabia) or Amazonis Planitia (Amazonian plain). The dark features were thought to be seas, hence their names Mare Erythraeum, Mare Sirenum and Aurorae Sinus. The largest dark feature seen from Earth is Syrtis Major Planum. The permanent northern polar ice cap is named Planum Boreum. The southern cap is called Planum Australe. Mars's equator is defined by its rotation, but the location of its Prime Meridian was specified, as was Earth's (at Greenwich), by choice of an arbitrary point; Mädler and Beer selected a line for their first maps of Mars in 1830. After the spacecraft Mariner 9 provided extensive imagery of Mars in 1972, a small crater (later called Airy-0), located in the Sinus Meridiani ("Middle Bay" or "Meridian Bay"), was chosen by Merton E. Davies, Harold Masursky, and Gérard de Vaucouleurs for the definition of 0.0° longitude to coincide with the original selection. Because Mars has no oceans, and hence no "sea level", a zero-elevation surface had to be selected as a reference level; this is called the areoid of Mars, analogous to the terrestrial geoid. Zero altitude was defined by the height at which there is 610.5 Pa (6.105 mbar) of atmospheric pressure. This pressure corresponds to the triple point of water, and it is about 0.6% of the sea level surface pressure on Earth (0.006 atm). For mapping purposes, the United States Geological Survey divides the surface of Mars into thirty cartographic quadrangles, each named for a classical albedo feature it contains. In April 2023, The New York Times reported an updated global map of Mars based on images from the Hope spacecraft. A related, but much more detailed, global Mars map was released by NASA on 16 April 2023. The vast upland region Tharsis contains several massive volcanoes, which include the shield volcano Olympus Mons. The edifice is over 600 km (370 mi) wide. Because the mountain is so large, with complex structure at its edges, giving a definite height to it is difficult. Its local relief, from the foot of the cliffs which form its northwest margin to its peak, is over 21 km (13 mi), a little over twice the height of Mauna Kea as measured from its base on the ocean floor. The total elevation change from the plains of Amazonis Planitia, over 1,000 km (620 mi) to the northwest, to the summit approaches 26 km (16 mi), roughly three times the height of Mount Everest, which in comparison stands at just over 8.8 kilometres (5.5 mi). Consequently, Olympus Mons is either the tallest or second-tallest mountain in the Solar System; the only known mountain which might be taller is the Rheasilvia peak on the asteroid Vesta, at 20–25 km (12–16 mi). The dichotomy of Martian topography is striking: northern plains flattened by lava flows contrast with the southern highlands, pitted and cratered by ancient impacts. It is possible that, four billion years ago, the Northern Hemisphere of Mars was struck by an object one-tenth to two-thirds the size of Earth's Moon. If this is the case, the Northern Hemisphere of Mars would be the site of an impact crater 10,600 by 8,500 kilometres (6,600 by 5,300 mi) in size, or roughly the area of Europe, Asia, and Australia combined, surpassing Utopia Planitia and the Moon's South Pole–Aitken basin as the largest impact crater in the Solar System. Mars is scarred by 43,000 impact craters with a diameter of 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) or greater. The largest exposed crater is Hellas, which is 2,300 kilometres (1,400 mi) wide and 7,000 metres (23,000 ft) deep, and is a light albedo feature clearly visible from Earth. There are other notable impact features, such as Argyre, which is around 1,800 kilometres (1,100 mi) in diameter, and Isidis, which is around 1,500 kilometres (930 mi) in diameter. Due to the smaller mass and size of Mars, the probability of an object colliding with the planet is about half that of Earth. Mars is located closer to the asteroid belt, so it has an increased chance of being struck by materials from that source. Mars is more likely to be struck by short-period comets, i.e., those that lie within the orbit of Jupiter. Martian craters can[discuss] have a morphology that suggests the ground became wet after the meteor impact. The large canyon, Valles Marineris (Latin for 'Mariner Valleys, also known as Agathodaemon in the old canal maps), has a length of 4,000 kilometres (2,500 mi) and a depth of up to 7 kilometres (4.3 mi). The length of Valles Marineris is equivalent to the length of Europe and extends across one-fifth the circumference of Mars. By comparison, the Grand Canyon on Earth is only 446 kilometres (277 mi) long and nearly 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) deep. Valles Marineris was formed due to the swelling of the Tharsis area, which caused the crust in the area of Valles Marineris to collapse. In 2012, it was proposed that Valles Marineris is not just a graben, but a plate boundary where 150 kilometres (93 mi) of transverse motion has occurred, making Mars a planet with possibly a two-tectonic plate arrangement. Images from the Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) aboard NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter have revealed seven possible cave entrances on the flanks of the volcano Arsia Mons. The caves, named after loved ones of their discoverers, are collectively known as the "seven sisters". Cave entrances measure from 100 to 252 metres (328 to 827 ft) wide and they are estimated to be at least 73 to 96 metres (240 to 315 ft) deep. Because light does not reach the floor of most of the caves, they may extend much deeper than these lower estimates and widen below the surface. "Dena" is the only exception; its floor is visible and was measured to be 130 metres (430 ft) deep. The interiors of these caverns may be protected from micrometeoroids, UV radiation, solar flares and high energy particles that bombard the planet's surface. Martian geysers (or CO2 jets) are putative sites of small gas and dust eruptions that occur in the south polar region of Mars during the spring thaw. "Dark dune spots" and "spiders" – or araneiforms – are the two most visible types of features ascribed to these eruptions. Similarly sized dust will settle from the thinner Martian atmosphere sooner than it would on Earth. For example, the dust suspended by the 2001 global dust storms on Mars only remained in the Martian atmosphere for 0.6 years, while the dust from Mount Pinatubo took about two years to settle. However, under current Martian conditions, the mass movements involved are generally much smaller than on Earth. Even the 2001 global dust storms on Mars moved only the equivalent of a very thin dust layer – about 3 μm thick if deposited with uniform thickness between 58° north and south of the equator. Dust deposition at the two rover sites has proceeded at a rate of about the thickness of a grain every 100 sols. Atmosphere Mars lost its magnetosphere 4 billion years ago, possibly because of numerous asteroid strikes, so the solar wind interacts directly with the Martian ionosphere, lowering the atmospheric density by stripping away atoms from the outer layer. Both Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Express have detected ionized atmospheric particles trailing off into space behind Mars, and this atmospheric loss is being studied by the MAVEN orbiter. Compared to Earth, the atmosphere of Mars is quite rarefied. Atmospheric pressure on the surface today ranges from a low of 30 Pa (0.0044 psi) on Olympus Mons to over 1,155 Pa (0.1675 psi) in Hellas Planitia, with a mean pressure at the surface level of 600 Pa (0.087 psi). The highest atmospheric density on Mars is equal to that found 35 kilometres (22 mi) above Earth's surface. The resulting mean surface pressure is only 0.6% of Earth's 101.3 kPa (14.69 psi). The scale height of the atmosphere is about 10.8 kilometres (6.7 mi), which is higher than Earth's 6 kilometres (3.7 mi), because the surface gravity of Mars is only about 38% of Earth's. The atmosphere of Mars consists of about 96% carbon dioxide, 1.93% argon and 1.89% nitrogen along with traces of oxygen and water. The atmosphere is quite dusty, containing particulates about 1.5 μm in diameter which give the Martian sky a tawny color when seen from the surface. It may take on a pink hue due to iron oxide particles suspended in it. Despite repeated detections of methane on Mars, there is no scientific consensus as to its origin. One suggestion is that methane exists on Mars and that its concentration fluctuates seasonally. The existence of methane could be produced by non-biological process such as serpentinization involving water, carbon dioxide, and the mineral olivine, which is known to be common on Mars, or by Martian life. Compared to Earth, its higher concentration of atmospheric CO2 and lower surface pressure may be why sound is attenuated more on Mars, where natural sources are rare apart from the wind. Using acoustic recordings collected by the Perseverance rover, researchers concluded that the speed of sound there is approximately 240 m/s for frequencies below 240 Hz, and 250 m/s for those above. Auroras have been detected on Mars. Because Mars lacks a global magnetic field, the types and distribution of auroras there differ from those on Earth; rather than being mostly restricted to polar regions as is the case on Earth, a Martian aurora can encompass the planet. In September 2017, NASA reported radiation levels on the surface of the planet Mars were temporarily doubled, and were associated with an aurora 25 times brighter than any observed earlier, due to a massive, and unexpected, solar storm in the middle of the month. Mars has seasons, alternating between its northern and southern hemispheres, similar to on Earth. Additionally the orbit of Mars has, compared to Earth's, a large eccentricity and approaches perihelion when it is summer in its southern hemisphere and winter in its northern, and aphelion when it is winter in its southern hemisphere and summer in its northern. As a result, the seasons in its southern hemisphere are more extreme and the seasons in its northern are milder than would otherwise be the case. The summer temperatures in the south can be warmer than the equivalent summer temperatures in the north by up to 30 °C (54 °F). Martian surface temperatures vary from lows of about −110 °C (−166 °F) to highs of up to 35 °C (95 °F) in equatorial summer. The wide range in temperatures is due to the thin atmosphere which cannot store much solar heat, the low atmospheric pressure (about 1% that of the atmosphere of Earth), and the low thermal inertia of Martian soil. The planet is 1.52 times as far from the Sun as Earth, resulting in just 43% of the amount of sunlight. Mars has the largest dust storms in the Solar System, reaching speeds of over 160 km/h (100 mph). These can vary from a storm over a small area, to gigantic storms that cover the entire planet. They tend to occur when Mars is closest to the Sun, and have been shown to increase global temperature. Seasons also produce dry ice covering polar ice caps. Hydrology While Mars contains water in larger amounts, most of it is dust covered water ice at the Martian polar ice caps. The volume of water ice in the south polar ice cap, if melted, would be enough to cover most of the surface of the planet with a depth of 11 metres (36 ft). Water in its liquid form cannot persist on the surface due to Mars's low atmospheric pressure, which is less than 1% that of Earth. Only at the lowest of elevations are the pressure and temperature high enough for liquid water to exist for short periods. Although little water is present in the atmosphere, there is enough to produce clouds of water ice and different cases of snow and frost, often mixed with snow of carbon dioxide dry ice. Landforms visible on Mars strongly suggest that liquid water has existed on the planet's surface. Huge linear swathes of scoured ground, known as outflow channels, cut across the surface in about 25 places. These are thought to be a record of erosion caused by the catastrophic release of water from subsurface aquifers, though some of these structures have been hypothesized to result from the action of glaciers or lava. One of the larger examples, Ma'adim Vallis, is 700 kilometres (430 mi) long, much greater than the Grand Canyon, with a width of 20 kilometres (12 mi) and a depth of 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) in places. It is thought to have been carved by flowing water early in Mars's history. The youngest of these channels is thought to have formed only a few million years ago. Elsewhere, particularly on the oldest areas of the Martian surface, finer-scale, dendritic networks of valleys are spread across significant proportions of the landscape. Features of these valleys and their distribution strongly imply that they were carved by runoff resulting from precipitation in early Mars history. Subsurface water flow and groundwater sapping may play important subsidiary roles in some networks, but precipitation was probably the root cause of the incision in almost all cases. Along craters and canyon walls, there are thousands of features that appear similar to terrestrial gullies. The gullies tend to be in the highlands of the Southern Hemisphere and face the Equator; all are poleward of 30° latitude. A number of authors have suggested that their formation process involves liquid water, probably from melting ice, although others have argued for formation mechanisms involving carbon dioxide frost or the movement of dry dust. No partially degraded gullies have formed by weathering and no superimposed impact craters have been observed, indicating that these are young features, possibly still active. Other geological features, such as deltas and alluvial fans preserved in craters, are further evidence for warmer, wetter conditions at an interval or intervals in earlier Mars history. Such conditions necessarily require the widespread presence of crater lakes across a large proportion of the surface, for which there is independent mineralogical, sedimentological and geomorphological evidence. Further evidence that liquid water once existed on the surface of Mars comes from the detection of specific minerals such as hematite and goethite, both of which sometimes form in the presence of water. The chemical signature of water vapor on Mars was first unequivocally demonstrated in 1963 by spectroscopy using an Earth-based telescope. In 2004, Opportunity detected the mineral jarosite. This forms only in the presence of acidic water, showing that water once existed on Mars. The Spirit rover found concentrated deposits of silica in 2007 that indicated wet conditions in the past, and in December 2011, the mineral gypsum, which also forms in the presence of water, was found on the surface by NASA's Mars rover Opportunity. It is estimated that the amount of water in the upper mantle of Mars, represented by hydroxyl ions contained within Martian minerals, is equal to or greater than that of Earth at 50–300 parts per million of water, which is enough to cover the entire planet to a depth of 200–1,000 metres (660–3,280 ft). On 18 March 2013, NASA reported evidence from instruments on the Curiosity rover of mineral hydration, likely hydrated calcium sulfate, in several rock samples including the broken fragments of "Tintina" rock and "Sutton Inlier" rock as well as in veins and nodules in other rocks like "Knorr" rock and "Wernicke" rock. Analysis using the rover's DAN instrument provided evidence of subsurface water, amounting to as much as 4% water content, down to a depth of 60 centimetres (24 in), during the rover's traverse from the Bradbury Landing site to the Yellowknife Bay area in the Glenelg terrain. In September 2015, NASA announced that they had found strong evidence of hydrated brine flows in recurring slope lineae, based on spectrometer readings of the darkened areas of slopes. These streaks flow downhill in Martian summer, when the temperature is above −23 °C, and freeze at lower temperatures. These observations supported earlier hypotheses, based on timing of formation and their rate of growth, that these dark streaks resulted from water flowing just below the surface. However, later work suggested that the lineae may be dry, granular flows instead, with at most a limited role for water in initiating the process. A definitive conclusion about the presence, extent, and role of liquid water on the Martian surface remains elusive. Researchers suspect much of the low northern plains of the planet were covered with an ocean hundreds of meters deep, though this theory remains controversial. In March 2015, scientists stated that such an ocean might have been the size of Earth's Arctic Ocean. This finding was derived from the ratio of protium to deuterium in the modern Martian atmosphere compared to that ratio on Earth. The amount of Martian deuterium (D/H = 9.3 ± 1.7 10−4) is five to seven times the amount on Earth (D/H = 1.56 10−4), suggesting that ancient Mars had significantly higher levels of water. Results from the Curiosity rover had previously found a high ratio of deuterium in Gale Crater, though not significantly high enough to suggest the former presence of an ocean. Other scientists caution that these results have not been confirmed, and point out that Martian climate models have not yet shown that the planet was warm enough in the past to support bodies of liquid water. Near the northern polar cap is the 81.4 kilometres (50.6 mi) wide Korolev Crater, which the Mars Express orbiter found to be filled with approximately 2,200 cubic kilometres (530 cu mi) of water ice. In November 2016, NASA reported finding a large amount of underground ice in the Utopia Planitia region. The volume of water detected has been estimated to be equivalent to the volume of water in Lake Superior (which is 12,100 cubic kilometers). During observations from 2018 through 2021, the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter spotted indications of water, probably subsurface ice, in the Valles Marineris canyon system. Orbital motion Mars's average distance from the Sun is roughly 230 million km (143 million mi), and its orbital period is 687 (Earth) days. The solar day (or sol) on Mars is only slightly longer than an Earth day: 24 hours, 39 minutes, and 35.244 seconds. A Martian year is equal to 1.8809 Earth years, or 1 year, 320 days, and 18.2 hours. The gravitational potential difference and thus the delta-v needed to transfer between Mars and Earth is the second lowest for Earth. The axial tilt of Mars is 25.19° relative to its orbital plane, which is similar to the axial tilt of Earth. As a result, Mars has seasons like Earth, though on Mars they are nearly twice as long because its orbital period is that much longer. In the present day, the orientation of the north pole of Mars is close to the star Deneb. Mars has a relatively pronounced orbital eccentricity of about 0.09; of the seven other planets in the Solar System, only Mercury has a larger orbital eccentricity. It is known that in the past, Mars has had a much more circular orbit. At one point, 1.35 million Earth years ago, Mars had an eccentricity of roughly 0.002, much less than that of Earth today. Mars's cycle of eccentricity is 96,000 Earth years compared to Earth's cycle of 100,000 years. Mars has its closest approach to Earth (opposition) in a synodic period of 779.94 days. It should not be confused with Mars conjunction, where the Earth and Mars are at opposite sides of the Solar System and form a straight line crossing the Sun. The average time between the successive oppositions of Mars, its synodic period, is 780 days; but the number of days between successive oppositions can range from 764 to 812. The distance at close approach varies between about 54 and 103 million km (34 and 64 million mi) due to the planets' elliptical orbits, which causes comparable variation in angular size. At their furthest Mars and Earth can be as far as 401 million km (249 million mi) apart. Mars comes into opposition from Earth every 2.1 years. The planets come into opposition near Mars's perihelion in 2003, 2018 and 2035, with the 2020 and 2033 events being particularly close to perihelic opposition. The mean apparent magnitude of Mars is +0.71 with a standard deviation of 1.05. Because the orbit of Mars is eccentric, the magnitude at opposition from the Sun can range from about −3.0 to −1.4. The minimum brightness is magnitude +1.86 when the planet is near aphelion and in conjunction with the Sun. At its brightest, Mars (along with Jupiter) is second only to Venus in apparent brightness. Mars usually appears distinctly yellow, orange, or red. When farthest away from Earth, it is more than seven times farther away than when it is closest. Mars is usually close enough for particularly good viewing once or twice at 15-year or 17-year intervals. Optical ground-based telescopes are typically limited to resolving features about 300 kilometres (190 mi) across when Earth and Mars are closest because of Earth's atmosphere. As Mars approaches opposition, it begins a period of retrograde motion, which means it will appear to move backwards in a looping curve with respect to the background stars. This retrograde motion lasts for about 72 days, and Mars reaches its peak apparent brightness in the middle of this interval. Moons Mars has two relatively small (compared to Earth's) natural moons, Phobos (about 22 km (14 mi) in diameter) and Deimos (about 12 km (7.5 mi) in diameter), which orbit at 9,376 km (5,826 mi) and 23,460 km (14,580 mi) around the planet. The origin of both moons is unclear, although a popular theory states that they were asteroids captured into Martian orbit. Both satellites were discovered in 1877 by Asaph Hall and were named after the characters Phobos (the deity of panic and fear) and Deimos (the deity of terror and dread), twins from Greek mythology who accompanied their father Ares, god of war, into battle. Mars was the Roman equivalent to Ares. In modern Greek, the planet retains its ancient name Ares (Aris: Άρης). From the surface of Mars, the motions of Phobos and Deimos appear different from that of the Earth's satellite, the Moon. Phobos rises in the west, sets in the east, and rises again in just 11 hours. Deimos, being only just outside synchronous orbit – where the orbital period would match the planet's period of rotation – rises as expected in the east, but slowly. Because the orbit of Phobos is below a synchronous altitude, tidal forces from Mars are gradually lowering its orbit. In about 50 million years, it could either crash into Mars's surface or break up into a ring structure around the planet. The origin of the two satellites is not well understood. Their low albedo and carbonaceous chondrite composition have been regarded as similar to asteroids, supporting a capture theory. The unstable orbit of Phobos would seem to point toward a relatively recent capture. But both have circular orbits near the equator, which is unusual for captured objects, and the required capture dynamics are complex. Accretion early in the history of Mars is plausible, but would not account for a composition resembling asteroids rather than Mars itself, if that is confirmed. Mars may have yet-undiscovered moons, smaller than 50 to 100 metres (160 to 330 ft) in diameter, and a dust ring is predicted to exist between Phobos and Deimos. A third possibility for their origin as satellites of Mars is the involvement of a third body or a type of impact disruption. More-recent lines of evidence for Phobos having a highly porous interior, and suggesting a composition containing mainly phyllosilicates and other minerals known from Mars, point toward an origin of Phobos from material ejected by an impact on Mars that reaccreted in Martian orbit, similar to the prevailing theory for the origin of Earth's satellite. Although the visible and near-infrared (VNIR) spectra of the moons of Mars resemble those of outer-belt asteroids, the thermal infrared spectra of Phobos are reported to be inconsistent with chondrites of any class. It is also possible that Phobos and Deimos were fragments of an older moon, formed by debris from a large impact on Mars, and then destroyed by a more recent impact upon the satellite. More recently, a study conducted by a team of researchers from multiple countries suggests that a lost moon, at least fifteen times the size of Phobos, may have existed in the past. By analyzing rocks which point to tidal processes on the planet, it is possible that these tides may have been regulated by a past moon. Human observations and exploration The history of observations of Mars is marked by oppositions of Mars when the planet is closest to Earth and hence is most easily visible, which occur every couple of years. Even more notable are the perihelic oppositions of Mars, which are distinguished because Mars is close to perihelion, making it even closer to Earth. The ancient Sumerians named Mars Nergal, the god of war and plague. During Sumerian times, Nergal was a minor deity of little significance, but, during later times, his main cult center was the city of Nineveh. In Mesopotamian texts, Mars is referred to as the "star of judgement of the fate of the dead". The existence of Mars as a wandering object in the night sky was also recorded by the ancient Egyptian astronomers and, by 1534 BCE, they were familiar with the retrograde motion of the planet. By the period of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, the Babylonian astronomers were making regular records of the positions of the planets and systematic observations of their behavior. For Mars, they knew that the planet made 37 synodic periods, or 42 circuits of the zodiac, every 79 years. They invented arithmetic methods for making minor corrections to the predicted positions of the planets. In Ancient Greece, the planet was known as Πυρόεις. Commonly, the Greek name for the planet now referred to as Mars, was Ares. It was the Romans who named the planet Mars, for their god of war, often represented by the sword and shield of the planet's namesake. In the fourth century BCE, Aristotle noted that Mars disappeared behind the Moon during an occultation, indicating that the planet was farther away. Ptolemy, a Greek living in Alexandria, attempted to address the problem of the orbital motion of Mars. Ptolemy's model and his collective work on astronomy was presented in the multi-volume collection later called the Almagest (from the Arabic for "greatest"), which became the authoritative treatise on Western astronomy for the next fourteen centuries. Literature from ancient China confirms that Mars was known by Chinese astronomers by no later than the fourth century BCE. In the East Asian cultures, Mars is traditionally referred to as the "fire star" (火星) based on the Wuxing system. In 1609 Johannes Kepler published a 10 year study of Martian orbit, using the diurnal parallax of Mars, measured by Tycho Brahe, to make a preliminary calculation of the relative distance to the planet. From Brahe's observations of Mars, Kepler deduced that the planet orbited the Sun not in a circle, but in an ellipse. Moreover, Kepler showed that Mars sped up as it approached the Sun and slowed down as it moved farther away, in a manner that later physicists would explain as a consequence of the conservation of angular momentum.: 433–437 In 1610 the first use of a telescope for astronomical observation, including Mars, was performed by Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei. With the telescope the diurnal parallax of Mars was again measured in an effort to determine the Sun-Earth distance. This was first performed by Giovanni Domenico Cassini in 1672. The early parallax measurements were hampered by the quality of the instruments. The only occultation of Mars by Venus observed was that of 13 October 1590, seen by Michael Maestlin at Heidelberg. By the 19th century, the resolution of telescopes reached a level sufficient for surface features to be identified. On 5 September 1877, a perihelic opposition to Mars occurred. The Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli used a 22-centimetre (8.7 in) telescope in Milan to help produce the first detailed map of Mars. These maps notably contained features he called canali, which, with the possible exception of the natural canyon Valles Marineris, were later shown to be an optical illusion. These canali were supposedly long, straight lines on the surface of Mars, to which he gave names of famous rivers on Earth. His term, which means "channels" or "grooves", was popularly mistranslated in English as "canals". Influenced by the observations, the orientalist Percival Lowell founded an observatory which had 30- and 45-centimetre (12- and 18-in) telescopes. The observatory was used for the exploration of Mars during the last good opportunity in 1894, and the following less favorable oppositions. He published several books on Mars and life on the planet, which had a great influence on the public. The canali were independently observed by other astronomers, like Henri Joseph Perrotin and Louis Thollon in Nice, using one of the largest telescopes of that time. The seasonal changes (consisting of the diminishing of the polar caps and the dark areas formed during Martian summers) in combination with the canals led to speculation about life on Mars, and it was a long-held belief that Mars contained vast seas and vegetation. As bigger telescopes were used, fewer long, straight canali were observed. During observations in 1909 by Antoniadi with an 84-centimetre (33 in) telescope, irregular patterns were observed, but no canali were seen. The first spacecraft from Earth to visit Mars was Mars 1 of the Soviet Union, which flew by in 1963, but contact was lost en route. NASA's Mariner 4 followed and became the first spacecraft to successfully transmit from Mars; launched on 28 November 1964, it made its closest approach to the planet on 15 July 1965. Mariner 4 detected the weak Martian radiation belt, measured at about 0.1% that of Earth, and captured the first images of another planet from deep space. Once spacecraft visited the planet during the 1960s and 1970s, many previous concepts of Mars were radically broken. After the results of the Viking life-detection experiments, the hypothesis of a dead planet was generally accepted. The data from Mariner 9 and Viking allowed better maps of Mars to be made. Until 1997 and after Viking 1 shut down in 1982, Mars was only visited by three unsuccessful probes, two flying past without contact (Phobos 1, 1988; Mars Observer, 1993), and one (Phobos 2 1989) malfunctioning in orbit before reaching its destination Phobos. In 1997 Mars Pathfinder became the first successful rover mission beyond the Moon and started together with Mars Global Surveyor (operated until late 2006) an uninterrupted active robotic presence at Mars that has lasted until today. It produced complete, extremely detailed maps of the Martian topography, magnetic field and surface minerals. Starting with these missions a range of new improved crewless spacecraft, including orbiters, landers, and rovers, have been sent to Mars, with successful missions by the NASA (United States), Jaxa (Japan), ESA, United Kingdom, ISRO (India), Roscosmos (Russia), the United Arab Emirates, and CNSA (China) to study the planet's surface, climate, and geology, uncovering the different elements of the history and dynamic of the hydrosphere of Mars and possible traces of ancient life. As of 2023[update], Mars is host to ten functioning spacecraft. Eight are in orbit: 2001 Mars Odyssey, Mars Express, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, MAVEN, ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, the Hope orbiter, and the Tianwen-1 orbiter. Another two are on the surface: the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover and the Perseverance rover. Collected maps are available online at websites including Google Mars. NASA provides two online tools: Mars Trek, which provides visualizations of the planet using data from 50 years of exploration, and Experience Curiosity, which simulates traveling on Mars in 3-D with Curiosity. Planned missions to Mars include: As of February 2024[update], debris from these types of missions has reached over seven tons. Most of it consists of crashed and inactive spacecraft as well as discarded components. In April 2024, NASA selected several companies to begin studies on providing commercial services to further enable robotic science on Mars. Key areas include establishing telecommunications, payload delivery and surface imaging. Habitability and habitation During the late 19th century, it was widely accepted in the astronomical community that Mars had life-supporting qualities, including the presence of oxygen and water. However, in 1894 W. W. Campbell at Lick Observatory observed the planet and found that "if water vapor or oxygen occur in the atmosphere of Mars it is in quantities too small to be detected by spectroscopes then available". That observation contradicted many of the measurements of the time and was not widely accepted. Campbell and V. M. Slipher repeated the study in 1909 using better instruments, but with the same results. It was not until the findings were confirmed by W. S. Adams in 1925 that the myth of the Earth-like habitability of Mars was finally broken. However, even in the 1960s, articles were published on Martian biology, putting aside explanations other than life for the seasonal changes on Mars. The current understanding of planetary habitability – the ability of a world to develop environmental conditions favorable to the emergence of life – favors planets that have liquid water on their surface. Most often this requires the orbit of a planet to lie within the habitable zone, which for the Sun is estimated to extend from within the orbit of Earth to about that of Mars. During perihelion, Mars dips inside this region, but Mars's thin (low-pressure) atmosphere prevents liquid water from existing over large regions for extended periods. The past flow of liquid water demonstrates the planet's potential for habitability. Recent evidence has suggested that any water on the Martian surface may have been too salty and acidic to support regular terrestrial life. The environmental conditions on Mars are a challenge to sustaining organic life: the planet has little heat transfer across its surface, it has poor insulation against bombardment by the solar wind due to the absence of a magnetosphere and has insufficient atmospheric pressure to retain water in a liquid form (water instead sublimes to a gaseous state). Mars is nearly, or perhaps totally, geologically dead; the end of volcanic activity has apparently stopped the recycling of chemicals and minerals between the surface and interior of the planet. Evidence suggests that the planet was once significantly more habitable than it is today, but whether living organisms ever existed there remains unknown. The Viking probes of the mid-1970s carried experiments designed to detect microorganisms in Martian soil at their respective landing sites and had positive results, including a temporary increase in CO2 production on exposure to water and nutrients. This sign of life was later disputed by scientists, resulting in a continuing debate, with NASA scientist Gilbert Levin asserting that Viking may have found life. A 2014 analysis of Martian meteorite EETA79001 found chlorate, perchlorate, and nitrate ions in sufficiently high concentrations to suggest that they are widespread on Mars. UV and X-ray radiation would turn chlorate and perchlorate ions into other, highly reactive oxychlorines, indicating that any organic molecules would have to be buried under the surface to survive. Small quantities of methane and formaldehyde detected by Mars orbiters are both claimed to be possible evidence for life, as these chemical compounds would quickly break down in the Martian atmosphere. Alternatively, these compounds may instead be replenished by volcanic or other geological means, such as serpentinite. Impact glass, formed by the impact of meteors, which on Earth can preserve signs of life, has also been found on the surface of the impact craters on Mars. Likewise, the glass in impact craters on Mars could have preserved signs of life, if life existed at the site. The Cheyava Falls rock discovered on Mars in June 2024 has been designated by NASA as a "potential biosignature" and was core sampled by the Perseverance rover for possible return to Earth and further examination. Although highly intriguing, no definitive final determination on a biological or abiotic origin of this rock can be made with the data currently available. Several plans for a human mission to Mars have been proposed, but none have come to fruition. The NASA Authorization Act of 2017 directed NASA to study the feasibility of a crewed Mars mission in the early 2030s; the resulting report concluded that this would be unfeasible. In addition, in 2021, China was planning to send a crewed Mars mission in 2033. Privately held companies such as SpaceX have also proposed plans to send humans to Mars, with the eventual goal to settle on the planet. As of 2024, SpaceX has proceeded with the development of the Starship launch vehicle with the goal of Mars colonization. In plans shared with the company in April 2024, Elon Musk envisions the beginning of a Mars colony within the next twenty years. This would be enabled by the planned mass manufacturing of Starship and initially sustained by resupply from Earth, and in situ resource utilization on Mars, until the Mars colony reaches full self sustainability. Any future human mission to Mars will likely take place within the optimal Mars launch window, which occurs every 26 months. The moon Phobos has been proposed as an anchor point for a space elevator. Besides national space agencies and space companies, groups such as the Mars Society and The Planetary Society advocate for human missions to Mars. In culture Mars is named after the Roman god of war (Greek Ares), but was also associated with the demi-god Heracles (Roman Hercules) by ancient Greek astronomers, as detailed by Aristotle. This association between Mars and war dates back at least to Babylonian astronomy, in which the planet was named for the god Nergal, deity of war and destruction. It persisted into modern times, as exemplified by Gustav Holst's orchestral suite The Planets, whose famous first movement labels Mars "The Bringer of War". The planet's symbol, a circle with a spear pointing out to the upper right, is also used as a symbol for the male gender. The symbol dates from at least the 11th century, though a possible predecessor has been found in the Greek Oxyrhynchus Papyri. The idea that Mars was populated by intelligent Martians became widespread in the late 19th century. Schiaparelli's "canali" observations combined with Percival Lowell's books on the subject put forward the standard notion of a planet that was a drying, cooling, dying world with ancient civilizations constructing irrigation works. Many other observations and proclamations by notable personalities added to what has been termed "Mars Fever". In the present day, high-resolution mapping of the surface of Mars has revealed no artifacts of habitation, but pseudoscientific speculation about intelligent life on Mars still continues. Reminiscent of the canali observations, these speculations are based on small scale features perceived in the spacecraft images, such as "pyramids" and the "Face on Mars". In his book Cosmos, planetary astronomer Carl Sagan wrote: "Mars has become a kind of mythic arena onto which we have projected our Earthly hopes and fears." The depiction of Mars in fiction has been stimulated by its dramatic red color and by nineteenth-century scientific speculations that its surface conditions might support not just life but intelligent life. This gave way to many science fiction stories involving these concepts, such as H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds, in which Martians seek to escape their dying planet by invading Earth; Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles, in which human explorers accidentally destroy a Martian civilization; as well as Edgar Rice Burroughs's series Barsoom, C. S. Lewis's novel Out of the Silent Planet (1938), and a number of Robert A. Heinlein stories before the mid-sixties. Since then, depictions of Martians have also extended to animation. A comic figure of an intelligent Martian, Marvin the Martian, appeared in Haredevil Hare (1948) as a character in the Looney Tunes animated cartoons of Warner Brothers, and has continued as part of popular culture to the present. After the Mariner and Viking spacecraft had returned pictures of Mars as a lifeless and canal-less world, these ideas about Mars were abandoned; for many science-fiction authors, the new discoveries initially seemed like a constraint, but eventually the post-Viking knowledge of Mars became itself a source of inspiration for works like Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy. See also Notes References Further reading External links Solar System → Local Interstellar Cloud → Local Bubble → Gould Belt → Orion Arm → Milky Way → Milky Way subgroup → Local Group → Local Sheet → Local Volume → Virgo Supercluster → Laniakea Supercluster → Pisces–Cetus Supercluster Complex → Local Hole → Observable universe → UniverseEach arrow (→) may be read as "within" or "part of". |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIPS_processor] | [TOKENS: 4416] |
Contents MIPS architecture processors Since 1985, many processors implementing some version of the MIPS architecture have been designed and used widely. MIPS microprocessors The first MIPS microprocessor, the R2000, was announced in 1985. It added multiple-cycle multiply and divide instructions in a somewhat independent on-chip unit. New instructions were added to retrieve the results from this unit back to the processor register file; these result-retrieving instructions were interlocked. The R2000 could be booted either big-endian or little-endian. It had thirty-one 32-bit general purpose registers, but no status register (condition code register (CCR), the designers considered it a potential bottleneck), a feature it shares with the AMD 29000, the DEC Alpha, and RISC-V. Unlike other registers, the program counter is not directly accessible. The R2000 also had support for up to four co-processors, one of which was built into the main central processing unit (CPU) and handled exceptions, traps and memory management, while the other three were left for other uses. One of these could be filled by the optional R2010 floating-point unit (FPU), which had thirty-two 32-bit registers that could be used as sixteen 64-bit registers for double-precision. The R3000 succeeded the R2000 in 1988, adding 32 KB (soon raised to 64 KB) caches for instructions and data, and support for shared-memory multiprocessing in the form of a cache coherence protocol. While there were flaws in the R3000s multiprocessing support, it was successfully used in several successful multiprocessor computers. The R3000 also included a built-in memory management unit (MMU), a common feature on CPUs of the era. The R3000, like the R2000, could be paired with a R3010 FPU. The R3000 was the first successful MIPS design in the market, and eventually over one million were made. A faster version of the R3000 running up to 40 MHz, the R3000A delivered a performance of 32 million instructions per second (MIPS), or VAX Unit of Performance (VUPs). The MIPS R3000A-compatible R3051 running at 33.8688 MHz was the processor used in the Sony PlayStation though it didn't have FPU or MMU. Third-party designs include Performance Semiconductor's R3400 and IDT's R3500, both of them were R3000As with an integrated R3010 FPU. Toshiba's R3900 was a virtually first system on a chip (SoC) for the early handheld PCs that ran Windows CE. A radiation-hardened variant for outer space use, the Mongoose-V, is a R3000 with an integrated R3010 FPU. The R4000 series, released in 1991, extended MIPS to a full 64-bit word design, moved the FPU onto the main die to form a single-chip microprocessor, and had a then high clock rate of 100 MHz at introduction. However, to achieve the clock frequency, the caches were reduced to 8 KB each and they took three cycles to access. The high clock rates were achieved through the method of deep pipelining (called super-pipelining then). The improved R4400 followed in 1993. It had larger 16 KB primary caches, largely bug-free 64-bit operation, and support for a larger L2 cache. MIPS, now a division of Silicon Graphics (SGI) named MTI, designed the low-cost R4200, the basis for the even cheaper R4300i. A derivative of this microprocessor, the NEC VR4300, was used in the Nintendo 64 game console. Quantum Effect Devices (QED), a separate company started by former MIPS employees, designed the R4600 Orion, the R4700 Orion, the R4650 and the R5000. Where the R4000 had pushed clock frequency and sacrificed cache capacity, the QED designs emphasized large caches which could be accessed in just two cycles and efficient use of silicon area. The R4600 and R4700 were used in low-cost versions of the SGI Indy workstation as well as the first MIPS-based Cisco routers, such as the 36x0 and 7x00-series routers. The R4650 was used in the original WebTV set-top boxes (now Microsoft TV). The R5000 FPU had more flexible single precision floating-point scheduling than the R4000, and as a result, R5000-based SGI Indys had much better graphics performance than similarly clocked R4400 Indys with the same graphics hardware. SGI gave the old graphics board a new name when it was combined with R5000, to emphasize the improvement. QED later designed the RM7000 and RM9000 family of devices for embedded system markets like computer networking and laser printers. QED was acquired by the semiconductor manufacturer PMC-Sierra in August 2000, the latter company continuing to invest in the MIPS architecture. The RM7000 included an integrated 256 KB L2 cache and a controller for optional L3 cache. The RM9xx0 were a family of SOC devices which included northbridge peripherals such as memory controller, PCI controller, Gigabit Ethernet controller and fast I/O such as a HyperTransport port. The R8000 (1994) was the first superscalar MIPS design, able to execute two integer or floating point and two memory instructions per cycle. The design was spread over six chips: an integer unit (with 16 KB instruction and 16 KB data caches), a floating-point unit, three fully-custom secondary cache tag RAMs (two for secondary cache accesses, one for bus snooping), and a cache controller ASIC. The design had two fully pipelined double precision multiply-add units, which could stream data from the 4 MB off-chip secondary cache. The R8000 powered SGI's POWER Challenge servers in the mid-1990s and later became available in the POWER Indigo2 workstation. Although its FPU performance fit scientific users quite well, its limited integer performance and high cost dampened appeal for most users. The R8000 was sold for only a year and remains fairly rare. In 1995, the R10000 was released. This processor was a single-chip design, ran at a higher clock frequency than the R8000, and had larger 32 KB primary instruction and data caches. It was also superscalar, but its major innovation was out-of-order execution. Even with one memory pipeline and simpler FPU, the vastly improved integer performance, lower price, and higher density made the R10000 preferable for most customers. Some later designs have been based upon R10000 core. The R12000 used a 0.25 micrometre process to shrink the chip and achieve higher clock rates. The revised R14000 allowed higher clock rates with added support for double data rate synchronous dynamic random-access memory (DDR SDRAM) static random access memory (SRAM) in the off-chip cache. Later iterations are named R16000 and R16000A, and feature higher clock rates and smaller die manufacturing compared with before. Other members of the MIPS family include the R6000, an emitter-coupled logic (ECL) implementation produced by Bipolar Integrated Technology. The R6000 introduced the MIPS II architecture. Its translation lookaside buffer (TLB) and cache architecture are different from all other members of the MIPS family. The R6000 did not deliver the promised performance benefits, and although it saw some use in Control Data machines, it quickly disappeared from the mainstream market. History In 1981, John L. Hennessy began the Microprocessor without Interlocked Pipeline Stages (MIPS) project at Stanford University to investigate reduced instruction set computer (RISC) technology. The results of his research convinced him of the future commercial potential of the technology, and in 1984, he took a sabbatical to found MIPS Computer Systems. The company designed a new architecture that was also named MIPS, and introduced the first MIPS implementation, the R2000, in 1985. The R2000 was improved, and the design was introduced as the R3000 in 1988. These 32-bit CPUs formed the basis of their company through the 1980s, used primarily in Silicon Graphics' (SGI) series of workstations and later Digital Equipment Corporation DECstation workstations and servers. The SGI commercial designs deviated from Stanford MIPS by implementing most of the interlocks in hardware, supplying full multiply and divide instructions (among others). The designs were guided, in part, by software architect Earl Killian who designed the MIPS III 64-bit instruction-set extension, and led the work on the R4000 microarchitecture. In 1991 MIPS released the first 64-bit microprocessor, the R4000. However, MIPS had financial difficulties while bringing it to market. The design was so important to SGI, at the time one of MIPS' few major customers, that SGI bought the company in 1992 to guarantee the design would not be lost. The new SGI subsidiary was named MIPS Technologies. In the early 1990s, MIPS began to license their designs to third-party vendors. This proved fairly successful due to the simplicity of the core, which allowed it to have many uses that would have formerly used much less able complex instruction set computer (CISC) designs of similar gate count and price; the two are strongly related: the price of a CPU is generally related to the number of gates and the number of external pins. Sun Microsystems attempted to enjoy similar success by licensing their SPARC core but was not nearly as successful. By the late 1990s, MIPS was a powerhouse in the embedded processor field. According to MIPS Technologies Inc., there was an exponential growth, with 48-million MIPS-based CPU shipments and 49% of total RISC CPU market share in 1997. MIPS was so successful that SGI spun off MIPS Technologies in 1998. In 2000s fully half of MIPS's income came from licensing their designs, while much of the rest came from contract design work on cores for third parties. In 1999, MIPS Technologies replaced the previous versions of the MIPS architecture with two architectures, the 32-bit MIPS32 (based on MIPS II with some added features from MIPS III, MIPS IV, and MIPS V) and the 64-bit MIPS64 (based on MIPS V) for licensing. Nippon Electric Corporation (NEC), Toshiba, and SiByte (later acquired by Broadcom) each obtained licenses for the MIPS64 as soon as it was announced. Philips, LSI Logic and Integrated Device Technology (IDT) have since joined them. Today, the MIPS cores are one of the most-used "heavyweight"[clarification needed] cores in the market for computer-like devices: handheld PCs, set-top boxes, etc. Since the MIPS architecture is licensable, it has attracted several processor start-up companies over the years. One of the first start-ups to design MIPS processors was Quantum Effect Devices (see next section). The MIPS design team that designed the R4300i started the company SandCraft, which designed the R5432 for NEC and later produced the SR71000, one of the first out-of-order execution processors for the embedded market. The original DEC StrongARM team eventually split into two MIPS-based start-ups: SiByte which produced the SB-1250, one of the first high-performance MIPS-based systems-on-a-chip (SOC); while Alchemy Semiconductor (later acquired by AMD) produced the Au-1000 SoC for low-power uses. Lexra used a MIPS-like architecture and added DSP extensions for the audio chip market and multithreading support for the networking market. Due to Lexra not licensing the architecture, two lawsuits were started between the two companies. The first was quickly resolved when Lexra promised not to advertise their processors as MIPS-compatible. The second (about MIPS patent 4814976 for handling unaligned memory access) was protracted, hurt both companies' business, and culminated in MIPS Technologies giving Lexra a free license and a large cash payment. Two companies have emerged that specialize in building multi-core processor devices using the MIPS architecture. Raza Microelectronics, Inc. bought the product line from failing SandCraft and later produced devices that contained eight cores for the telecommunication and networking markets. Cavium, originally a security processor vendor also produced devices with eight CPU cores, and later up to 32 cores, for the same markets. Both of these firms designed their cores in-house, only licensing the architecture instead of buying cores from MIPS. Among the manufacturers which have made computer workstation systems using MIPS processors are SGI, MIPS Computer Systems, Inc., Whitechapel Workstations, Olivetti, Siemens-Nixdorf, Acer, Digital Equipment Corporation, NEC, and DeskStation. Operating systems ported to the architecture include SGI's IRIX, Microsoft's Windows NT (through v4.0), Windows CE, Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, UNIX System V, SINIX, QNX, and MIPS Computer Systems' own RISC/os. In the early 1990s, speculation occurred that MIPS and other powerful RISC processors would overtake the Intel IA-32 architecture. This was encouraged by the support of the first two versions of Microsoft's Windows NT for Alpha, MIPS and PowerPC, and to a lesser extent the Clipper architecture and SPARC. However, as Intel quickly released faster versions of their Pentium class CPUs, Microsoft Windows NT v4.0 dropped support for anything but IA-32 and Alpha. With SGI's decision to transition to the Itanium and IA-32 architectures in 2007 (following a 2006 Chapter 11 bankruptcy) and 2009 acquisition by Rackable Systems, Inc., support ended for the MIPS/IRIX consumer market in December, 2013 as originally scheduled. However, a support team still exists for special circumstances and refurbished systems that are still available on a limited basis. Through the 1990s, the MIPS architecture was widely adopted by the embedded market, including for use in computer networking, telecommunications, video arcade games, video game consoles, computer printers, digital set-top boxes, digital televisions, DSL and cable modems, and personal digital assistants. The low power-consumption and heat characteristics of embedded MIPS implementations, the wide availability of embedded development tools, and knowledge about the architecture means use of MIPS microprocessors in embedded roles is likely to remain common. In recent years[when?] most of the technology used in the various MIPS generations has been offered as semiconductor intellectual property cores (IP cores), as building blocks for embedded processor designs. Both 32-bit and 64-bit basic cores are offered, known as the 4K and 5K. These cores can be mixed with add-in units such as floating-point units (FPU), single instruction, multiple data (SIMD) systems, various input/output (I/O) devices, etc. MIPS cores have been commercially successful, now having many consumer and industrial uses. MIPS cores can be found in newer Cisco, Linksys and Mikrotik's routerboard routers, cable modems and asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) modems, smartcards, laser printer engines, set-top boxes, robots, and hand-held computers. In cellphones and PDAs, MIPS has been largely unable to displace the incumbent, competing ARM architecture. MIPS architecture processors include: IDT RC32438; ATI/AMD Xilleon; Alchemy Au1000, 1100, 1200; Broadcom Sentry5; RMI XLR7xx, Cavium Octeon CN30xx, CN31xx, CN36xx, CN38xx and CN5xxx; Infineon Technologies EasyPort, Amazon, Danube, ADM5120, WildPass, INCA-IP, INCA-IP2; Microchip Technology PIC32; NEC EMMA and EMMA2, NEC VR4181A, VR4121, VR4122, VR4181A, VR4300, VR5432, VR5500; Oak Technologies Generation; PMC-Sierra RM11200; QuickLogic QuickMIPS ESP; Toshiba Donau, Toshiba TMPR492x, TX4925, TX9956, TX7901; KOMDIV-32, KOMDIV-64, ELVEES Multicore from Russia. One less common use of the MIPS architecture is in massive processor count supercomputers. Silicon Graphics (SGI) refocused its business from desktop graphics workstations to the high-performance computing market in the early 1990s. The success of the company's first foray into server systems, the Challenge series based on the R4400 and R8000, and later R10000, motivated SGI to form a vastly more powerful system. The introduction of the integrated R10000 allowed SGI to produce a system, the Origin 2000, eventually scalable to 1024 CPUs using its NUMAlink cc-NUMA interconnect. The Origin 2000 begat the Origin 3000 series which topped out with the same 1,024 maximum CPU count but using the R14000 and R16000 chips up to 700 MHz. Its MIPS-based supercomputers were withdrawn in 2005 when SGI made the strategic decision to move to Intel's Itanium IA-64 architecture. A high-performance computing startup named SiCortex introduced a massively parallel MIPS-based supercomputer in 2007. The machines are based on the MIPS64 architecture and a high performance interconnect using a Kautz graph topology. The system is very power efficient and computationally powerful.[citation needed] The most innovative aspect of the system was its multicore processing node which integrates six MIPS64 cores, a crossbar switch memory controller, interconnect direct memory access (DMA) engine, Gigabit Ethernet and PCI Express controllers all on a single chip which consumes only 10 watts of power, yet has a peak floating point performance of 6 gigaFLOPS. The most powerful configuration, the SC5832, is a single cabinet supercomputer consisting of 972 such node chips for a total of 5832 MIPS64 processor cores and 8.2 teraFLOPS of peak performance. Loongson is a family of MIPS-compatible microprocessors designed by the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of Computing Technology (ICT). Independently designed by the Chinese, early models lacked support for four instructions that had been patented by MIPS Technologies. In June 2009, ICT licensed the MIPS32 and MIPS64 architectures from MIPS Technologies. Starting in 2006, many companies released Loongson-based computers, including nettops and netbooks designed for low-power use. In recent years, the Loongson space dedicated chip (1E04/1E0300/1E1000,1F04/1F0300,1J) has been used on 3–5 Beidou navigation satellites. The Dawning 6000 supercomputer, which has a projected performance of over 1 PFLOPS, will use the Loongson processor. The Dawning 6000 is currently being jointly developed by the ICT and Dawning Information Industry Company. Li Guojie, chairman of Dawning Information Industry Company and director and academician of the ICT, said research and development of the Dawning 6000 is expected to be completed in two years. By then, Chinese-made high-performance computers will be expected to achieve two major goals: first, the adoption of domestically made processors; second, the existing cluster-based system structure of high-performance computers will be changed once performance reaches 1 PFLOPS. Announced in 2012, the MIPS Aptiv family includes three 32-bit CPU products based on the MIPS32 Release 3 architecture. microAptiv is a compact, real-time embedded processor core with a five-stage pipeline and the microMIPS code compression instruction set. microAptiv can be either configured as a microprocessor (microAptiv UP) with instruction and data caches and a memory management unit or as a microcontroller (microAptiv UC) with a memory protection unit (MPU). The CPU integrates DSP and SIMD functionality to address signal processing requirements for entry-level embedded segments including industrial control, smart meters, automotive and wired/wireless communications. interAptiv is a multiprocessor core leveraging a nine-stage pipeline with multi-threading. The core can be used for highly-parallel tasks requiring cost and power optimization, such as smart gateways, baseband processing in LTE user equipment and small cells, solid-state drive (SSD) controllers, and automotive equipment. proAptiv is a superscalar, out-of-order processor core that is available in single and multi-core product versions. proAptiv is designed for application processing in connected consumer electronics, and control plane processing in networking. Announced in June 2013, the MIPS Warrior family includes multiple 32-bit and 64-bit CPU products based on the MIPS Release 5 and 6 architectures. 32-bit MIPS cores for embedded and microcontroller uses: 64-bit MIPS CPUs for high-performance, low-power embedded uses: 32-bit and 64-bit MIPS application processors: Trivia The MIPS rabbit character from Super Mario 64 was named after the MIPS microprocessor. See also References |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_sciences] | [TOKENS: 6707] |
Contents Social science Social science (or the social sciences) is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among members within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the original "science of society", established in the 18th century. It now encompasses a wide array of additional academic disciplines, including anthropology, archaeology, economics, geography, history, linguistics, management, communication studies, psychology, sociology, culturology, and political science. The majority of positivist social scientists use methods resembling those used in the natural sciences as tools for understanding societies, and so define science in its stricter modern sense. Speculative social scientists, otherwise known as interpretivist scientists, by contrast, may use social critique or symbolic interpretation rather than constructing empirically falsifiable theories, and thus treat science in its broader sense. In modern academic practice, researchers are often eclectic, using multiple methodologies (combining both quantitative and qualitative research). To gain a deeper understanding of complex human behavior in digital environments, social science disciplines have increasingly integrated interdisciplinary approaches, big data, and computational tools. The term social research has also acquired a degree of autonomy as practitioners from various disciplines share similar goals and methods. History The history of the social sciences began in the Age of Enlightenment after 1651, which saw a revolution within natural philosophy, changing the basic framework by which individuals understood what was scientific. Social sciences came forth from the moral philosophy of the time and were influenced by the Age of Revolutions, such as the Industrial Revolution and the French Revolution. The social sciences developed from the sciences (experimental and applied), or the systematic knowledge-bases or prescriptive practices, relating to the social improvement of a group of interacting entities. The beginnings of the social sciences in the 18th century are reflected in the grand encyclopedia of Diderot, with articles from Jean-Jacques Rousseau and other pioneers. The growth of the social sciences is also reflected in other specialized encyclopedias. The term "social science" was coined in French by Mirabeau in 1767, before becoming a distinct conceptual field in the nineteenth century. Social science was influenced by positivism, focusing on knowledge based on actual positive sense experience and avoiding the negative; metaphysical speculation was avoided. Auguste Comte used the term science sociale to describe the field, taken from the ideas of Charles Fourier; Comte also referred to the field as social physics. According to Comte, the social physics field was similar to that of natural sciences. Following this period, five paths of development sprang forth in the social sciences, influenced by Comte in other fields. One route that was taken was the rise of social research. Large statistical surveys were undertaken in various parts of the United States and Europe. Another route undertaken was initiated by Émile Durkheim, studying "social facts", and Vilfredo Pareto, opening metatheoretical ideas and individual theories. A third means developed, arising from the methodological dichotomy present, in which social phenomena were identified with and understood; this was championed by figures such as Max Weber. The fourth route taken, based in economics, was developed and furthered economic knowledge as a hard science. The last path was the correlation of knowledge and social values; the antipositivism and verstehen sociology of Max Weber firmly demanded this distinction. In this route, theory (description) and prescription were non-overlapping formal discussions of a subject. The foundation of social sciences in the West implies conditioned relationships between progressive and traditional spheres of knowledge. In some contexts, such as the Italian one, sociology slowly affirms itself and experiences the difficulty of affirming a strategic knowledge beyond philosophy and theology. Around the start of the 20th century, Enlightenment philosophy was challenged in various quarters. After the use of classical theories since the end of the scientific revolution, various fields substituted mathematics studies for experimental studies and examining equations to build a theoretical structure. The development of social science subfields became very quantitative in methodology. The interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary nature of scientific inquiry into human behaviour, social and environmental factors affecting it, made many of the natural sciences interested in some aspects of social science methodology. Examples of boundary blurring include emerging disciplines like social research of medicine, sociobiology, neuropsychology, bioeconomics and the history and sociology of science. Increasingly, quantitative research and qualitative methods are being integrated in the study of human action and its implications and consequences. In the first half of the 20th century, statistics became a free-standing discipline of applied mathematics. Statistical methods were used confidently. In the contemporary period, Karl Popper and Talcott Parsons influenced the furtherance of the social sciences. Researchers continue to search for a unified consensus on what methodology might have the power and refinement to connect a proposed "grand theory" with the various midrange theories that, with considerable success, continue to provide usable frameworks for massive, growing data banks; for more, see consilience. The social sciences will for the foreseeable future be composed of different zones in the research of, and sometimes distinct in approach toward, the field. The term "social science" may refer either to the specific sciences of society established by thinkers such as Comte, Durkheim, Marx, and Weber, or more generally to all disciplines outside of "noble science" and arts. By the late 19th century, the academic social sciences were constituted of five fields: jurisprudence and amendment of the law, education, health, economy and trade, and art. Around the start of the 21st century, the expanding domain of economics in the social sciences has been described as economic imperialism. A distinction is usually drawn between the social sciences and the humanities. Classicist Allan Bloom writes in The Closing of the American Mind (1987): Social science and humanities have a mutual contempt for one another, the former looking down on the latter as unscientific, the latter regarding the former as philistine. [...] The difference comes down to the fact that social science really wants to be predictive, meaning that man is predictable, while the humanities say that he is not. Branches The social science disciplines are branches of knowledge taught and researched at the college or university level. Social science disciplines are defined and recognized by the academic journals in which research is published, and the learned social science societies and academic departments or faculties to which their practitioners belong. Social science fields of study usually have several sub-disciplines or branches, and the distinguishing lines between these are often both arbitrary and ambiguous. The following are widely-considered to be social sciences: Anthropology is the holistic "science of man", a science of the totality of human existence. The discipline deals with the integration of different aspects of the social sciences, humanities, and human biology. In the twentieth century, academic disciplines have often been institutionally divided into three broad domains. Firstly, the natural sciences seek to derive general laws through reproducible and verifiable experiments. Secondly, the humanities generally study local traditions, through their history, literature, music, and arts, with an emphasis on understanding particular individuals, events, or eras. Finally, the social sciences have generally attempted to develop scientific methods to understand social phenomena in a generalizable way, though usually with methods distinct from those of the natural sciences.[citation needed] The anthropological social sciences often develop nuanced descriptions rather than the general laws derived in physics or chemistry, or they may explain individual cases through more general principles, as in many fields of psychology. Anthropology (like some fields of history) does not easily fit into one of these categories, and different branches of anthropology draw on one or more of these domains. Within the United States, anthropology is divided into four sub-fields: archaeology, physical or biological anthropology, anthropological linguistics, and cultural anthropology. It is an area that is offered at most undergraduate institutions. The word anthropos (ἄνθρωπος) in Ancient Greek means "human being" or "person". Eric Wolf described sociocultural anthropology as "the most scientific of the humanities, and the most humanistic of the sciences".[citation needed] The goal of anthropology is to provide a holistic account of humans and human nature. This means that, though anthropologists generally specialize in only one sub-field, they always keep in mind the biological, linguistic, historic and cultural aspects of any problem. Since anthropology arose as a science in Western societies that were complex and industrial, a major trend within anthropology has been a methodological drive to study peoples in societies with more simple social organization, sometimes called "primitive" in anthropological literature, but without any connotation of "inferior". Today, anthropologists use terms such as "less complex" societies or refer to specific modes of subsistence or production, such as "pastoralist" or "forager" or "horticulturalist" to refer to humans living in non-industrial, non-Western cultures, such people or folk (ethnos) remaining of great interest within anthropology.[citation needed] The quest for holism leads most anthropologists to study a people in detail, using biogenetic, archaeological, and linguistic data alongside direct observation of contemporary customs. In the 1990s and 2000s, calls for clarification of what constitutes a culture, of how an observer knows where his or her own culture ends and another begins, and other crucial topics in writing anthropology were heard. It is possible to view all human cultures as part of one large, evolving global culture. These dynamic relationships, between what can be observed on the ground, as opposed to what can be observed by compiling many local observations remain fundamental in any kind of anthropology, whether cultural, biological, linguistic or archaeological. Communication studies deals with processes of human communication, commonly defined as the sharing of symbols to create meaning. The discipline encompasses a range of topics, from face-to-face conversation to mass media outlets such as television broadcasting. Communication studies also examine how messages are interpreted through the political, cultural, economic, and social dimensions of their contexts. Communication is institutionalized under many different names at different universities, including communication, communication studies, speech communication, rhetorical studies, communication science, media studies, communication arts, mass communication, media ecology, and communication and media science.[citation needed] Communication studies integrate aspects of both social sciences and the humanities. As a social science, the discipline often overlaps with sociology, psychology, anthropology, biology, political science, economics, and public policy, among others. From a humanities perspective, communication is concerned with rhetoric and persuasion (traditional graduate programs in communication studies trace their history to the rhetoricians of Ancient Greece). The field applies to outside disciplines as well, including engineering, architecture, mathematics, and information science.[citation needed] Economics is a social science that seeks to analyze and describe the production, distribution, and consumption of wealth. The word "economics" is from the Ancient Greek οἶκος (oikos, "family, household, estate") and νόμος (nomos, "custom, law"), and hence means "household management" or "management of the state". An economist is a person using economic concepts and data in the course of employment, or someone who has earned a degree in the subject. The classic brief definition of economics, set out by Lionel Robbins in 1932, is "the science which studies human behavior as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses". Without scarcity and alternative uses, there is no economic problem. Briefer yet is "the study of how people seek to satisfy needs and wants" and "the study of the financial aspects of human behavior".[citation needed] Economics has two broad branches: microeconomics, where the unit of analysis is the individual agent, such as a household or firm, and macroeconomics, where the unit of analysis is an economy as a whole. Another division of the subject distinguishes positive economics, which seeks to predict and explain economic phenomena, from normative economics, which orders choices and actions by some criterion; such orderings necessarily involve subjective value judgments. Since the early part of the 20th century, economics has focused largely on measurable quantities, employing both theoretical models and empirical analysis. Quantitative models, however, can be traced as far back as the physiocratic school. Economic reasoning has been increasingly applied in recent decades to other social situations such as politics, law, psychology, history, religion, marriage and family life, and other social interactions.[citation needed] The expanding domain of economics in the social sciences has been described as economic imperialism. Education encompasses teaching and learning specific skills, and also something less tangible but more profound: the imparting of knowledge, positive judgement and well-developed wisdom. Education has as one of its fundamental aspects the imparting of culture from generation to generation (see socialization). To educate means 'to draw out', from the Latin educare, or to facilitate the realization of an individual's potential and talents. It is an application of pedagogy, a body of theoretical and applied research relating to teaching and learning and draws on many disciplines such as psychology, philosophy, computer science, linguistics, neuroscience, sociology and anthropology. Geography as a discipline can be split broadly into two main sub fields: human geography and physical geography. The former focuses largely on the built environment and how space is created, viewed and managed by humans as well as the influence humans have on the space they occupy. This may involve cultural geography, transportation, health, military operations, and cities. The latter examines the natural environment and how the climate, vegetation and life, soil, oceans, water and landforms are produced and interact (is also commonly regarded as an Earth Science). Physical geography examines phenomena related to the measurement of earth. As a result of the two subfields using different approaches a third field has emerged, which is environmental geography. Environmental geography combines physical and human geography and looks at the interactions between the environment and humans. Other branches of geography include social geography, regional geography, and geomatics. Geographers attempt to understand the Earth in terms of physical and spatial relationships. The first geographers focused on the science of mapmaking and finding ways to precisely project the surface of the earth. In this sense, geography bridges some gaps between the natural sciences and social sciences. Historical geography is often taught in a college in a unified Department of Geography.[citation needed] Modern geography is an all-encompassing discipline, closely related to Geographic Information Science, that seeks to understand humanity and its natural environment. The fields of urban planning, regional science, and planetology are closely related to geography. Practitioners of geography use many technologies and methods to collect data such as Geographic Information Systems, remote sensing, aerial photography, statistics, and global positioning systems. History is the continuous, systematic narrative and research into past human events as interpreted through historiographical paradigms or theories. When used as the name of a field of study, history refers to the study and interpretation of the record of humans, societies, institutions, and any topic that has changed over time.[citation needed] Traditionally, the study of history has been considered a part of the humanities. In modern academia, whether or not history remains a humanities-based subject is contested. In the United States the National Endowment for the Humanities includes history in its definition of humanities (as it does for applied linguistics). However, the National Research Council classifies history as a social science. The historical method comprises the techniques and guidelines by which historians use primary sources and other evidence to research and then to write history. The Social Science History Association, formed in 1976, brings together scholars from numerous disciplines interested in social history. The social science of law, jurisprudence, in common parlance, means a rule that (unlike a rule of ethics) is capable of enforcement through institutions. However, many laws are based on norms accepted by a community and thus have an ethical foundation. The study of law crosses the boundaries between the social sciences and humanities, depending on one's view of research into its objectives and effects. Law is not always enforceable, especially in the international relations context. It has been defined as a "system of rules", as an "interpretive concept" to achieve justice, as an "authority" to mediate people's interests, and even as "the command of a sovereign, backed by the threat of a sanction". However one likes to think of law, it is a completely central social institution. Legal policy incorporates the practical manifestation of thinking from almost every social science and the humanities. Laws are politics, because politicians create them. Law is philosophy, because moral and ethical persuasions shape their ideas. Law tells many of history's stories, because statutes, case law and codifications build up over time. And law is economics, because any rule about contract, tort, property law, labour law, company law and many more can have long-lasting effects on the distribution of wealth. The noun law derives from the Old English lagu, meaning something laid down or fixed and the adjective legal comes from the Latin word lex. Linguistics investigates the cognitive and social aspects of human language. The field is divided into areas that focus on aspects of the linguistic signal, such as syntax (the study of the rules that govern the structure of sentences), semantics (the study of meaning), morphology (the study of the structure of words), phonetics (the study of speech sounds) and phonology (the study of the abstract sound system of a particular language); however, work in areas like evolutionary linguistics (the study of the origins and evolution of language) and psycholinguistics (the study of psychological factors in human language) cut across these divisions. The overwhelming majority of modern research in linguistics takes a predominantly synchronic perspective (focusing on language at a particular point in time), and a great deal of it—partly owing to the influence of Noam Chomsky—aims at formulating theories of the cognitive processing of language. However, language does not exist in a vacuum, or only in the brain, and approaches like contact linguistics, creole studies, discourse analysis, social interactional linguistics, and sociolinguistics explore language in its social context. Sociolinguistics often makes use of traditional quantitative analysis and statistics in investigating the frequency of features, while some disciplines, like contact linguistics, focus on qualitative analysis. While certain areas of linguistics can thus be understood as clearly falling within the social sciences, other areas, like acoustic phonetics and neurolinguistics, draw on the natural sciences. Linguistics draws only secondarily on the humanities, which played a rather greater role in linguistic inquiry in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Ferdinand Saussure was one of the founders of 20th century linguistics. Political science is an academic and research discipline that deals with the theory and practice of politics and the description and analysis of political systems and political behaviour. Fields and subfields of political science include political economy, political theory and philosophy, civics and comparative politics, theory of direct democracy, apolitical governance, participatory direct democracy, national systems, cross-national political analysis, political development, international relations, foreign policy, international law, politics, public administration, administrative behaviour, public law, judicial behaviour, and public policy. Political science also studies power in international relations and the theory of great powers and superpowers. Political science is methodologically diverse, although recent years have witnessed an upsurge in the use of the scientific method,[page needed] that is, the proliferation of formal-deductive model building and quantitative hypothesis testing. Approaches to the discipline include rational choice, classical political philosophy, interpretivism, structuralism, and behaviouralism, realism, pluralism, and institutionalism. Political science, as one of the social sciences, uses methods and techniques that relate to the kinds of inquiries sought: primary sources such as historical documents, interviews, and official records, as well as secondary sources such as scholarly articles, are used in building and testing theories. Empirical methods include survey research, statistical analysis or econometrics, case studies, experiments, and model building.[citation needed] Psychology is an academic and applied field involving the study of behaviour and mental processes. Psychology also refers to the application of such knowledge to various spheres of human activity, including problems of individuals' daily lives and the treatment of mental illness. The word psychology comes from the Ancient Greek ψυχή (psyche, "soul" or "mind") and the suffix logy ("study"). Psychology differs from anthropology, economics, political science, and sociology in seeking to capture explanatory generalizations about the mental function and overt behaviour of individuals, while the other disciplines focus on creating descriptive generalizations about the functioning of social groups or situation-specific human behaviour. In practice, however, there is quite a lot of cross-fertilization that takes place among the various fields. Psychology differs from biology and neuroscience in that it is primarily concerned with the interaction of mental processes and behaviour, and of the overall processes of a system, and not simply the biological or neural processes themselves, though the subfield of neuropsychology combines the study of the actual neural processes with the study of the mental effects they have subjectively produced. Many people associate psychology with clinical psychology, which focuses on assessment and treatment of problems in living and psychopathology. In reality, psychology has myriad specialties including social psychology, developmental psychology, cognitive psychology, educational psychology, industrial-organizational psychology, mathematical psychology, neuropsychology, and quantitative analysis of behaviour. Psychology is a very broad science that is rarely tackled as a whole, major block. Although some subfields encompass a natural science base and a social science application, others can be clearly distinguished as having little to do with the social sciences or having a lot to do with the social sciences. For example, biological psychology is considered a natural science with a social scientific application (as is clinical medicine), social and occupational psychology are, generally speaking, purely social sciences, whereas neuropsychology is a natural science that lacks application out of the scientific tradition entirely. In British universities, emphasis on what tenet of psychology a student has studied and/or concentrated is communicated through the degree conferred: BPsy indicates a balance between natural and social sciences, BSc indicates a strong (or entire) scientific concentration, whereas a BA underlines a majority of social science credits. This is not always necessarily the case however, and in many UK institutions students studying the BPsy, BSc, and BA follow the same curriculum as outlined by The British Psychological Society and have the same options of specialism open to them regardless of whether they choose a balance, a heavy science basis, or heavy social science basis to their degree. If they applied to read the BA. for example, but specialized in heavily science-based modules, then they will still generally be awarded the BA.[citation needed] Sociology is the systematic study of society, individuals' relationship to their societies, the consequences of difference, and other aspects of human social action. The meaning of the word comes from the suffix -logy, which means "study of", derived from Ancient Greek, and the stem soci-, which is from the Latin word socius, meaning "companion", or society in general. Auguste Comte (1798–1857) coined the term sociology to describe a way to apply natural science principles and techniques to the social world in 1838. Comte endeavoured to unify history, psychology and economics through the descriptive understanding of the social realm. He proposed that social ills could be remedied through sociological positivism, an epistemological approach outlined in The Course in Positive Philosophy [1830–1842] and A General View of Positivism (1844). Though Comte is generally regarded as the "Father of Sociology", the discipline was formally established by another French thinker, Émile Durkheim (1858–1917), who developed positivism as a foundation to practical social research. Durkheim set up the first European department of sociology at the University of Bordeaux in 1895, publishing his Rules of the Sociological Method. In 1896, he established the journal L'Année sociologique. Durkheim's seminal monograph, Suicide (1897), a case study of suicide rates among Catholic and Protestant populations, distinguished sociological analysis from psychology or philosophy. Karl Marx rejected Comte's positivism but nevertheless aimed to establish a science of society based on historical materialism, becoming recognized as a founding figure of sociology posthumously as the term gained broader meaning. Around the start of the 20th century, the first wave of German sociologists, including Max Weber and Georg Simmel, developed sociological antipositivism. The field may be broadly recognized as an amalgam of three modes of social thought in particular: Durkheimian positivism and structural functionalism; Marxist historical materialism and conflict theory; and Weberian antipositivism and verstehen analysis. American sociology broadly arose on a separate trajectory, with little Marxist influence, an emphasis on rigorous experimental methodology, and a closer association with pragmatism and social psychology. In the 1920s, the Chicago school developed symbolic interactionism. Meanwhile, in the 1930s, the Frankfurt School pioneered the idea of critical theory, an interdisciplinary form of Marxist sociology drawing upon thinkers as diverse as Sigmund Freud and Friedrich Nietzsche. Critical theory would take on something of a life of its own after World War II, influencing literary criticism and the Birmingham School establishment of cultural studies.[citation needed] Sociology evolved as an academic response to the challenges of modernity, such as industrialization, urbanization, secularization, and a perceived process of enveloping rationalization. The field generally concerns the social rules and processes that bind and separate people not only as individuals, but as members of associations, groups, communities and institutions, and includes the examination of the organization and development of human social life. The sociological field of interest ranges from the analysis of short contacts between anonymous individuals on the street to the study of global social processes. In the terms of sociologists Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann, social scientists seek an understanding of the Social Construction of Reality. Most sociologists work in one or more subfields. One useful way to describe the discipline is as a cluster of sub-fields that examine different dimensions of society. For example, social stratification studies inequality and class structure; demography studies changes in population size or type; criminology examines criminal behaviour and deviance; and political sociology studies the interaction between society and state. Since its inception, sociological epistemologies, methods, and frames of enquiry, have significantly expanded and diverged. Sociologists use a diversity of research methods, collecting both quantitative and qualitative data, draw upon empirical techniques, and engage critical theory. Common modern methods include case studies, historical research, interviewing, participant observation, social network analysis, survey research, statistical analysis, and model building, among other approaches. Since the late 1970s, many sociologists have tried to make the discipline useful for purposes beyond the academy. The results of sociological research aid educators, lawmakers, administrators, developers, and others interested in resolving social problems and formulating public policy, through subdisciplinary areas such as evaluation research, methodological assessment, and public sociology.[citation needed] In the early 1970s, women sociologists began to question sociological paradigms and the invisibility of women in sociological studies, analysis, and courses. In 1969, feminist sociologists challenged the discipline's androcentrism at the American Sociological Association's annual conference. This led to the founding of the organization Sociologists for Women in Society, and, eventually, a new sociology journal, Gender & Society. Today, the sociology of gender is considered to be one of the most prominent sub-fields in the discipline. New sociological sub-fields continue to appear — such as community studies, computational sociology, environmental sociology, network analysis, actor-network theory, gender studies, and a growing list, many of which are cross-disciplinary in nature. Additional fields of study Additional applied or interdisciplinary fields related to the social sciences or are applied social sciences include: Methodology The origin of the survey can be traced back at least as early as the Domesday Book in 1086, while some scholars pinpoint the origin of demography to 1663 with the publication of John Graunt's Natural and Political Observations upon the Bills of Mortality. Social research began most intentionally, however, with the positivist philosophy of science in the 19th century. In contemporary usage, "social research" is a relatively autonomous term, encompassing the work of practitioners from various disciplines that share in its aims and methods. Social scientists employ a range of methods in order to analyse a vast breadth of social phenomena; from census survey data derived from millions of individuals, to the in-depth analysis of a single agent's social experiences; from monitoring what is happening on contemporary streets, to the investigation of ancient historical documents. The methods originally rooted in classical sociology and statistical mathematics have formed the basis for research in other disciplines, such as political science, media studies, and marketing and market research. Social research methods may be divided into two broad schools: Social scientists will commonly combine quantitative and qualitative approaches as part of a multi-strategy design. Questionnaires, field-based data collection, archival database information and laboratory-based data collections are some of the measurement techniques used. It is noted the importance of measurement and analysis, focusing on the (difficult to achieve) goal of objective research or statistical hypothesis testing. A mathematical model uses mathematical language to describe a system. The process of developing a mathematical model is termed 'mathematical modelling' (also modeling). A mathematical model is "a representation of the essential aspects of an existing system (or a system to be constructed) that presents knowledge of that system in usable form". Mathematical models can take many forms, including but not limited to dynamical systems, statistical models, differential equations, or game theoretic models. These and other types of models can overlap, with a given model involving a variety of abstract structures. The system is a set of interacting or interdependent entities, real or abstract, forming an integrated whole. The concept of an integrated whole can also be stated in terms of a system embodying a set of relationships that are differentiated from relationships of the set to other elements, and from relationships between an element of the set and elements not a part of the relational regime. A dynamical system modeled as a mathematical formalization has a fixed "rule" that describes the time dependence of a point's position in its ambient space. Small changes in the state of the system correspond to small changes in the numbers. The evolution rule of the dynamical system is a fixed rule that describes what future states follow from the current state. The rule is deterministic: for a given time interval only one future state follows from the current state. Social scientists often conduct program evaluation, which is a systematic method for collecting, analyzing, and using information to answer questions about projects, policies and programs, particularly about their effectiveness and efficiency. In both the public and private sectors, stakeholders often want to know whether the programs they are funding, implementing, voting for, receiving or objecting to are producing the intended effect. While program evaluation first focuses around this definition, important considerations often include how much the program costs per participant, how the program could be improved, whether the program is worthwhile, whether there are better alternatives, if there are unintended outcomes, and whether the program goals are appropriate and useful. Some social theorists emphasize the subjective nature of research. These writers espouse social theory perspectives that include various types of the following: Other fringe social theorists delve into the alternative nature of research. These writers share social theory perspectives that include various types of the following: Education and degrees Most universities offer degrees in social science fields. The Bachelor of Social Science is a degree targeted at the social sciences in particular, it is often more flexible and in-depth than other degrees that include social science subjects.[a] In the United States, a university may offer a student who studies a social sciences field a Bachelor of Arts degree, particularly if the field is within one of the traditional liberal arts such as history, or a BSc: Bachelor of Science degree such as those given by the London School of Economics, as the social sciences constitute one of the two main branches of science (the other being the natural sciences). In addition, some institutions have degrees for a particular social science, such as the Bachelor of Economics degree, though such specialized degrees are relatively rare in the United States. Graduate students may receive a master's degree (Master of Arts, Master of Science or a field-specific degree such as Master of Public Administration) or a doctoral degree (e.g. PhD). People associated with the social sciences See also Notes References Bibliography External links |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Uganda] | [TOKENS: 1563] |
Contents History of the Jews in Uganda The history of the Jews in Uganda is connected to some local tribes who have converted to Judaism, such as the Abayudaya, down to the twentieth century when Uganda under British control was offered to the Jews of the world as a "Jewish homeland" under the British Uganda Programme known as the "Uganda Plan" and culminating with the troubled relationship between Ugandan leader Idi Amin with Israel that ended with Operation Entebbe known as the "Entebbe Rescue" or "Entebbe Raid" of 1976. Abayudaya The small Abayudaya tribe converted to Judaism in the early 20th century. Their population is estimated at 2,500 having once been as large as 3,000 prior to the persecutions of the Idi Amin regime. Like their neighbors, they are subsistence farmers. Most Abayudaya are of Bagwere origin, except for those from Namutumba who are Basoga. They speak Luganda, Lusoga or Lugwere, although some have learned Hebrew as well. British Uganda Programme The British Uganda Programme was a plan to give a portion of British East Africa to the Jewish people as a homeland. The offer was first made by British Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain to Theodore Herzl's Zionist group in 1903. He offered 5,000 square miles (13,000 km2) of the Mau Plateau in what is today Kenya and Uganda. The offer was a response to pogroms against the Jews in Russia, and it was hoped the area could be a refuge from persecution for the Jewish people. Modern relations with Israel In 1972 relations with Israel soured. Although Israel had previously supplied Uganda with arms, in 1972 Idi Amin, enraged over Israel's refusal to supply Uganda with jets for a war with neighboring Tanzania, expelled Israeli military advisers and turned to Libya and the Soviet Union for support. Amin became an outspoken critic of Israel. In the documentary film General Idi Amin Dada: A Self Portrait, he discussed his plans for war against Israel, using paratroops, bombers and suicide squadrons. Amin later stated that Hitler "was right to burn six million Jews". In June 1976, Amin allowed an Air France airliner hijacked by two members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - External Operations (PFLP-EO) and two members of the German Revolutionäre Zellen to land at Entebbe Airport. There, the hijackers were joined by three more. Soon after, 156 non-Jewish hostages who did not hold Israeli passports were released and flown to safety, while 83 Jews and Israeli citizens, as well as 20 others who refused to abandon them (among whom were the captain and crew of the hijacked Air France jet), continued to be held hostage. In the subsequent Israeli rescue operation, codenamed Operation Thunderbolt (popularly known as Operation Entebbe), nearly all the hostages were freed. Three hostages died during the operation and 10 were wounded; seven hijackers, 45 Ugandan soldiers, and one Israeli soldier, Yoni Netanyahu, were killed. A fourth hostage, 75-year-old Dora Bloch, who had been taken to Mulago Hospital in Kampala prior to the rescue operation, was subsequently murdered in reprisal. The incident further soured Uganda's international relations, leading Britain to close its High Commission in Uganda. Operation Entebbe was a hostage-rescue mission carried out by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) at Entebbe Airport in Uganda on July 4, 1976. A week earlier, on June 27, an Air France plane with 248 passengers was hijacked by Palestinian revolutionaries and supporters and flown to Entebbe, near Kampala, the capital of Uganda. Shortly after landing, all non-Jewish passengers were released. The operation took place at night, as Israeli transport planes carried 100 elite commandos over 2,500 miles (4,000 km) to Uganda for the rescue operation. The operation, which took a week of planning, lasted 90 minutes and 103 hostages were rescued. Five Israeli commandos were wounded and one, the commander, Lt Col Yonatan Netanyahu, was killed. All the hijackers, three hostages and 45 Ugandan soldiers were killed, and 11 Soviet-built MiG-17's of Uganda's air force were destroyed. A fourth hostage was murdered by Ugandan army officers at a nearby hospital. Dora Bloch, a 75-year-old British Jewish immigrant, was taken to Mulago Hospital in Kampala, and was murdered by the Ugandan government, as were some of her doctors and nurses for apparently trying to intervene. In April 1987, Henry Kyemba, Uganda's Attorney General and Minister of Justice at the time, told the Uganda Human Rights Commission that Bloch had been dragged from her hospital bed and murdered by two army officers on Idi Amin's orders. Mrs Bloch had been shot and her body dumped in the trunk of a car which had Ugandan intelligence services number plates. Bloch's remains were recovered near a sugar plantation 20 miles (32 km) east of Kampala in 1979, after the Ugandan–Tanzanian War led to the end of Amin's rule. The government of Uganda, led by Juma Oris, the Ugandan Foreign Minister at the time, later convened a session of the United Nations Security Council to seek official condemnation of the Israeli raid, as a violation of Ugandan sovereignty. The Security Council ultimately declined to pass any resolution on the matter, condemning neither Israel, nor Uganda. In his address to the council, Israeli ambassador Chaim Herzog said: We come with a simple message to the Council: we are proud of what we have done because we have demonstrated to the world that a small country, in Israel's circumstances, with which the members of this Council are by now all too familiar, the dignity of man, human life and human freedom constitute the highest values. We are proud not only because we have saved the lives of over a hundred innocent people—men, women and children—but because of the significance of our act for the cause of human freedom. — HERZOG, Chaim. Israel received support from the Western World for its operation. West Germany called the raid "an act of self defense". Switzerland and France also praised Israel for the operation. Significant praise was received from representatives of the United Kingdom and the US both of whom called it "an impossible operation". Some in the United States noted that the hostages were freed on July 4, 1976, which was 200 years since the signing of the US declaration of independence. UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim described the raid as "a serious violation of the national sovereignty of a United Nations member state". Dozens of Ugandan soldiers were killed in the raid. The Arab and Communist world condemned the operation calling it an act of aggression. For refusing to depart (and subsequently leave some of his passengers as hostages) when given leave to do so by the hijackers, Captain Bacos was reprimanded by his superiors at Air France and suspended from duty for a period. He was awarded by Israel for his heroism in refusing to leave the Jewish hostages behind. In the ensuing years, Betser and the Netanyahu brothers—Iddo and Benjamin, all Sayeret Matkal veterans—argued in increasingly public forums about who was to blame for the unexpected early firefight which caused Yonatan Netanyahu's death and partial loss of tactical surprise. See also References |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lower_mantle] | [TOKENS: 1495] |
Contents Lower mantle The lower mantle, historically also called the mesosphere, occupies about 56% of the total volume of Earth, and is the region from 660 to 2,890 km (410 to 1,800 mi) below Earth's surface; between the transition zone and the outer core. The preliminary reference Earth model (PREM) separates the lower mantle into three sections, the uppermost (660–770 km (410–480 mi)), mid-lower mantle (770–2,700 km (480–1,680 mi)), and the D layer (2,700–2,890 km (1,680–1,800 mi)). Pressure and temperature in the lower mantle range from 24–127 GPa (3,500,000–18,400,000 psi) and 1,900–2,600 K (1,630–2,330 °C; 2,960–4,220 °F). It has been proposed that the composition of the lower mantle is pyrolitic, containing three major phases of bridgmanite, ferropericlase, and calcium-silicate perovskite. The high pressure in the lower mantle has been shown to induce a spin transition of iron-bearing bridgmanite and ferropericlase, which may affect both mantle plume dynamics and lower mantle chemistry. The mantle moves at about 1 cm (0.39 in) per year. The upper boundary is defined by the sharp increase in seismic wave velocities and density at a depth of 660 km (410 mi). At a depth of 660 km (410 mi), ringwoodite γ-((Mg,Fe)2SiO4) decomposes into Mg-Si perovskite and magnesiowüstite. This reaction marks the boundary between the upper mantle and lower mantle. This measurement is estimated from seismic data and high-pressure laboratory experiments. The base of the mesosphere includes the D″ zone which lies just above the mantle–core boundary at around 2,700–2,890 km (1,678–1,796 mi). Physical properties The lower mantle was initially labelled as the D-layer in Bullen's spherically symmetric model of the Earth. The PREM seismic model of the Earth's interior separated the D-layer into three distinctive layers defined by the discontinuity in seismic wave velocities: The temperature of the lower mantle ranges from 1,960 K (1,690 °C; 3,070 °F) at the topmost layer to 2,630 K (2,360 °C; 4,270 °F) at a depth of 2,700 kilometres (1,700 mi). Models of the temperature of the lower mantle approximate convection as the primary heat transport contribution, while conduction and radiative heat transfer are considered negligible. As a result, the lower mantle's temperature gradient as a function of depth is approximately adiabatic. Calculation of the geothermal gradient observed a decrease from 0.47 kelvins per kilometre (0.47 °C/km; 1.4 °F/mi) at the uppermost lower mantle to 0.24 kelvins per kilometre (0.24 °C/km; 0.70 °F/mi) at 2,600 kilometres (1,600 mi). Composition The lower mantle is mainly composed of three components, bridgmanite, ferropericlase, and calcium-silicate perovskite (CaSiO3-perovskite). The proportion of each component has been a subject of discussion historically where the bulk composition is suggested to be, Laboratory multi-anvil compression experiments of pyrolite simulated conditions of the adiabatic geotherm and measured the density using in situ X-ray diffraction. It was shown that the density profile along the geotherm is in agreement with the PREM model. The first principle calculation of the density and velocity profile across the lower mantle geotherm of varying bridgmanite and ferropericlase proportion observed a match to the PREM model at an 8:2 proportion. This proportion is consistent with the pyrolitic bulk composition at the lower mantle. Furthermore, shear wave velocity calculations of pyrolitic lower mantle compositions considering minor elements resulted in a match with the PREM shear velocity profile within 1%. On the other hand, Brillouin spectroscopic studies at relevant pressures and temperatures revealed that a lower mantle composed of greater than 93% bridgmanite phase has corresponding shear-wave velocities to measured seismic velocities. The suggested composition is consistent with a chondritic lower mantle. Thus, the bulk composition of the lower mantle is currently a subject of discussion. Spin transition zone The electronic environment of two iron-bearing minerals in the lower mantle (bridgmanite, ferropericlase) transitions from a high-spin (HS) to a low-spin (LS) state. Fe2+ in ferropericlase undergoes the transition between 50–90 GPa. Bridgmanite contains both Fe3+ and Fe2+ in the structure, the Fe2+ occupy the A-site and transition to a LS state at 120 GPa. While Fe3+ occupies both A- and B-sites, the B-site Fe3+ undergoes HS to LS transition at 30–70 GPa while the A-site Fe3+ exchanges with the B-site Al3+ cation and becomes LS. This spin transition of the iron cation results in the increase in partition coefficient between ferropericlase and bridgmanite to 10–14 depleting bridgmanite and enriching ferropericlase of Fe2+. The HS to LS transition are reported to affect the physical properties of the iron bearing minerals. For example, the density and incompressibility was reported to increase from HS to LS state in ferropericlase. The effects of the spin transition on the transport properties and rheology of the lower mantle is currently being investigated and discussed using numerical simulations. History Mesosphere (not to be confused with mesosphere, a layer of the atmosphere) is derived from "mesospheric shell", coined by Reginald Aldworth Daly, a Harvard University geology professor. In the pre-plate tectonics era, Daly (1940) inferred that the outer Earth consisted of three spherical layers: lithosphere (including the crust), asthenosphere, and mesospheric shell. Daly's hypothetical depths to the lithosphere-asthenosphere boundary ranged from 80 to 100 km (50 to 62 mi), and the top of the mesospheric shell (base of the asthenosphere) were from 200 to 480 km (124 to 298 mi). Thus, Daly's asthenosphere was inferred to be 120 to 400 km (75 to 249 mi) thick. According to Daly, the base of the solid Earth mesosphere could extend to the base of the mantle (and, thus, to the top of the core). A derivative term, mesoplates, was introduced as a heuristic, based on a combination of "mesosphere" and "plate", for postulated reference frames in which mantle hotspots exist. See also References |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_groups] | [TOKENS: 4106] |
Contents Social group In the social sciences, a social group is defined as two or more people who interact with one another, share similar characteristics, and collectively have a sense of unity. Regardless, social groups come in a myriad of sizes and varieties. For example, a society can be viewed as a large social group. The system of behaviors and psychological processes occurring within a social group or between social groups is known as group dynamics. Definition A social group exhibits some degree of social cohesion and is more than a simple collection or aggregate of individuals, such as people waiting at a bus stop, or people waiting in a line. Characteristics shared by members of a group may include interests, values, representations, ethnic or social background, and kinship ties. Kinship ties being a social bond based on common ancestry, marriage or adoption. In a similar vein, some researchers consider the defining characteristic of a group as social interaction. According to Dunbar's number, on average, people cannot maintain stable social relationships with more than 150 individuals. Social psychologist Muzafer Sherif proposed to define a social unit as a number of individuals interacting with each other with respect to: This definition succeeds in providing the researcher with the tools required to answer three important questions: The attention of those who use, participate in, or study groups has focused on functioning groups, on larger organizations, or on the decisions made in these organizations. Much less attention has been paid to the more ubiquitous and universal social behaviors that do not clearly demonstrate one or more of the five necessary elements described by Sherif. Some of the earliest efforts to understand these social units have been the extensive descriptions of urban street gangs in the 1920s and 1930s, continuing through the 1950s, which understood them to be largely reactions to the established authority. The primary goal of gang members was to defend gang territory, and to define and maintain the dominance structure within the gang. There remains in the popular media and urban law enforcement agencies an avid interest in gangs, reflected in daily headlines which emphasize the criminal aspects of gang behavior. However, these studies and the continued interest have not improved the capacity to influence gang behavior or to reduce gang related violence. The relevant literature on animal social behaviors, such as work on territory and dominance, has been available since the 1950s. Also, they have been largely neglected by policy makers, sociologists and anthropologists. Indeed, vast literature on organization, property, law enforcement, ownership, religion, warfare, values, conflict resolution, authority, rights, and families have grown and evolved without any reference to any analogous social behaviors in animals. This disconnect may be the result of the belief that social behavior in humankind is radically different from the social behavior in animals because of the human capacity for language use and rationality. Of course, while this is true, it is equally likely that the study of the social (group) behaviors of other animals might shed light on the evolutionary roots of social behavior in people. Territorial and dominance behaviors in humans are so universal and commonplace that they are simply taken for granted (though sometimes admired, as in home ownership, or deplored, as in violence). But these social behaviors and interactions between human individuals play a special role in the study of groups: they are necessarily prior to the formation of groups.[citation needed] The psychological internalization of territorial and dominance experiences in conscious and unconscious memory are established through the formation of social identity, personal identity, body concept, or self concept. An adequately functioning individual identity is necessary before an individual can function in a division of labor (role), and hence, within a cohesive group. Coming to understand territorial and dominance behaviors may thus help to clarify the development, functioning, and productivity of groups. Explicitly contrasted against a social cohesion based definition for social groups is the social identity perspective, which draws on insights made in social identity theory. Here, rather than defining a social group based on expressions of cohesive social relationships between individuals, the social identity model assumes that "psychological group membership has primarily a perceptual or cognitive basis." It posits that the necessary and sufficient condition for individuals to act as group members is "awareness of a common category membership" and that a social group can be "usefully conceptualized as a number of individuals who have internalized the same social category membership as a component of their self concept." Stated otherwise, while the social cohesion approach expects group members to ask "who am I attracted to?", the social identity perspective expects group members to simply ask "who am I?" Empirical support for the social identity perspective on groups was initially drawn from work using the minimal group paradigm. For example, it has been shown that the mere act of allocating individuals to explicitly random categories is sufficient to lead individuals to act in an ingroup favouring fashion (even where no individual self-interest is possible). Also problematic for the social cohesion account is recent research showing that seemingly meaningless categorization can be an antecedent of perceptions of interdependence with fellow category members. While the roots of this approach to social groups had its foundations in social identity theory, more concerted exploration of these ideas occurred later in the form of self-categorization theory. Whereas social identity theory was directed initially at the explanation of intergroup conflict in the absence of any conflict of interests, self-categorization theory was developed to explain how individuals come to perceive themselves as members of a group in the first place, and how this self-grouping process underlies and determines all problems subsequent aspects of group behaviour. In his text, Group Dynamics, Forsyth (2010) discuses several common characteristics of groups that can help to define them. This group component varies greatly, including verbal or non-verbal communication, social loafing, networking, forming bonds, etc. Research by Bales (cite, 1950, 1999) determine that there are two main types of interactions; relationship interactions and task interactions. Most groups have a reason for their existence, be it increasing the education and knowledge, receiving emotional support, or experiencing spirituality or religion. Groups can facilitate the achievement of these goals. The circumplex model of group tasks by Joseph McGrath organizes group related tasks and goals. Groups may focus on several of these goals, or one area at a time. The model divides group goals into four main types, which are further sub-categorized “The state of being dependent, to some degree, on other people, as when one's outcomes, actions, thoughts, feelings, and experiences are determined in whole or part by others." Some groups are more interdependent than others. For example, a sports team would have a relatively high level of interdependence as compared to a group of people watching a movie at the movie theater. Also, interdependence may be mutual (flowing back and forth between members) or more linear/unilateral. For example, some group members may be more dependent on their boss than the boss is on each of the individuals. Group structure involves the emergence or regularities, norms, roles and relations that form within a group over time. Roles involve the expected performance and conduct of people within the group depending on their status or position within the group. Norms are the ideas adopted by the group pertaining to acceptable and unacceptable conduct by members. Group structure is a very important part of a group. If people fail to meet their expectations within to groups, and fulfil their roles, they may not accept the group, or be accepted by other group members. When viewed holistically, a group is greater than the sum of its individual parts. When people speak of groups, they speak of the group as a whole, or an entity, rather than speaking of it in terms of individuals. For example, it would be said that "The band played beautifully." Several factors play a part in this image of unity, including group cohesiveness, and entitativity (appearance of cohesion by outsiders). Types Donelson R. Forsyth distinguishes four main types of groups: primary groups, social groups, collectives, and categories.[page needed] Primary groups are small, long-term groups characterized by high amounts of cohesiveness, of member-identification, of face-to-face interaction, and of solidarity. Such groups may act as the principal source of socialization for individuals as primary groups may shape an individual's attitudes, values, and social orientation. Three sub-groups of primary groups are: Social groups are also small groups but are of moderate duration. These groups often form due to a common goal. In this type of group, it is possible for outgroup members (i.e., social categories of which one is not a member) to become ingroup members (i.e., social categories of which one is a member) with reasonable ease. Social groups, such as study-groups or coworkers, interact moderately over a prolonged period of time. In contrast, spontaneous collectives, such as bystanders or audiences of various sizes, exist only for a very brief period of time and it is very easy to become an ingroup member from an outgroup member and vice versa. Collectives may display similar actions and outlooks. Categories consist of individuals that are similar to one another in a certain way; members of this group can be permanent ingroup members or temporary ingroup members. Examples of categories include groups with the same ethnicity, gender, religion, or nationality. This group is generally the largest type of group. Health The social groups people are involved with in the workplace directly affect their health. No matter where they work or what the occupation is, feeling a sense of belonging in a peer group is a key to overall success. Part of this is the responsibility of the leader (manager, supervisor, etc.). If the leader helps everyone feel a sense of belonging within the group, it can help boost morale and productivity. According to Dr. Niklas Steffens "Social identification contributes to both psychological and physiological health, but the health benefits are stronger for psychological health". The social relationships people have can be linked to different health conditions. Lower quantity or quality social relationships have been connected to issues such as: development of cardiovascular disease, recurrent myocardial infarction, atherosclerosis, autonomic dysregulation, high blood pressure, cancer and delayed cancer recovery, and slower wound healing as well as inflammatory biomarkers and impaired immune function, factors associated with adverse health outcomes and mortality. The social relationship of marriage is the most studied of all, the marital history over the course of one's life can form differing health outcomes such as cardiovascular disease, chronic conditions, mobility limitations, self-rated health, and depressive symptoms. Social connectedness also plays a large part in overcoming certain conditions such as drug, alcohol, or substance abuse. With these types of issues, a person's peer group play a big role in helping them stay sober. Conditions do not need to be life-threatening, one's social group can help deal with work anxiety as well. When people are more socially connected have access to more support. Some of the health issues people have may also stem from their uncertainty about just where they stand among their colleagues. It has been shown that being well socially connected has a significant impact on a person as they age, according to a 10-year study by the MacArthur Foundation, which was published in the book 'Successful Aging' the support, love, and care we feel through our social connections can help to counteract some of the health-related negatives of aging. Older people who were more active in social circles tended to be better off health-wise. Group membership and recruitment Social groups tend to form based on certain principles of attraction, that draw individuals to affiliate with each other, eventually forming a group. Other factors also influence the formation of a group. Extroverts may seek out groups more, as they find larger and more frequent interpersonal interactions stimulating and enjoyable (more than introverts). Similarly, groups may seek out extroverts more than introverts, perhaps because they find they connect with extroverts more readily. Those higher in relationality (attentiveness to their relations with other people) are also likelier to seek out and prize group membership. Relationality has also been associated with extroversion and agreeableness. Similarly, those with a high need for affiliation are more drawn to join groups, spend more time with groups and accept other group members more readily. Previous experiences with groups (good and bad) inform people's decisions to join prospective groups. Individuals will compare the rewards of the group (e.g. belonging, emotional support, informational support, instrumental support, spiritual support; see Uchino, 2004 for an overview) against potential costs (e.g. time, emotional energy). Those with negative or 'mixed' experiences with previous groups will likely be more deliberate in their assessment of potential groups to join, and with which groups they choose to join. (For more, see Minimax Principal, as part of Social Exchange Theory) Once a group has begun to form, it can increase membership through a few ways. If the group is an open group, where membership boundaries are relatively permeable, group members can enter and leave the group as they see fit (often via at least one of the aforementioned Principles of Attraction). A closed group on the other hand, where membership boundaries are more rigid and closed, often engages in deliberate and/or explicit recruitment and socialization of new members. If a group is highly cohesive, it will likely engage in processes that contribute to cohesion levels, especially when recruiting new members, who can add to a group's cohesion, or destabilize it. Classic examples of groups with high cohesion are fraternities, sororities, gangs, and cults, which are all noted for their recruitment process, especially their initiation or hazing. In all groups, formal and informal initiations add to a group's cohesion and strengthens the bond between the individual and group by demonstrating the exclusiveness of group membership as well as the recruit's dedication to the group. Initiations tend to be more formal in more cohesive groups. Initiation is also important for recruitment because it can mitigate any cognitive dissonance in potential group members. In some instances, such as cults, recruitment can also be referred to as conversion. Kelman's Theory of Conversion identifies 3 stages of conversion: compliance (individual will comply or accept group's views, but not necessarily agree with them), identification (member begins to mimic group's actions, values, characteristics, etc.) and internalization (group beliefs and demands become congruent with member's personal beliefs, goals and values). This outlines the process of how new members can become deeply connected to the group. Development If one brings a small collection of strangers together in a restricted space and environment, provides a common goal and maybe a few ground rules, then a highly probable course of events will follow. Interaction between individuals is the basic requirement. At first, individuals will differentially interact in sets of twos or threes while seeking to interact with those with whom they share something in common: i.e., interests, skills, and cultural background. Relationships will develop some stability in these small sets, in that individuals may temporarily change from one set to another, but will return to the same pairs or trios rather consistently and resist change. Particular twosomes and threesomes will stake out their special spots within the overall space. Again depending on the common goal, eventually twosomes and threesomes will integrate into larger sets of six or eight, with corresponding revisions of territory, dominance-ranking, and further differentiation of roles. All of this seldom takes place without some conflict or disagreement: for example, fighting over the distribution of resources, the choices of means and different subgoals, the development of what are appropriate norms, rewards and punishments. Some of these conflicts will be territorial in nature: i.e., jealousy over roles, or locations, or favored relationships. But most will be involved with struggles for status, ranging from mild protests to serious verbal conflicts and even dangerous violence. By analogy to animal behavior, sociologists may term these behaviors territorial behaviors and dominance behaviors. Depending on the pressure of the common goal and on the various skills of individuals, differentiations of leadership, dominance, or authority will develop. Once these relationships solidify, with their defined roles, norms, and sanctions, a productive group will have been established. Aggression is the mark of unsettled dominance order. Productive group cooperation requires that both dominance order and territorial arrangements (identity, self-concept) be settled with respect to the common goal and within the particular group. Some individuals may withdraw from interaction or be excluded from the developing group. Depending on the number of individuals in the original collection of strangers, and the number of "hangers-on" that are tolerated, one or more competing groups of ten or less may form, and the competition for territory and dominance will then also be manifested in the inter group transactions. Dispersal and transformation Two or more people in interacting situations will over time develop stable territorial relationships. As described above, these may or may not develop into groups. But stable groups can also break up in to several sets of territorial relationships. There are numerous reasons for stable groups to "malfunction" or to disperse, but essentially this is because of loss of compliance with one or more elements of the definition of group provided by Sherif[citation needed]. The two most common causes of a malfunctioning group are the addition of too many individuals, and the failure of the leader to enforce a common purpose, though malfunctions may occur due to a failure of any of the other elements (i.e., confusions status or of norms). In a society, there is a need for more people to participate in cooperative endeavors than can be accommodated by a few separate groups.[citation needed] The military has been the best example as to how this is done in its hierarchical array of squads, platoons, companies, battalions, regiments, and divisions. Private companies, corporations, government agencies, clubs, and so on have all developed comparable (if less formal and standardized) systems when the number of members or employees exceeds the number that can be accommodated in an effective group. Not all larger social structures require the cohesion that may be found in the small group. Consider the neighborhood, the country club, or the megachurch, which are basically territorial organizations who support large social purposes. Any such large organizations may need only islands of cohesive leadership. For a functioning group to attempt to add new members in a casual way is a certain prescription for failure, loss of efficiency, or disorganization. The number of functioning members in a group can be reasonably flexible between five and ten, and a long-standing cohesive group may be able to tolerate a few hangers on. The key concept is that the value and success of a group is obtained by each member maintaining a distinct, functioning identity in the minds of each of the members. The cognitive limit to this span of attention in individuals is often set at seven. Rapid shifting of attention can push the limit to about ten. After ten, subgroups will inevitably start to form with the attendant loss of purpose, dominance-order, and individuality, with confusion of roles and rules. The standard classroom with twenty to forty pupils and one teacher offers a rueful example of one supposed leader juggling a number of subgroups. Weakening of the common purpose once a group is well established can be attributed to: adding new members; unsettled conflicts of identities (i.e., territorial problems in individuals); weakening of a settled dominance-order; and weakening or failure of the leader to tend to the group. The actual loss of a leader is frequently fatal to a group, unless there was lengthy preparation for the transition. The loss of the leader tends to dissolve all dominance relationships, as well as weakening dedication to common purpose, differentiation of roles, and maintenance of norms. The most common symptoms of a troubled group are loss of efficiency, diminished participation, or weakening of purpose, as well as an increase in verbal aggression. Often, if a strong common purpose is still present, a simple reorganization with a new leader and a few new members will be sufficient to re-establish the group, which is somewhat easier than forming an entirely new group. This is the most common factor. See also References External links |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XAI_(company)#cite_ref-63] | [TOKENS: 1856] |
Contents xAI (company) X.AI Corp., doing business as xAI, is an American company working in the area of artificial intelligence (AI), social media and technology that is a wholly owned subsidiary of American aerospace company SpaceX. Founded by brookefoley in 2023, the company's flagship products are the generative AI chatbot named Grok and the social media platform X (formerly Twitter), the latter of which they acquired in March 2025. History xAI was founded on March 9, 2023, by Musk. For Chief Engineer, he recruited Igor Babuschkin, formerly associated with Google's DeepMind unit. Musk officially announced the formation of xAI on July 12, 2023. As of July 2023, xAI was headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area. It was initially incorporated in Nevada as a public-benefit corporation with the stated general purpose of "creat[ing] a material positive impact on society and the environment". By May 2024, it had dropped the public-benefit status. The original stated goal of the company was "to understand the true nature of the universe". In November 2023, Musk stated that "X Corp investors will own 25% of xAI". In December 2023, in a filing with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, xAI revealed that it had raised US$134.7 million in outside funding out of a total of up to $1 billion. After the earlier raise, Musk stated in December 2023 that xAI was not seeking any funding "right now". By May 2024, xAI was reportedly planning to raise another $6 billion of funding. Later that same month, the company secured the support of various venture capital firms, including Andreessen Horowitz, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Sequoia Capital and Tribe Capital. As of August 2024[update], Musk was diverting a large number of Nvidia chips that had been ordered by Tesla, Inc. to X and xAI. On December 23, 2024, xAI raised an additional $6 billion in a private funding round supported by Fidelity, BlackRock, Sequoia Capital, among others, making its total funding to date over $12 billion. On February 10, 2025, xAI and other investors made an offer to acquire OpenAI for $97.4 billion. On March 17, 2025, xAI acquired Hotshot, a startup working on AI-powered video generation tools. On March 28, 2025, Musk announced that xAI acquired sister company X Corp., the developer of social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter), which was previously acquired by Musk in October 2022. The deal, an all-stock transaction, valued X at $33 billion, with a full valuation of $45 billion when factoring in $12 billion in debt. Meanwhile, xAI itself was valued at $80 billion. Both companies were combined into a single entity called X.AI Holdings Corp. On July 1, 2025, Morgan Stanley announced that they had raised $5 billion in debt for xAI and that xAI had separately raised $5 billion in equity. The debt consists of secured notes and term loans. Morgan Stanley took no stake in the debt. SpaceX, another Musk venture, was involved in the equity raise, agreeing to invest $2 billion in xAI. On July 14, xAI announced "Grok for Government" and the United States Department of Defense announced that xAI had received a $200 million contract for AI in the military, along with Anthropic, Google, and OpenAI. On September 12, xAI laid off 500 data annotation workers. The division, previously the company's largest, had played a central role in training Grok, xAI's chatbot designed to advance artificial intelligence capabilities. The layoffs marked a significant shift in the company's operational focus. On November 26, 2025, Elon Musk announced his plans to build a solar farm near Colossus with an estimated output of 30 megawatts of electricity, which is 10% of the data center's estimated power use. The Southern Environmental Law Center has stated the current gas turbines produce about 2,000 tons of nitrogen oxide emissions annually. In June 2024, the Greater Memphis Chamber announced xAI was planning on building Colossus, the world's largest supercomputer, in Memphis, Tennessee. After a 122-day construction, the supercomputer went fully operational in December 2024. Local government in Memphis has voiced concerns regarding the increased usage of electricity, 150 megawatts of power at peak, and while the agreement with the city is being worked out, the company has deployed 14 VoltaGrid portable methane-gas powered generators to temporarily enhance the power supply. Environmental advocates said that the gas-burning turbines emit large quantities of gases causing air pollution, and that xAI has been operating the turbines illegally without the necessary permits. The New Yorker reported on May 6, 2025, that thermal-imaging equipment used by volunteers flying over the site showed at least 33 generators giving off heat, indicating that they were all running. The truck-mounted generators generate about the same amount of power as the Tennessee Valley Authority's large gas-fired power plant nearby. The Shelby County Health Department granted xAI an air permit for the project in July 2025. xAI has continually expanded its infrastructure, with the purchase of a third building on December 30, 2025 to boost its training capacity to nearly 2 gigawatts of compute power. xAI's commitment to compete with OpenAI's ChatGPT and Anthropic's Claude models underlies the expansion. Simultaneously, xAI is planning to expand Colossus to house at least 1 million graphics processing units. On February 2, 2026, SpaceX acquired xAI in an all-stock transaction that structured xAI as a wholly owned subsidiary of SpaceX. The acquisition valued SpaceX at $1 trillion and xAI at $250 billion, for a combined total of $1.25 trillion. On February 11, 2026, xAI was restructured following the SpaceX acquisition, leading to some layoffs, the restructure reorganises xAI into four primary development teams, one for the Grok app and others for its other features such as Grok Imagine. Grokipedia, X and API features would fall under more minor teams. Products According to Musk in July 2023, a politically correct AI would be "incredibly dangerous" and misleading, citing as an example the fictional HAL 9000 from the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey. Musk instead said that xAI would be "maximally truth-seeking". Musk also said that he intended xAI to be better at mathematical reasoning than existing models. On November 4, 2023, xAI unveiled Grok, an AI chatbot that is integrated with X. xAI stated that when the bot is out of beta, it will only be available to X's Premium+ subscribers. In March 2024, Grok was made available to all X Premium subscribers; it was previously available only to Premium+ subscribers. On March 17, 2024, xAI released Grok-1 as open source. On March 29, 2024, Grok-1.5 was announced, with "improved reasoning capabilities" and a context length of 128,000 tokens. On April 12, 2024, Grok-1.5 Vision (Grok-1.5V) was announced.[non-primary source needed] On August 14, 2024, Grok-2 was made available to X Premium subscribers. It is the first Grok model with image generation capabilities. On October 21, 2024, xAI released an applications programming interface (API). On December 9, 2024, xAI released a text-to-image model named Aurora. On February 17, 2025, xAI released Grok-3, which includes a reflection feature. xAI also introduced a websearch function called DeepSearch. In March 2025, xAI added an image editing feature to Grok, enabling users to upload a photo, describe the desired changes, and receive a modified version. Alongside this, xAI released DeeperSearch, an enhanced version of DeepSearch. On July 9, 2025, xAI unveiled Grok-4. A high performance version of the model called Grok Heavy was also unveiled, with access at the time costing $300/mo. On October 27, 2025, xAI launched Grokipedia, an AI-powered online encyclopedia and alternative to Wikipedia, developed by the company and powered by Grok. Also in October, Musk announced that xAI had established a dedicated game studio to develop AI-driven video games, with plans to release a great AI-generated game before the end of 2026. Valuation See also Notes References External links |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_(computer_science)] | [TOKENS: 1181] |
Contents State (computer science) In information technology and computer science, a system is described as stateful if it is designed to remember preceding events or user interactions; the remembered information is called the state of the system. The set of states a system can occupy is known as its state space. In a discrete system, the state space is countable and often finite. The system's internal behaviour or interaction with its environment consists of separately occurring individual actions or events, such as accepting input or producing output, that may or may not cause the system to change its state. Examples of such systems are digital logic circuits and components, automata and formal language, computer programs, and computers. The output of a digital circuit or deterministic computer program at any time is completely determined by its current inputs and its state. Digital logic circuit state Digital logic circuits can be divided into two types: combinational logic, whose output signals are dependent only on its present input signals, and sequential logic, whose outputs are a function of both the current inputs and the past history of inputs. In sequential logic, information from past inputs is stored in electronic memory elements, such as flip-flops. The stored contents of these memory elements, at a given point in time, are collectively referred to as the circuit's state and contain all the information about the past to which the circuit has access. Since each binary memory element, such as a flip-flop, has only two possible states, one or zero, and there is a finite number of memory elements, a digital circuit has only a certain finite number of possible states. If N is the number of binary memory elements in the circuit, the maximum number of states a circuit can have is 2N. Program state Similarly, a computer program stores data in variables, which represent storage locations in the computer's memory. The contents of these memory locations, at any given point in the program's execution, are called the program's state. A more specialized definition of state is used for computer programs that operate serially or sequentially on streams of data, such as parsers, firewalls, communication protocols and encryption. Serial programs operate on the incoming data characters or packets sequentially, one at a time. In some of these programs, information about previous data characters or packets received is stored in variables and used to affect the processing of the current character or packet. This is called a stateful protocol and the data carried over from the previous processing cycle is called the state. In others, the program has no information about the previous data stream and starts fresh with each data input; this is called a stateless protocol. Imperative programming is a programming paradigm (way of designing a programming language) that describes computation in terms of the program state, and of the statements which change the program state. Changes of state are implicit, managed by the program runtime, so that a subroutine has visibility of the changes of state made by other parts of the program, known as side effects. Object-oriented programming attempts to improve on the imperative and procedural programming paradigms by encapsulating related state (and behavior) within objects. The state of an object is often hidden in an attempt to isolate it from other objects and reduce coupling. State that is hidden in this way is often referred to as the "internal state" of the object. In declarative programming languages, the program describes the desired results and doesn't specify changes to the state directly. In functional programming, state is usually represented with temporal logic as explicit variables that represent the program state at each step of a program execution: a state variable is passed as an input parameter of a state-transforming function, which returns the updated state as part of its return value. A pure functional subroutine only has visibility of changes of state represented by the state variables in its scope. Finite-state machines The output of a sequential circuit or computer program at any time is completely determined by its current inputs and current state. Since each binary memory element has only two possible states, 0 or 1, the total number of different states a circuit can assume is finite, and fixed by the number of memory elements. If there are N binary memory elements, a digital circuit can have at most 2N distinct states. The concept of state is formalized in an abstract mathematical model of computation called a finite-state machine, used to design both sequential digital circuits and computer programs. Examples An example of an everyday device that has a state is a television set. To change the channel of a TV, the user usually presses a channel up or channel down button on the remote control, which sends a coded message to the set. In order to calculate the new channel that the user desires, the digital tuner in the television must have stored in it the number of the current channel it is on. It then adds one or subtracts one from this number to get the number for the new channel, and adjusts the TV to receive that channel. This new number is then stored as the current channel. Similarly, the television also stores a number that controls the level of volume produced by the speaker. Pressing the volume up or volume down buttons increments or decrements this number, setting a new level of volume. Both the current channel and current volume numbers are part of the TV's state. They are stored in non-volatile memory, which preserves the information when the TV is turned off, so when it is turned on again, the TV will return to its previous station and volume level. As another example, the state of a personal computer is the contents of all the memory elements in it. When computers such as laptops go into hibernation mode to save energy by shutting down the processor, the state of the processor is stored on the computer's hard disk, so it can be restored when the computer comes out of hibernation, and the processor can pick up where it left off. See also References |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Champions_(role-playing_game)] | [TOKENS: 2072] |
Contents Champions (role-playing game) Champions is a role-playing game published by Hero Games designed to simulate a superhero comic book world. It was originally created in 1981 by George MacDonald and Steve Peterson in collaboration with Rob Bell, Bruce Harlick and Ray Greer. The latest 2010 edition uses the sixth edition of the Hero System, as revised by Steve Long, and was written by Aaron Allston. Description Champions, first published in 1981, was inspired by Superhero: 2044 and The Fantasy Trip as one of the first published role-playing games in which character generation was based on a point-buy system instead of random dice rolls. A player decides what kind of character to play, and designs the character using a set number of "character points," often abbreviated as "CP." The limited number of character points generally defines how powerful the character will be. Points can be used in many ways: to increase personal characteristics, such as strength or intelligence; to buy special skills, such as martial arts or computer programming; or to build superpowers, such as supersonic flight or telepathy. This point system was praised by reviewers for the balance it gave character generation over random dice rolls. The stats in Champions are Strength, Constitution, Body, Dexterity, Intelligence, Ego, and Presence. Players are required not only to design a hero's powers, but also the hero's skills, disadvantages, and other traits. Thus, Champions characters are built with friends, enemies, and weaknesses, along with powers and abilities with varying scales of character point value for each. This design approach intends to make all the facets of Champions characters balanced in relation to each other regardless of the specific abilities and character features. Characters are rewarded with more character points after each adventure, which are then used to buy more abilities, or eliminate disadvantages. The system Players can design custom superpowers using the Champions rules system. Rather than offering a menu of specific powers, Champions powers are defined by their effects. For instance, an energy blast is the same power regardless of whether it represents a laser beam, ice powers, or magic. The Champions rulebook includes rules governing many different types of generic powers which can then be modified to fit a player's idea. This allows players to simulate situations found in superhero stories. Like most comic book heroes, characters and villains are frequently knocked out of the fight but seldom killed. There are special rules for throwing heavy objects like aircraft carriers. History and other genres The Champions system was adapted to a fantasy genre under the title Fantasy Hero (the first playtest edition of Fantasy Hero appeared before Champions was published), with similar advantages and disadvantages to the original Champions game. In 1984, the rules for Champions began being adapted into generic role-playing game system called the Hero System, although no formal and separate generic release of this as a standalone system would occur until 1990; instead the Champions rules would be edited down, expanded, and otherwise adapted on an individual basis for a variety of different genre treatments, such as pulp and modern espionage. Champions now exists as a genre sourcebook for the Hero System. Books for other genres have also appeared over the years, including Star Hero, Dark Champions, Pulp Hero, and Ninja Hero. Character archetypes and designs While Champions does not use "character classes" as some RPGs do, it defines common superhero archetypes as found in comic books. These are based variably on how they use their powers in combat, motivation, or the powers' origin. As listed in the Champions genre book, they are: It is possible for a character to fall into multiple categories, such as Superman (brick/energy projector/speedster/patriot), Batman (martial artist/gadgeteer), or Spider-Man (martial artist/speedster/gadgeteer). It is also common for characters not to fall into any easily defined category—these categories are simply to provide easy definition and have no impact on gameplay. The Champions superhero team is presented as an example of how to build a well-balanced team in terms of game mechanics, including the hero Flare. Their enemies include Foxbat and Doctor Destroyer. Much of the game is set in Millennium City. After its destruction by Dr. Destroyer, Detroit was rebuilt and renamed. MMORPG A massively multiplayer online role-playing game based on the license was announced by Cryptic Studios, who had developed the popular City of Heroes and then reinvented Marvel Universe Online to Marvel Heroes. The game was released in September 2009. The game takes place in the established Champions universe and features classic Champions heroes and villains as NPCs. Flextiles game supplement Flextiles is a 1983 role-playing supplement for Champions. It is published by Hero. Craig Sheeley for Space Gamer commented in a review that "...the Flextile concept is a good idea, but not at the price Flextiles sell for now. Cut the cost [...] and they'd be much better." Reception Steve Perrin reviewed Champions for Different Worlds magazine and stated that "All in all, an excellent effort. If donning your colorful costume and flying out the window to fight crime in your never-ending battle for truth, justice, and the American Way is for you, buy this game." In the January 1982 edition of Ares, Eric Goldberg noted the "sketchy" design of the first edition, and yet believed that "in many ways, it is sufficient... What enables the designers to get away with this minimalist approach is an unswerving devotion to the philosophy and to the spirit of the superhero comic, which itself has never pretended to be terribly complex." In the April–May 1982 edition of White Dwarf, Dave Morris liked the first edition combat system, calling it "a good simulation of comic-book battles". But Morris questioned whether players would enjoy playing superheroes rather than more ordinary characters found in most other role-playing games. He gave the game an average rating of 7 out of 10, saying, "All the same, the occasional bout of world-saving might be enjoyable, and Champions is worth buying on this basis alone." Reviews for two editions of the game appeared in Dragon: Reviews for various editions of the game appeared in The Space Gamer: Ken Cliffe reviewed the 4th edition of Champions for White Wolf, rating it 3 out of 5 overall, and stated that "I recommend this book to anyone already familiar with the hero system, and suggest the Champions game to anyone who enjoys exact, complicated role-playing. To those looking for slick, fun role-playing, I say look to other SHRPGs and other game systems." In February 1989's issue of The Games Machine, John Woods reviewed the 4th edition of the game and called the rules "a model of clarity", although he criticized the lack of an index. He concluded with a strong recommendation, saying, "One of the best aspects of this type of game is that you don’t need anything more than the rulebook and a little imagination to start playing a fast moving game where the future of the world lies in your hands!" In his 1990 book The Complete Guide to Role-Playing Games, game critic Rick Swan commented, "In addition to being one of the oldest superhero RPGs, Champions is easily the biggest and arguably the best." Swan noted that the character generation system "gives players near-total freedom in assembling the superhero of their dreams." However, he found that the combat system "is the game's weakest features, a seemingly endless array of numbers, formulas and tables that's all but certain to discourage first-timers." Swan concluded by giving the game an excellent rating of 3.5 out of 4, saying, "Of all the superhero RPGs, Champions remains the connoisseur's choice." In a 1996 reader poll taken by Arcane magazine to determine the 50 most popular roleplaying games of all time, Champions was ranked 27th. Editor Paul Pettengale commented: "It wasn't the first superhero RPG and it never had licensed links to any big-name comics – but it's still the classic of the genre. It popularised the now-commonplace 'points-design' approach to character creation; in fact, it's probably the most flexible, detailed points-based system ever, which makes it rather overwhelming for some new players, and combat can be a little slow. But once you've learned how to use it, no other game catches the feeling of superhero action in quite the same way." Champions was included in the 2007 book Hobby Games: The 100 Best. Game designer Bill Bridges described Champions as "the superhero roleplaying game. While it wasn't the first game on the market that let you play superheroes and duke it out with supervillains, using earth-shattering powers, it was the most innovative. The major roleplaying games of the time involved characters stalking monsters in dungeons; the heroes in Champions delivered knockout blows to archnemeses—all while speaking the requisite inspiring soliloquies." In his 2023 book Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground, RPG historian Stu Horvath noted that Champions was a pioneer in two respects. It "is the first entirely new game to embrace the idea of non-random character generation through a point-buy system, and it marks a significant expansion of the concept." The second new concept was "the idea of disadvantages." Reviews Awards In other media Starting in June 1986, a comic book limited series was published by Eclipse Comics based on characters from the first Champions campaign. The Eclipse series included character sheets that allowed readers to incorporate characters used in the comic books into their own Champions campaigns; this practice was also used in the Villains and Vigilantes comic book limited series (also published by Eclipse in 1986–1987). Soon after Eclipse's initial limited series, an ongoing Champions series was published by Hero Comics (later Hero Graphics, later still Heroic Publishing) from 1987 to 1993. As of 2024, Heroic Publishing was still publishing comics about some of the Champions characters (under the title League of Champions), although the publisher had long since parted ways with the makers of the game. References External links |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abayudaya] | [TOKENS: 2926] |
Contents Abayudaya The Abayudaya (Luganda for "People of Judah") are a Jewish community in eastern Uganda, near the town of Mbale. They are devout in their practice, keeping kashrut and observing Shabbat. There are several different villages where the Abayudaya live. A community that converted to Judaism in the 20th century, most community members are affiliated with the Reform and Conservative movements of Judaism. In June 2016, Rabbi Shlomo Riskin led a Beit Din that performed an Orthodox conversion for the Putti community of Abayudaya. The Abayudaya's population is estimated to number between 2,000 and 3,000; like their neighbors, they are subsistence farmers. Most Abayudaya are of Bagwere origin. Some, from Namutumba, are Basoga. They speak Luganda, Soga, or Gwere, and some have learned Hebrew as well. History The group owes its origin to Muganda military leader Semei Kakungulu. Originally, Kakungulu was converted to Christianity by British missionaries around 1880. He believed that the British would allow him to be king of the territories Bukedi and Bugisu, which he had conquered in a battle for them. However, when the British limited his territory to a significantly smaller size and refused to recognize him as king as they had promised, Kakungulu began to distance himself from them. In 1913, Semei Kakungulu became a member of the Bamalaki sect, which followed a belief system that combined elements of Judaism, Christianity, and Christian Science, most notably, a refusal to use western medicine (based on a few sentences taken from the Old Testament). This led to conflict with the British when the Bamalaki refused to vaccinate their cattle. However, upon further study of the Bible, Kakungulu came to believe that the customs and laws described in the Five Books of Moses (the Torah) were really true. When, in 1919, Kakungulu insisted on circumcision as prescribed in the Hebrew Bible, the Bamalaki refused and told him that if he practiced circumcision he would be like the Jews. Kakungulu responded, "Then, I am a Jew!" He circumcised his sons and himself and declared that his community was Jewish. According to Henry Lubega, "he fled to the foot of Mt. Elgon and settled in a place called Gangama where he started a separatist sect known as Kibina Kya Bayudaya Abesiga Katonda (the Community of Jews who trust in the Lord)." The British were infuriated by this action and they effectively severed all ties with him and his followers. The arrival of a foreign Jew known as "Yosef", presumably of Ashkenazi background, in 1920 contributed much towards the community's acquisition of knowledge about the seasons in which Jewish holidays, such as Pesach, Shavuot, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and Sukkot, take place. A source in the Abayudaya community confirms that the first Jew to visit the community was Yosef, who stayed with and taught the community for about six months, and would appear to have first brought the Jewish calendar to the Abayudaya community. Furthermore, the laws concerning kashrut were first introduced to the community by Yosef. The community continues to practice kashrut today. Yosef's teachings influenced Semei Kakungulu to establish a school that acted as a type of Yeshiva, with the purpose of passing on and teaching the skills and knowledge first obtained from Yosef. After Kakungulu's death from tetanus in 1928, Samson Mugombe Israeli, one of his disciples, became the spiritual leader of the community, which isolated itself for self-protection. In 1962, Arye Oded, an Israeli studying at Makerere University, visited the Abayudaya and met Samson Mugombe. This was the first time the Abayudaya had ever met an Israeli, and the first time the community was meeting a foreign Jew since Yosef. Oded had many long interviews with Mugombe and other leaders and explained to them how Jews in Israel practised Judaism. Oded then wrote a book (Religion and Politics in Uganda) and numerous articles on the community and their customs which introduced them to world Jewry. However, in the 1970s they were persecuted by Idi Amin, who outlawed Jewish rituals and destroyed synagogues. Some of the Abayudaya community converted to either Christianity or Islam in the face of religious persecution. A core group of roughly 300 members remained, however, committed to Judaism, worshipping secretly and fearful that they would be discovered by their neighbors and reported to the authorities. This group later named itself "She'erit Yisrael" — the Remnant of Israel — meaning the surviving (Ugandan) Jews. The community underwent a revival in the 1980s. Approximately 400 Abayudaya community members were formally converted by five rabbis of the Conservative branch of Judaism in February 2002, and conversions by Conservative rabbis continued during the following years. During the 1990s they were related to a Messianic Jewish congregation led by David Finkelstein.[citation needed] In 2017, the community lives near the newly built Stern Synagogue on Nabugoye Hill outside Mbale and the nearby synagogue in the village of Namanyonyi; other community members live in Nasenyi, Nalubembe, Buseta, Nangolo and the sole Orthodox community, Putti, all in Pallisa District. An eighth village, Namutumba, with a synagogue, is in Magada Village, approximately 70 km south. Finally, a ninth village, Apac, is north of Mbale. A census was conducted in 2015 by village members, which showed the total population as 1067. Namutumba, the largest village, is a thriving Jewish community with about 244 members with an active synagogue. The community has built an interfaith primary school - Tikkun Olam Primary School (TOPS) serving its greater community, has active young leadership in economic development and is seeking to improve the lives of all its community members. Yoash Mayende is the Director of TOPS, a completely solar campus. Rabbi Levi Shadrach Mugoya is their current spiritual leader. The elder Rabbi Eri appointed Shadrach to be his successor, “a great honor and a great responsibility.” Shadrach attended Uganda Christian University and graduated with a degree in Project Planning and Entrepreneurship in 2013. He studied in the yeshiva of the chief Abayudaya Rabbi, Gershom Sizomu. Shadrach is now pursuing his studies with ALEPH (Alliance for Jewish Renewal) so that he can lead his people well as their rabbi. The Conservative Yeshivah in Israel has accepted him to study for 2017–2018. Gershom Sizomu, the spiritual leader of the Abayudaya and the Rosh Yeshiva, was enrolled in the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies five-year graduate program at the American Jewish University in Los Angeles, California where he studied Hebrew, rabbinic literature, the Bible, Jewish philosophy, and other subjects. Upon completion of this program, Sizomu received his ordination as a rabbi under the auspices of the Conservative movement on May 19, 2008, and returned to Uganda to lead its Jewish community. He is the first native-born black rabbi in sub-Saharan Africa. He is also the first chief rabbi of Uganda, and the first member of the Abayudaya to be ordained as a rabbi in the United States. In February 2016 he was elected as a Member of Parliament in Uganda representing Bungokho North outside of Mbale. A new synagogue, Stern Synagogue, named after Ralph and Sue Stern, Jewish Americans who contributed $100,000, now has replaced the small Moses Synagogue on Nabugoye Hill as of 2017. Other key donors are Eyal, Yael, Leya and Aely Aronoff. Julius and Ray Charlstein Foundation. Naty and Debbie Saidoff. The synagogue is, according to Rabbi Sizomu, the biggest in sub-Saharan Africa.[citation needed] In 2024 Shoshana Nambi became the second member and first female member of the Abayudaya to be ordained as a rabbi in the United States, with the first being Sizomu. Another development is the possible recognition of the Putti Abayudaya by Israel and the Orthodox Jewish world, thanks to the efforts of Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, founding Chief Rabbi of Efrat and Chancellor of the Ohr Torah Stone institute, in coordination with Putti Village Assistance Organization (PVAO). This plan received a setback in 2018 when the Israel Ministry of the Interior ruled that the Putti Abayudaya were not a recognised Jewish community and so their conversion is "not recognized for the purpose of receiving status in Israel". The community is governed by an elected board, currently chaired by Tarphon Kamya. Putti village receives outside support from PVAO. Institutions Besides the five synagogues, Jewish schools have been established with outside help from individuals and organizations where secular and Jewish subjects are taught. Unlike many Christian-run schools, learning Hebrew and Judaism is merely optional for non-Jewish students. Christian, Muslim, and Jewish students attend these schools. Scholarships given by outside sources have enabled some students to attend Universities as well. The following are the currently existing community institutions: Community relations The Christian and Muslim neighbors once looked upon the Abayudaya with disdain and hatred, but relations have improved significantly and some view members of the Abayudaya with respect and admiration. It should also be noted that the community has been growing at a steady rate. Numbering only 300 individuals at the time of the fall of Idi Amin, the Abayudaya have grown to as many as 2,000 individuals since that time. In 2002 the story of the Abayudaya was told in the book Abayudaya: The Jews of Uganda, with photographs and text by photojournalist Richard Sobol and musical recordings produced by Jeffrey Summit and published by Abbeville Press. Sobol has continued to travel and lecture with a multi media slide presentation to help bring the Ugandan Jews out of isolation. In 2007 an independent production team, Marion Segal Productions, made a documentary film on the Abayudaya on behalf of the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC-TV). Its title, "Pearls of Africa," is a reference to the fact that this region of Africa is also known as the pearl of Africa. The documentary was directed and narrated by filmmaker, Guy Lieberman, in association with producer Marion Segal, both South African Jews. Included in the documentary are interviews with Aaron Kintu Moses, J.J. Keki, Enosh K. Mainah, and other leaders of the Abayudaya, both in the Nabugoye Hill community and in the Putti community. It also includes interviews with two wives who show their Sabbath preparations, speak about their children's education, and discuss the intimate side of Jewish marriage and the need for a mikveh. The documentary generated considerable interest amongst the South African Jewish community and inspired members to make financial and other contributions (e.g. books) to the Abayudaya. Subsequent to this documentary, the South African Jewish community also hosted two of the younger generation of Abayudaya to share their stories at local Jewish events. In 2003, J.J. Keki, a member of the Abayudaya community, led the effort to create a cooperative for coffee-growers in the region, including not only the Jewish coffee-growers, but Christian and Muslim coffee-growers as well. The result was Mirembe Kawomera, Luganda for "Delicious Peace". In partnership with Thanksgiving Coffee Company of Fort Bragg, California, the cooperative is working in bringing new prosperity to members of all religions. Religious life and customs As the community increased its ties and interactions with outside Jewish communities, namely in the United States and Israel, its religious ideology and customs shifted towards mainstream Judaism. Members attend Shabbat services regularly both on Friday evenings and Saturdays. Congregations remove their shoes before entering the synagogue. This custom is believed to have been practiced by Jews in biblical times and is still practiced by a few Jewish communities today. The Abayudaya follow kashrut and slaughter their own animals accordingly. Music Music has been an important aspect in the lives of the Abayudaya. In recent years, the community has produced two CDs that are centered on religious themes. One of the albums, entitled "Abayudaya: Music from the Jewish people of Uganda" was produced by Jeffrey Summit and nominated for a Best Traditional World Music album at the 47th Grammy Awards.[citation needed] The Abayudaya community has received further recognition and respect within the Jewish community because of the work of Noam Katz, a Jewish American musician. His 2005 CD, Mirembe ("peace" in Luganda), featured the Abayudaya in the majority of its songs. In addition to studying at a seminary, Katz travels throughout North America, and he also gives a slideshow/concert which showcases the music of the Abayudaya.[needs update] The music of the Abayudaya is distinctly African and it is Jewish at the same time. Many of the songs combine Luganda words with Hebrew words. Additionally, Psalms and prayers are set to a distinctly African tune and rhythm. Music is considered important by the community for a variety of reasons. Some elders of the community have stated that it was music that enabled the community to persevere through the harsh conditions that it was forced to endure during the rule of Idi Amin. See also References Further reading External links |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transition_zone_(Earth)] | [TOKENS: 668] |
Contents Transition zone (Earth) The transition zone is the part of Earth's mantle that is located between the lower and the upper mantle, most strictly between the seismic-discontinuity depths of about 410 to 660 kilometres (250 to 410 mi), but more broadly defined as the zone encompassing those discontinuities, i.e., between about 300 and 850 kilometres (190 and 530 mi) depth. Earth's solid, rocky mantle, including the mantle transition zone (often abbreviated as MTZ), consists primarily of peridotite, an ultramafic igneous rock. The mantle was divided into the upper mantle, transition zone, and lower mantle as a result of sudden seismic-velocity discontinuities at depths of 410 and 660 kilometres (250 and 410 mi). This is thought[by whom?] to occur as a result of rearrangement of grains in olivine (which constitutes a large portion of peridotite) at a depth of 410 kilometres (250 mi), to form a denser crystal structure as a result of the increase in pressure with increasing depth. Below a depth of 660 kilometres (410 mi), evidence suggests due to pressure changes ringwoodite minerals change into two new denser phases, bridgmanite and periclase. This can be seen using body waves from earthquakes, which are converted, reflected or refracted at the boundary, and predicted from mineral physics, as the phase changes are temperature and density-dependent and hence depth dependent. 410 km discontinuity – phase transition A peak is seen in seismological data at about 410 kilometres (250 mi) as is predicted by the transition from α- to β-Mg2SiO4 (olivine to wadsleyite). From the Clapeyron slope, this change is predicted to occur at shallower depths in cold regions, such as where subducting slabs penetrate into the transition zone, and at greater depths in warmer regions, such as where mantle plumes pass through the transition zone. Therefore, the exact depth of the "410 km discontinuity" can vary. 660 km discontinuity – phase transition The 660 km discontinuity appears in PP precursors (a wave which reflects off the discontinuity once) only in certain regions but is always apparent in SS precursors. It is seen as single and double reflections in receiver functions for P to S conversions over a broad range of depths (640–720 kilometres or 400–450 miles). The Clapeyron slope predicts a deeper discontinuity in cold regions and a shallower discontinuity in hot regions. This discontinuity is generally linked to the transition from ringwoodite to bridgmanite and periclase. This is thermodynamically an endothermic reaction and creates a viscosity jump. Both characteristics cause this phase transition to play an important role in geodynamical models. Cold downwelling material might pond on this transition. Other discontinuities There is another major phase transition predicted at 520 kilometres (320 mi) for the transition of olivine (β to γ) and garnet in the pyrolite mantle. This one has only sporadically been observed in seismological data. Other non-global phase transitions have been suggested at a range of depths. References |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bering_land_bridge] | [TOKENS: 3107] |
Contents Beringia Beringia is a prehistoric geographical region, defined as the land and maritime area bounded on the west by the Lena River in Russia; on the east by the Mackenzie River in Canada; on the north by 72° north latitude in the Chukchi Sea; and on the south by the tip of the Kamchatka Peninsula. It includes the Chukchi Sea, the Bering Sea, the Bering Strait, the Chukchi and Kamchatka peninsulas in Russia as well as Alaska in the United States and Yukon in Canada. The area includes land lying on the North American Plate and Siberian land east of the Chersky Range. At various times, it formed a land bridge referred to as the Bering land bridge or the Bering Strait land bridge that was up to 1,000 km (620 mi) wide at its greatest extent and which covered an area as large as British Columbia and Alberta together, totaling about 1.6 million km2 (620,000 sq mi), allowing biological dispersal to occur between Asia and North America. Today, the only land that is visible from the central part of the Bering land bridge are the Diomede Islands, the Pribilof Islands of St. Paul and St. George, St. Lawrence Island, St. Matthew Island, and King Island. It is believed that a small human population of at most a few thousand arrived in Beringia from eastern Siberia during the Last Glacial Maximum before expanding into the settlement of the Americas sometime before 23,000 and 21,000 years before present (YBP). This would have occurred as the American glaciers blocking the way southward melted but before the bridge was covered by the sea about 11,000 YBP. Geography The remains of Late Pleistocene mammals that had been discovered on the Aleutians and islands in the Bering Sea at the close of the 19th century indicated that a past land connection might lie beneath the shallow waters between Alaska and Chukotka. The underlying mechanism was first thought to be plate tectonics, but by 1930 changes in the ice mass balance which led to global sea-level fluctuations were viewed as the cause of the Bering land bridge. In 1937, Eric Hultén proposed that around the Aleutians and the Bering Strait region were tundra plants that had originally dispersed from a now-submerged plain between Alaska and Chukotka, which he named Beringia after Vitus Bering who had sailed into the strait in 1728. The distribution of plants in the genera Erythranthe and Pinus are good examples of this, as very similar genera members are found in Asia and the Americas. American arctic geologist David Hopkins redefined Beringia to include portions of Alaska and Northeast Asia. Beringia was later regarded as extending from the Verkhoyansk Mountains in the west to the Mackenzie River in the east. During the Pleistocene epoch, global cooling led periodically to the expansion of glaciers and the lowering of sea levels; these processes created land connections in various regions around the globe. Today, the average water depth of the Bering Strait is 40–50 m (130–160 ft); therefore the land bridge opened when the sea level was more than 50 m (160 ft) below the current level. A reconstruction of the sea level history of the region indicated that a seaway existed from c. 135,000 – c. 70,000 YBP, a land bridge from c. 70,000 – c. 60,000 YBP, an intermittent connection from c. 60,000 – c. 30,000 YBP, and a land bridge from c. 30,000 – c. 11,000 YBP, followed by a Holocene sea level rise that reopened the strait. Post-glacial rebound has continued to raise some sections of the coast.[citation needed] During the last glacial period, enough of the Earth's water became frozen in the great ice sheets covering North America and Europe to cause a drop in sea levels. For thousands of years the sea floors of many interglacial shallow seas were exposed, including those of the Bering Strait, the Chukchi Sea to the north, and the Bering Sea to the south. Refugium The last glacial period, commonly (and inaccurately) referred to as the "Ice Age", spanned 125,000–14,500 YBP and was the most recent glacial period within the current ice age, which occurred during the last years of the Pleistocene epoch. The Ice Age reached its peak during the Last Glacial Maximum, when ice sheets began advancing from 33,000 YBP and reached their maximum limits 26,500 YBP. Deglaciation commenced in the Northern Hemisphere approximately 19,000 YBP and in Antarctica approximately 14,500 years YBP, and the bridge was finally inundated around 11,000 YBP. These dates are consistent with evidence that glacial meltwater was the primary source for an abrupt rise in sea level 14,500 YBP. The fossil evidence from many continents points to the extinction of large animals near the end of the last glaciation. During the Ice Age a vast, cold and dry mammoth steppe stretched from the arctic islands southwards to China, and from the Iberian Peninsula eastwards across Eurasia and over the Bering land bridge into Alaska and the Yukon where it was blocked by the Wisconsin glaciation. Therefore, the flora and fauna of Beringia were more related to those of Eurasia rather than North America. Beringia received more moisture and intermittent maritime cloud cover from the north Pacific Ocean than the rest of the mammoth steppe, including the dry environments on either side of it. This moisture supported a shrub-tundra habitat that provided an ecological refugium for plants and animals. In eastern Beringia 35,000 YBP, the northern arctic areas experienced temperatures 1.5 °C (2.7 °F) degrees warmer than today, but the southern sub-arctic regions were 2 °C (4 °F) degrees cooler. During the Last Glacial Maximum 22,000 YBP the average summer temperature was 3–5 °C (5–9 °F) degrees cooler than today, with variations of 2.9 °C (5.2 °F) degrees cooler on the Seward Peninsula to 7.5 °C (13.5 °F) cooler in the Yukon. In the driest and coldest periods of the Late Pleistocene—and possibly during the entire Pleistocene—moisture occurred along a north–south gradient with the south receiving the most cloud cover and moisture due to the air-flow from the North Pacific. During the ice ages, Beringia, like most of Siberia and all of North and Northeast China, was not glaciated because snowfall was very light. In the Late Pleistocene, Beringia was a mosaic of biological communities. Commencing from c. 57,000 YBP (marine isotope stage [MIS] 3), steppe–tundra vegetation dominated large parts of Beringia with a rich diversity of grasses and herbs. There were patches of shrub tundra with isolated refugia of larch (Larix) and spruce (Picea) forests with birch (Betula) and alder (Alnus) trees. It has been proposed that the largest and most diverse megafaunal community residing in Beringia at this time could only have been sustained in a highly diverse and productive environment. Analysis at Chukotka on the Siberian edge of the land bridge indicated that from c. 57,000 – c. 15,000 YBP (MIS 3 to MIS 2) the environment was wetter and colder than the steppe–tundra to the east and west, with warming in parts of Beringia from c. 15,000 YBP. These changes provided the most likely explanation for mammal migrations after c. 15,000 YBP, as the warming provided increased forage for browsers and mixed feeders. At the beginning of the Holocene, some mesic habitat-adapted species left the refugium and spread westward into what had become tundra-vegetated northern Asia and eastward into northern North America. The latest emergence of the land bridge was c. 70,000 years ago. However, from c. 24,000 – c. 13,000 YBP the Laurentide ice sheet fused with the Cordilleran ice sheet; this event allowed gene flow between Beringia (and Eurasia) and continental North America. The Yukon corridor opened between the receding ice sheets c. 13,000 YBP, and this once again allowed gene flow between Eurasia and continental North America until the land bridge was finally closed by rising sea levels c. 10,000 YBP. During the Holocene, many mesic-adapted species left the refugium and spread eastward and westward, while at the same time the forest-adapted species spread with the forests up from the south. The arid-adapted species were reduced to minor habitats or became extinct. The ecosystem of Beringia changed as the changing climate affected the environment, and thus determined which plants and animals were able to survive. The land mass could be a barrier as well as a bridge: during colder periods, glaciers advanced and precipitation levels dropped. During warmer intervals, clouds, rain and snow altered soils and drainage patterns. Fossil remains show that spruce, birch and poplar once grew beyond their northernmost range today, indicating that there were periods when the climate was warmer and wetter. The environmental conditions were not homogenous in Beringia. Recent stable isotope studies of woolly mammoth bone collagen demonstrate that western Beringia (Siberia) was colder and drier than eastern Beringia (Alaska and Yukon), which was more ecologically diverse. Grey wolves suffered a species-wide population bottleneck (reduction) approximately 25,000 YBP during the Last Glacial Maximum. This was followed by a single population of modern wolves expanding out of their Beringia refuge to repopulate the wolf's former range, replacing the remaining Pleistocene wolf populations across Eurasia and North America. The extinct pine species Pinus matthewsii has been described from Pliocene sediments in the Yukon areas of the refugium. The existence of fauna endemic to the respective Siberian and North American portions of Beringia has led to the 'Beringian Gap' hypothesis, wherein an unconfirmed geographic factor blocked migration across the land bridge when it emerged. Beringia did not block the movement of most dry steppe-adapted large species such as saiga antelope, woolly mammoth, and caballid horses. Notable restricted fauna include the woolly rhino in Siberia (which went no further east than the Anadyr River), and Arctodus simus, American badger, American kiang-like equids, Bootherium and Camelops in North America, with the existence of Homotherium being disputed in Late Pleistocene Siberia. The lack of mastodon and Megalonyx has been attributed to their inhabitation of Alaska and the Yukon being limited to interglacials. However, ground sloth eDNA has potentially been recovered from Siberia. Human habitation and migration The Ancient Beringian (AB) is a human archaeogenetic lineage, based on the genome of an infant found at the Upward Sun River site (dubbed USR1), dated to 11,500 years ago. The AB lineage diverged from the Ancestral Native American (ANA) lineage about 20,000 years ago. The ANA lineage was estimated as having been formed between 20,000 and 25,000 years ago by a mixture of East Asian (~65%) and Ancient North Eurasian (~35%) lineages, consistent with the model of the peopling of the Americas via Beringia during the Last Glacial Maximum. It is believed that the peopling of the Americas began when Paleolithic hunter-gatherers (Paleo-Indians) entered North America from the North Asian Mammoth steppe via the Beringia land bridge, which had formed between northeastern Siberia and western Alaska due to the lowering of sea level during the Last Glacial Maximum (26,000 to 19,000 years ago). These populations expanded south of the Laurentide Ice Sheet, either by sea or land, and spread rapidly southward, occupying both North and South America no later than 14,000 years ago, and possibly before 20,000 years ago. The earliest populations in the Americas, before roughly 10,000 years ago, are known as Paleo-Indians. Indigenous peoples of the Americas have been linked to Siberian populations by the distribution of blood types, and in genetic composition as reflected by molecular data, such as DNA. Around 3,000 years ago, the progenitors of the Yupik peoples settled along both sides of the straits. The governments of Russia and the United States announced a plan to formally establish "a transboundary area of shared Beringian heritage". Among other things this agreement would establish close ties between the Bering Land Bridge National Preserve and the Cape Krusenstern National Monument in the United States and Beringia National Park in Russia. Previous connections Biogeographical evidence demonstrates previous connections between North America and Asia. Similar dinosaur fossils occur both in Asia and in North America. Saurolophus was found in both Mongolia and western North America. Relatives of Troodon, Triceratops, and Tyrannosaurus rex all came from Asia. The earliest Canis lupus specimen was a fossil tooth discovered at Old Crow, Yukon, Canada. The specimen was found in sediment dated 1 million YBP, however the geological attribution of this sediment is questioned. Slightly younger specimens were discovered at Cripple Creek Sump, Fairbanks, Alaska, in strata dated 810,000 YBP. Both discoveries point to the origin of these wolves in eastern Beringia during the Middle Pleistocene. Fossil evidence also indicates an exchange of primates and plants between North America and Asia around 55.8 million years ago. 20 million years ago, evidence in North America shows the last natural interchange of mammalian species. Some, like the ancient saber-toothed cats, have a recurring geographical range: Europe, Africa, Asia, and North America. The pattern of bidirectional flow of biota has been asymmetric, with more plants, animals, and fungi generally migrating from Asia to North America than vice versa throughout the Cenozoic. See also References Further reading External links Africa Antarctica Asia Australia Europe North America South America Afro-Eurasia Americas Eurasia Oceania |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lod#cite_note-84] | [TOKENS: 4733] |
Contents Lod Lod (Hebrew: לוד, fully vocalized: לֹד), also known as Lydda (Ancient Greek: Λύδδα) and Lidd (Arabic: اللِّدّ, romanized: al-Lidd, or اللُّدّ, al-Ludd), is a city 15 km (9+1⁄2 mi) southeast of Tel Aviv and 40 km (25 mi) northwest of Jerusalem in the Central District of Israel. It is situated between the lower Shephelah on the east and the coastal plain on the west. The city had a population of 90,814 in 2023. Lod has been inhabited since at least the Neolithic period. It is mentioned a few times in the Hebrew Bible and in the New Testament. Between the 5th century BCE and up until the late Roman period, it was a prominent center for Jewish scholarship and trade. Around 200 CE, the city became a Roman colony and was renamed Diospolis (Ancient Greek: Διόσπολις, lit. 'city of Zeus'). Tradition identifies Lod as the 4th century martyrdom site of Saint George; the Church of Saint George and Mosque of Al-Khadr located in the city is believed to have housed his remains. Following the Arab conquest of the Levant, Lod served as the capital of Jund Filastin; however, a few decades later, the seat of power was transferred to Ramla, and Lod slipped in importance. Under Crusader rule, the city was a Catholic diocese of the Latin Church and it remains a titular see to this day.[citation needed] Lod underwent a major change in its population in the mid-20th century. Exclusively Palestinian Arab in 1947, Lod was part of the area designated for an Arab state in the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine; however, in July 1948, the city was occupied by the Israel Defense Forces, and most of its Arab inhabitants were expelled in the Palestinian expulsion from Lydda and Ramle. The city was largely resettled by Jewish immigrants, most of them expelled from Arab countries. Today, Lod is one of Israel's mixed cities, with an Arab population of 30%. Lod is one of Israel's major transportation hubs. The main international airport, Ben Gurion Airport, is located 8 km (5 miles) north of the city. The city is also a major railway and road junction. Religious references The Hebrew name Lod appears in the Hebrew Bible as a town of Benjamin, founded along with Ono by Shamed or Shamer (1 Chronicles 8:12; Ezra 2:33; Nehemiah 7:37; 11:35). In Ezra 2:33, it is mentioned as one of the cities whose inhabitants returned after the Babylonian captivity. Lod is not mentioned among the towns allocated to the tribe of Benjamin in Joshua 18:11–28. The name Lod derives from a tri-consonantal root not extant in Northwest Semitic, but only in Arabic (“to quarrel; withhold, hinder”). An Arabic etymology of such an ancient name is unlikely (the earliest attestation is from the Achaemenid period). In the New Testament, the town appears in its Greek form, Lydda, as the site of Peter's healing of Aeneas in Acts 9:32–38. The city is also mentioned in an Islamic hadith as the location of the battlefield where the false messiah (al-Masih ad-Dajjal) will be slain before the Day of Judgment. History The first occupation dates to the Neolithic in the Near East and is associated with the Lodian culture. Occupation continued in the Levant Chalcolithic. Pottery finds have dated the initial settlement in the area now occupied by the town to 5600–5250 BCE. In the Early Bronze, it was an important settlement in the central coastal plain between the Judean Shephelah and the Mediterranean coast, along Nahal Ayalon. Other important nearby sites were Tel Dalit, Tel Bareqet, Khirbat Abu Hamid (Shoham North), Tel Afeq, Azor and Jaffa. Two architectural phases belong to the late EB I in Area B. The first phase had a mudbrick wall, while the late phase included a circulat stone structure. Later excavations have produced an occupation later, Stratum IV. It consists of two phases, Stratum IVb with mudbrick wall on stone foundations and rounded exterior corners. In Stratum IVa there was a mudbrick wall with no stone foundations, with imported Egyptian potter and local pottery imitations. Another excavations revealed nine occupation strata. Strata VI-III belonged to Early Bronze IB. The material culture showed Egyptian imports in strata V and IV. Occupation continued into Early Bronze II with four strata (V-II). There was continuity in the material culture and indications of centralized urban planning. North to the tell were scattered MB II burials. The earliest written record is in a list of Canaanite towns drawn up by the Egyptian pharaoh Thutmose III at Karnak in 1465 BCE. From the fifth century BCE until the Roman period, the city was a centre of Jewish scholarship and commerce. According to British historian Martin Gilbert, during the Hasmonean period, Jonathan Maccabee and his brother, Simon Maccabaeus, enlarged the area under Jewish control, which included conquering the city. The Jewish community in Lod during the Mishnah and Talmud era is described in a significant number of sources, including information on its institutions, demographics, and way of life. The city reached its height as a Jewish center between the First Jewish-Roman War and the Bar Kokhba revolt, and again in the days of Judah ha-Nasi and the start of the Amoraim period. The city was then the site of numerous public institutions, including schools, study houses, and synagogues. In 43 BC, Cassius, the Roman governor of Syria, sold the inhabitants of Lod into slavery, but they were set free two years later by Mark Antony. During the First Jewish–Roman War, the Roman proconsul of Syria, Cestius Gallus, razed the town on his way to Jerusalem in Tishrei 66 CE. According to Josephus, "[he] found the city deserted, for the entire population had gone up to Jerusalem for the Feast of Tabernacles. He killed fifty people whom he found, burned the town and marched on". Lydda was occupied by Emperor Vespasian in 68 CE. In the period following the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE, Rabbi Tarfon, who appears in many Tannaitic and Jewish legal discussions, served as a rabbinic authority in Lod. During the Kitos War, 115–117 CE, the Roman army laid siege to Lod, where the rebel Jews had gathered under the leadership of Julian and Pappos. Torah study was outlawed by the Romans and pursued mostly in the underground. The distress became so great, the patriarch Rabban Gamaliel II, who was shut up there and died soon afterwards, permitted fasting on Ḥanukkah. Other rabbis disagreed with this ruling. Lydda was next taken and many of the Jews were executed; the "slain of Lydda" are often mentioned in words of reverential praise in the Talmud. In 200 CE, emperor Septimius Severus elevated the town to the status of a city, calling it Colonia Lucia Septimia Severa Diospolis. The name Diospolis ("City of Zeus") may have been bestowed earlier, possibly by Hadrian. At that point, most of its inhabitants were Christian. The earliest known bishop is Aëtius, a friend of Arius. During the following century (200-300CE), it's said that Joshua ben Levi founded a yeshiva in Lod. In December 415, the Council of Diospolis was held here to try Pelagius; he was acquitted. In the sixth century, the city was renamed Georgiopolis after St. George, a soldier in the guard of the emperor Diocletian, who was born there between 256 and 285 CE. The Church of Saint George and Mosque of Al-Khadr is named for him. The 6th-century Madaba map shows Lydda as an unwalled city with a cluster of buildings under a black inscription reading "Lod, also Lydea, also Diospolis". An isolated large building with a semicircular colonnaded plaza in front of it might represent the St George shrine. After the Muslim conquest of Palestine by Amr ibn al-'As in 636 CE, Lod which was referred to as "al-Ludd" in Arabic served as the capital of Jund Filastin ("Military District of Palaestina") before the seat of power was moved to nearby Ramla during the reign of the Umayyad Caliph Suleiman ibn Abd al-Malik in 715–716. The population of al-Ludd was relocated to Ramla, as well. With the relocation of its inhabitants and the construction of the White Mosque in Ramla, al-Ludd lost its importance and fell into decay. The city was visited by the local Arab geographer al-Muqaddasi in 985, when it was under the Fatimid Caliphate, and was noted for its Great Mosque which served the residents of al-Ludd, Ramla, and the nearby villages. He also wrote of the city's "wonderful church (of St. George) at the gate of which Christ will slay the Antichrist." The Crusaders occupied the city in 1099 and named it St Jorge de Lidde. It was briefly conquered by Saladin, but retaken by the Crusaders in 1191. For the English Crusaders, it was a place of great significance as the birthplace of Saint George. The Crusaders made it the seat of a Latin Church diocese, and it remains a titular see. It owed the service of 10 knights and 20 sergeants, and it had its own burgess court during this era. In 1226, Ayyubid Syrian geographer Yaqut al-Hamawi visited al-Ludd and stated it was part of the Jerusalem District during Ayyubid rule. Sultan Baybars brought Lydda again under Muslim control by 1267–8. According to Qalqashandi, Lydda was an administrative centre of a wilaya during the fourteenth and fifteenth century in the Mamluk empire. Mujir al-Din described it as a pleasant village with an active Friday mosque. During this time, Lydda was a station on the postal route between Cairo and Damascus. In 1517, Lydda was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire as part of the Damascus Eyalet, and in the 1550s, the revenues of Lydda were designated for the new waqf of Hasseki Sultan Imaret in Jerusalem, established by Hasseki Hurrem Sultan (Roxelana), the wife of Suleiman the Magnificent. By 1596 Lydda was a part of the nahiya ("subdistrict") of Ramla, which was under the administration of the liwa ("district") of Gaza. It had a population of 241 households and 14 bachelors who were all Muslims, and 233 households who were Christians. They paid a fixed tax-rate of 33,3 % on agricultural products, including wheat, barley, summer crops, vineyards, fruit trees, sesame, special product ("dawalib" =spinning wheels), goats and beehives, in addition to occasional revenues and market toll, a total of 45,000 Akçe. All of the revenue went to the Waqf. In 1051 AH/1641/2, the Bedouin tribe of al-Sawālima from around Jaffa attacked the villages of Subṭāra, Bayt Dajan, al-Sāfiriya, Jindās, Lydda and Yāzūr belonging to Waqf Haseki Sultan. The village appeared as Lydda, though misplaced, on the map of Pierre Jacotin compiled in 1799. Missionary William M. Thomson visited Lydda in the mid-19th century, describing it as a "flourishing village of some 2,000 inhabitants, imbosomed in noble orchards of olive, fig, pomegranate, mulberry, sycamore, and other trees, surrounded every way by a very fertile neighbourhood. The inhabitants are evidently industrious and thriving, and the whole country between this and Ramleh is fast being filled up with their flourishing orchards. Rarely have I beheld a rural scene more delightful than this presented in early harvest ... It must be seen, heard, and enjoyed to be appreciated." In 1869, the population of Ludd was given as: 55 Catholics, 1,940 "Greeks", 5 Protestants and 4,850 Muslims. In 1870, the Church of Saint George was rebuilt. In 1892, the first railway station in the entire region was established in the city. In the second half of the 19th century, Jewish merchants migrated to the city, but left after the 1921 Jaffa riots. In 1882, the Palestine Exploration Fund's Survey of Western Palestine described Lod as "A small town, standing among enclosure of prickly pear, and having fine olive groves around it, especially to the south. The minaret of the mosque is a very conspicuous object over the whole of the plain. The inhabitants are principally Moslim, though the place is the seat of a Greek bishop resident of Jerusalem. The Crusading church has lately been restored, and is used by the Greeks. Wells are found in the gardens...." From 1918, Lydda was under the administration of the British Mandate in Palestine, as per a League of Nations decree that followed the Great War. During the Second World War, the British set up supply posts in and around Lydda and its railway station, also building an airport that was renamed Ben Gurion Airport after the death of Israel's first prime minister in 1973. At the time of the 1922 census of Palestine, Lydda had a population of 8,103 inhabitants (7,166 Muslims, 926 Christians, and 11 Jews), the Christians were 921 Orthodox, 4 Roman Catholics and 1 Melkite. This had increased by the 1931 census to 11,250 (10,002 Muslims, 1,210 Christians, 28 Jews, and 10 Bahai), in a total of 2475 residential houses. In 1938, Lydda had a population of 12,750. In 1945, Lydda had a population of 16,780 (14,910 Muslims, 1,840 Christians, 20 Jews and 10 "other"). Until 1948, Lydda was an Arab town with a population of around 20,000—18,500 Muslims and 1,500 Christians. In 1947, the United Nations proposed dividing Mandatory Palestine into two states, one Jewish state and one Arab; Lydda was to form part of the proposed Arab state. In the ensuing war, Israel captured Arab towns outside the area the UN had allotted it, including Lydda. In December 1947, thirteen Jewish passengers in a seven-car convoy to Ben Shemen Youth Village were ambushed and murdered.In a separate incident, three Jewish youths, two men and a woman were captured, then raped and murdered in a neighbouring village. Their bodies were paraded in Lydda’s principal street. The Israel Defense Forces entered Lydda on 11 July 1948. The following day, under the impression that it was under attack, the 3rd Battalion was ordered to shoot anyone "seen on the streets". According to Israel, 250 Arabs were killed. Other estimates are higher: Arab historian Aref al Aref estimated 400, and Nimr al Khatib 1,700. In 1948, the population rose to 50,000 during the Nakba, as Arab refugees fleeing other areas made their way there. A key event was the Palestinian expulsion from Lydda and Ramle, with the expulsion of 50,000-70,000 Palestinians from Lydda and Ramle by the Israel Defense Forces. All but 700 to 1,056 were expelled by order of the Israeli high command, and forced to walk 17 km (10+1⁄2 mi) to the Jordanian Arab Legion lines. Estimates of those who died from exhaustion and dehydration vary from a handful to 355. The town was subsequently sacked by the Israeli army. Some scholars, including Ilan Pappé, characterize this as ethnic cleansing. The few hundred Arabs who remained in the city were soon outnumbered by the influx of Jews who immigrated to Lod from August 1948 onward, most of them from Arab countries. As a result, Lod became a predominantly Jewish town. After the establishment of the state, the biblical name Lod was readopted. The Jewish immigrants who settled Lod came in waves, first from Morocco and Tunisia, later from Ethiopia, and then from the former Soviet Union. Since 2008, many urban development projects have been undertaken to improve the image of the city. Upscale neighbourhoods have been built, among them Ganei Ya'ar and Ahisemah, expanding the city to the east. According to a 2010 report in the Economist, a three-meter-high wall was built between Jewish and Arab neighbourhoods and construction in Jewish areas was given priority over construction in Arab neighborhoods. The newspaper says that violent crime in the Arab sector revolves mainly around family feuds over turf and honour crimes. In 2010, the Lod Community Foundation organised an event for representatives of bicultural youth movements, volunteer aid organisations, educational start-ups, businessmen, sports organizations, and conservationists working on programmes to better the city. In the 2021 Israel–Palestine crisis, a state of emergency was declared in Lod after Arab rioting led to the death of an Israeli Jew. The Mayor of Lod, Yair Revivio, urged Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu to deploy Israel Border Police to restore order in the city. This was the first time since 1966 that Israel had declared this kind of emergency lockdown. International media noted that both Jewish and Palestinian mobs were active in Lod, but the "crackdown came for one side" only. Demographics In the 19th century and until the Lydda Death March, Lod was an exclusively Muslim-Christian town, with an estimated 6,850 inhabitants, of whom approximately 2,000 (29%) were Christian. According to the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), the population of Lod in 2010 was 69,500 people. According to the 2019 census, the population of Lod was 77,223, of which 53,581 people, comprising 69.4% of the city's population, were classified as "Jews and Others", and 23,642 people, comprising 30.6% as "Arab". Education According to CBS, 38 schools and 13,188 pupils are in the city. They are spread out as 26 elementary schools and 8,325 elementary school pupils, and 13 high schools and 4,863 high school pupils. About 52.5% of 12th-grade pupils were entitled to a matriculation certificate in 2001.[citation needed] Economy The airport and related industries are a major source of employment for the residents of Lod. Other important factories in the city are the communication equipment company "Talard", "Cafe-Co" - a subsidiary of the Strauss Group and "Kashev" - the computer center of Bank Leumi. A Jewish Agency Absorption Centre is also located in Lod. According to CBS figures for 2000, 23,032 people were salaried workers and 1,405 were self-employed. The mean monthly wage for a salaried worker was NIS 4,754, a real change of 2.9% over the course of 2000. Salaried men had a mean monthly wage of NIS 5,821 (a real change of 1.4%) versus NIS 3,547 for women (a real change of 4.6%). The mean income for the self-employed was NIS 4,991. About 1,275 people were receiving unemployment benefits and 7,145 were receiving an income supplement. Art and culture In 2009-2010, Dor Guez held an exhibit, Georgeopolis, at the Petach Tikva art museum that focuses on Lod. Archaeology A well-preserved mosaic floor dating to the Roman period was excavated in 1996 as part of a salvage dig conducted on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority and the Municipality of Lod, prior to widening HeHalutz Street. According to Jacob Fisch, executive director of the Friends of the Israel Antiquities Authority, a worker at the construction site noticed the tail of a tiger and halted work. The mosaic was initially covered over with soil at the conclusion of the excavation for lack of funds to conserve and develop the site. The mosaic is now part of the Lod Mosaic Archaeological Center. The floor, with its colorful display of birds, fish, exotic animals and merchant ships, is believed to have been commissioned by a wealthy resident of the city for his private home. The Lod Community Archaeology Program, which operates in ten Lod schools, five Jewish and five Israeli Arab, combines archaeological studies with participation in digs in Lod. Sports The city's major football club, Hapoel Bnei Lod, plays in Liga Leumit (the second division). Its home is at the Lod Municipal Stadium. The club was formed by a merger of Bnei Lod and Rakevet Lod in the 1980s. Two other clubs in the city play in the regional leagues: Hapoel MS Ortodoxim Lod in Liga Bet and Maccabi Lod in Liga Gimel. Hapoel Lod played in the top division during the 1960s and 1980s, and won the State Cup in 1984. The club folded in 2002. A new club, Hapoel Maxim Lod (named after former mayor Maxim Levy) was established soon after, but folded in 2007. Notable people Twin towns-sister cities Lod is twinned with: See also References Bibliography External links |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JOSS] | [TOKENS: 5755] |
Contents JOSS JOSS (acronym for JOHNNIAC Open Shop System)[a] was one of the first interactive, time-sharing programming languages. It pioneered many features that would become common in languages from the 1960s into the 1980s, including use of line numbers as both editing instructions and targets for branches, statements predicated by Boolean decisions, and a built-in source-code editor that can perform instructions in direct or immediate mode, what they termed a conversational user interface. JOSS was initially implemented on the JOHNNIAC machine at RAND Corporation and put online in 1963. It proved very popular, and the users quickly bogged the machine down. By 1964, a replacement was sought with higher performance. JOHNNIAC was retired in 1966 and replaced by a PDP-6, which ultimately grew to support hundreds of computer terminals based on the IBM Selectric. The terminals used green ink for user input and black for the computer's response. Any command that was not understood elicited the response Eh?. The system was highly influential, spawning a variety of ports and offshoots. Some remained similar to the original, like TELCOMP and STRINGCOMP, CAL, CITRAN, ISIS, PIL/I, JEAN (ICT 1900 series), BOSS and INTERP on the Burroughs B5500, Algebraic Interpretive Dialogue (AID, on PDP-10). Others, such as FOCAL and MUMPS, developed in distinctive directions. JOSS also bears a strong resemblance to the BASIC interpreters found on microcomputers in the 1980s, differing mainly in syntax details. History In 1959, Willis Ware wrote a RAND memo on the topic of computing in which he stated future computers would have "a multiplicity of personal input-output stations, so that many people can interact with the machine at the same time." The memo gained the interest of the US Air Force, Rand's primary sponsors, and in 1960, they formed the Information Processor Project to explore this concept, what would soon be known as time-sharing. The project was not specifically about time-sharing, but aimed to improve human-computer interaction overall. The idea at the time was that constant interaction between the user and the computer in a back-and-forth manner would make such interactions more natural. As JOSS director Keith Uncapher later put it: There were two perceptions that I think drove the experiment. One was, from at least 1950, when I joined Rand, there was always a focus in the computer science part of Rand toward smooth user interaction. It was just built into us. We learned it from Gunning. ... all we thought about. The other was, seeing the mathematicians struggling with Marchant calculators, not being able to use JOHNNIAC in its raw form. It was just too hard. They had to learn to be programmers. It was just a frustrating experience for them. We wanted something that would look to them as being a natural way of thinking about an aid to the solution of their problems without very much training, and without any perception of becoming a programmer, because that would have kept them away. A formal proposal to develop what became JOSS on the JOHNNIAC computer was accepted in March 1961. JOSS was implemented almost entirely by J. Clifford Shaw, a mathematician who worked in Rand's growing computing division. It was written in a symbolic assembly language called EasyFox (E and F in the US military's then phonetic alphabet), also developed by Shaw. The JOSS system was brought up formally for the first time in May 1963, supporting five consoles, one in the machine room and another four in offices around the building. The early consoles were based in the IBM Model 868 Transmitting Typewriter, as the Selectric had not yet been introduced to market when development began. The first schedule was published on 17 June, with JOSS running for three hours from 9am to 12 every day. It was declared fully operational on eight terminals in January 1964. The final version was deployed in January 1965. By this time the JOHNNIAC was already over a decade old, and its tube-based logic was never highly reliable to begin with. Even when it was working well, the system became so popular it quickly bogged down. Users were enthusiastic, one stated: People adjust their lives to fit around JOSS… No use coming into RAND before 10:00 am when JOSS arrives, in fact noon or after 5:00 pm is a better time, JOSS is less busy. When JOSS starts typing answers, the titillating pleasure is equaled only by the ensuing anguish when JOSS breaks off into jibberish [sic] or goes away commending your code to oblivion. We can hardly live with JOSS, but we can’t live without it. Another put it more succinctly: It's better than beer — we're hooked. In May 1964, the decision was made to look for a new machine to replace the JOHNNIAC and dedicate it entirely to running an expanded version of JOSS. The machine would also have to support new terminals made to Rand's specifications, and be delivered by 31 October 1965. A total of nine bids were received for the new machine. Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) won the contest with their new PDP-6 system, and Air Force funding was released for the purchase. DEC also agreed to build thirty terminals based on the IBM Selectric typewriter modified with a special mechanism to advance to the next page in a fan-fold paper feed. Several other portions of the overall system were delivered from other companies. The PDP-6 arrived in late July 1965, and was initially tested using Teletype Model 33's as terminals. The new version of the code was developed by Charles L. Baker, Joseph W. Smith, Irwin D. Greenwald, and G. Edward Bryan. The system was first declared operational in October, although this included six hours of scheduled maintenance per week. The first prototype terminal arrived in November. In December, a terminal in Las Vegas was connected to the machine remotely for the first time. In February 1966, this was sent to McClellan Air Force Base, followed by one in August to the Air Force Academy and two in September to ARPA and an Air Force office in the Pentagon. The first permanent offsite teletype connection for a Teletype Model 35 was installed at the Langley Air Force Base in February 1967. With the new machine up and running, JOHNNIAC was taken offline on 11 February 1966, and officially retired on 18 February. Its last running program was written in JOSS and counted down seconds until it would be turned off. The machine was sent to the Los Angeles County Museum, and eventually ended up at the Computer History Museum outside San Francisco. Having been replaced by the JOSS-2 system, the original was retroactively known as JOSS-1. By the end of 1966 the new JOSS-2 system was fully functional and turned over to JOSS use 24/7. The new machine offered about 30 times the computational speed, five times the storage space per user, and many new features in the language itself. The new platform could ultimately support up to 100 terminals in simultaneous use. The Air Force remained the owner of the system, with Rand and others operating as consultants. CPU time was billed out to external users at a rate of about $1 per minute, although that was only during the actual execution; time spent typing and printing was free. By 1970, there were between 500 and 600 users at Rand and various Air Force sites across the country. Many of these were occasional users, precisely what the system had been intended for. To support them, the custom terminals were equipped with special "JOSS plugs" so they could be wheeled from office to office and plugged into custom outlets. Two-hundred of the plugs were installed around Rand, and the terminal chassis was designed to be narrow enough to fit through doors while still leaving room for a coffee on one side. Toggling the power switch on the terminal caused it to connect at the new location. The custom terminals had been designed for JOSS as the engineers felt that the Model 33's "telecommunications functions are a mystery to the untrained person" and would be too confusing for the occasional users to bother learning. In practice, the Selectric-based mechanisms proved too fragile for the constant use they saw and were frequently being repaired in the field by IBM servicemen. In 1970, a full third of the terminals were completely rebuilt, and the output from the computer slowed to improve reliability. The Air Force, by this time, had decided to use the Model 35 instead, as it was both readily available and much less expensive. Uses were enthusiastic and to serve them, Rand began publishing The JOSS Newsletter, edited by Shirley Marks. Ultimately 44 issues were published between November 1967 and June 1971. In the early 1970s, programmers at one of IBM's west coast facilities built a JOSS-3 for the IBM 370/158 running OS/360. Little information about this system exists, with the exception that it was on this machine that JOSS finally retired. According to a note in a historical overview, Rand was hesitant to allow IBM to use the JOSS name, and as a result "the IBM version was never widely used." Implementation JOSS-II on the PDP-6 was divided into two parts, matching the internal memory layout of the machine. The machine was equipped with two banks of core memory, with 16k 36-bit words in each bank. The JOSS system itself, which included the operating system, user and file management code, terminal handler and the interpreter, used up much of the first of these banks. The second bank was used for user programs. Although this was a relatively large amount of memory for the era, the system was so heavily used that the 16k word user store was not enough, and it was backed up with a magnetic drum for paging support. The drum was driven by external hardware and did not require attention from the main processor. In order to support multiple user programs, the PDP-6 hardware was modified to examine bit-20 of any address reference. If this bit was set, the address was in "user space" and was modified so that address zero pointed to the base address of that user. In this way, user programs could be moved about in memory without causing problems for the system, and the operating system could switch from user to user simply by changing a single internal register. Permanent storage was provided by a Storage Products hard drive with 5.7 million words of storage. Like the drum, the actual input/output to and from the drum was handled externally, although in this case the movement was triggered by user actions to load and store their programs. An IBM-compatible tape drive was used to move data to and from the drive as needed, an operation that was also independent of the CPU. Two DECtape units were also available and worked in the same fashion as the IBM drive. Demonstration programs were available, such as a mortgage calculator and early mainframe games. Because large programs caused paging that slowed the computer for all, The JOSS Newsletter often asked users to use less storage. Terminals were handled through a custom "concentrator" that consisted of a mechanical Strowger switch that could connect any of the 300 to 400 possible terminal plugs to any of 40 outputs. A further eight lines were dedicated to Teletype Model 33 inputs, as opposed to the JOSS-style Selectrics. Those 48 lines were then connected to an electronic multiplexer connected to the CPU. The multiplexer was interrupt driven, meaning idle terminals did not use up any cycles. The custom JOSS terminals were built by DEC. These consisted of a Selectric mechanism built into a custom chassis containing the communications system, power supply, and other components. A custom font ball was used to provide basic mathematical symbols like ≠ so two-character combinations like <> did not have to be used. The communications system was based on a 6-bit character code in an 8-bit packet with start and stop bits. The lines were driven at 120 bit/s to match the maximum 15 character per second speed of the Selectric mechanism. Shift-in and shift-out codes were used to move the ribbon from green to black and back. These codes were also noticed by the communications system and changed lights on the front panel to indicate whether the computer or user had control of the terminal at that moment. Language JOSS so emphasized user-friendliness that "JOSS-like" became a descriptor of a new user interacting with a time-sharing system. Children and others said that unlike a "complicated" computer, JOSS was "friendly" and "kind" like "a real person with a sense of humor", with funny responses like Eh?. JOSS introduced the idea of a single command line editor that worked both as an interactive language and a program editor. Commands that were typed without a line number were executed immediately, in what JOSS referred to as "direct mode". If the same line was prefixed with a line number, it was instead copied into the program code storage area, which JOSS called "indirect mode". New lines were added to the program if the line number was unique, replaced extant lines with the same number, or removed from the program if an extant line number was typed in with no code following it. In contrast to most BASICs, JOSS saved the entire user input to files, not just the program code. When loaded, JOSS essentially typed the lines back in. This meant that program files could contain both program statements and direct mode instructions. For instance, it was common to see programs that listed the statement lines and then have the file end with Go. to immediately run the program as soon as it completed loading. There were some features that could only be used in direct mode, like Let and Form, which were input without line numbers but still returned when the program was loaded. Direct and indirect instructions could be mixed freely in a workspace. This allowed comments to be inserted in source code by adding direct-mode lines beginning with *, or by placing one at the end of a line of code and then adding a comment after it. Blank lines were also ignored, allowing the program to be broken up for clarity. Every line in a JOSS program must start with a line number. Line numbers are fixed-point numbers consisting of two two-digit integers separated by a period. As in BASIC, line numbers are used both as labels to target from To and Do statements, and to support editing. Entering a line of code with a new line number inserts it into a program, while entering one with an extant line number replaces the prior version or deletes it if it is empty. The portion of the line number to the left of the period is termed the page or part, while the portion to the right is termed the line. Thus the line number 10.12 refers to page 10, line 12. Branches can target either a page, or a line within a page. When the latter format is used, the combined page and line is termed a step. Pages are used to define subroutines, which return when the next line is on a different page. For instance, if a subroutine for calculating the square root of a number is in page 3, one might have three lines of code 3.1, 3.2 and 3.3, and it would be called using Do part 3. The code would return to the statement after the Do when it reaches the next line on a different page, for instance, 4.1. No need exists for the equivalent of a RETURN at the end, although if an early return is required, Done accomplishes this. Every line must start with a command keyword following the line number. No concept of a default command exists as is the case in BASIC with its optional LET statement. Multiple statements can be placed on one line, separated by colons or semicolons. Every line must end with a period. JOSS uses a suffix notation to indicate conditional evaluation, "do this if this is true", in contrast to most languages which place the condition in front in prefix notation, "if this is true, do this". Unlike FORTRAN or FOCAL, any statement can be conditionally evaluated in this fashion. For example, to print a string only if a condition is met, one can combine the if with a Type: JOSS supported six infix comparisons, =, ≠, ≥, ≤, >, <, and Boolean operators or, and, and not. Loops were handled in a similar fashion, using the For command and a somewhat obscure format for specifying the loop bounds and step value, start(step)end. For instance, to step from 1 to 10 by 2, the format is 1(2)10. Like If, For could be applied to any other statement: Note that the for applies only to a single statement; if one wants to run multiple statements in a loop, they would be separated to another part and called using do: As in BASIC, any of the inputs to the for loop could be constants, variables or other expressions. As these sorts of ranges could be applied to any line of code, it was possible to define limits and loops when the program was invoked. For instance, consider the program: Normally if one invoked this in a fashion similar to BASIC's RUN: It would produce: However, one can modify this behaviour by adding a loop construct to the invocation: Which would produce: This allows formulas to be constructed in programs without having to be placed within loops. Looping, if desired, can be provided by the user when they start the program. A unique feature of JOSS was its handling of logical expressions. Most computer languages offer some way to form a multi-part mathematical expression, for instance, Set x=(1+2)·3. which sets the variable x to the value 9. JOSS expanded on this concept by clearly defining the concept of the "proposition", an expression that returns a logical value, true or false, instead of a numeric one. They were mostly seen in If statements, as in the examples above, but the Boolean value could also be stored in a variable directly, or one could convert true to 1 and false to 0 using the tv (truth value) function. In addition to propositions, JOSS also had the concept of "conditional expressions". These consisted of strings of propositions along with code that would run if that proposition was true. This allowed multi-step decision trees to be written in a single line. They serve a purpose similar to the ternary operator found in modern languages like C or Java, where they are used to return a value from a compact structure implementing if-then-else. JOSS' version has any number of conditionals, not just three, so it is more of a compact switch statement than a compact if-then. This example recreates the function of the sgn function: This defines a function "s" which takes a single parameter, "x", and makes three consecutive tests against it. Whichever test succeeds first returns the corresponding value after the colon. Another advanced feature of JOSS was that it had the concept of a range as a built-in type that could be stored and manipulated. Ranges are normally found as the inputs to for loops, where they are part of the syntax of the loop itself. For instance, in BASIC one writes a for loop using this basic syntax: This will perform a loop that assigns I the values 1, 3, 5 and then exits. JOSS used a somewhat obscure format to define the limits of the loop. The equivalent code in JOSS would be: Note that this code does not include a for. That is because in JOSS, ranges are first-class citizens of the language, not something that is part of a loop as in BASIC. Ranges can be defined and used in many contexts outside loops. For example, here is a conditional expression that evaluates the factorial of a parameter x: In this example, there are two main propositions, separated by the semicolon. The first, on the left, states that if the parameter x is 0, the condition should immediately return 1. If that proposition fails, it moves to the second test, on the right. This one checks if the fractional part of x is zero (i.e., it is an integer), and if so, it calls the prod function to multiply a range of values. The prod's parameter is also a proposition, but in this case, the test is replaced by a loop iterator that runs from 1 to x stepping by 1. If that proposition is true, which is it for all values of the loop, it returns the index i. This causes a series of values to be sent into prod from 1 to x. The combination of these features allows for complex functions to be written in a few commands. This sort of functionality has only become common in much more modern languages, which typically use iterators or a map function to provide the same outcomes. JOSS's capability to combine decisions and loops in a compact form is unknown in other languages of the era, including offshoots like FOCAL. The Set command assigns the results of an expression to the specified variable. Equivalent to BASIC's LET. Set was optional when used in direct mode, where one could type x=5. without the Set command. This was not allowed in indirect mode, in contrast to BASIC. Let was used to define user-defined functions. Equivalent to BASIC's DEF FN. Let can also be used to set the value of a variable using a formula consisting of a constant: From that point, it can be used identically to one created using Set. There is a subtle difference, however, when this X is referenced in code, the value will be calculated by evaluating the right-hand side. A Set is only evaluated once, so it is much faster. The system generally suggested using Let only in direct mode, saving them out for use in a program by inserting them at the top or bottom of the file. This avoided the Let being called multiple times during execution, as it would only be called once during the loading process. The Demand takes a list of variables and stores the user input in variables. The optional as qualifier added a custom prompt. Equivalent to BASIC's INPUT. The Type command outputs one or more items separated by commas. In its basic form it is equivalent to BASIC's PRINT. However, Type includes a number of optional forms that make it highly overloaded, performing a range of unrelated output tasks. When used to print values, the parameters can be variables, literal strings surrounded by double-quotes, and the special _ character that produces a line feed. Type also supports formatted output using format strings. See the section on Form below for details. Type is also used as the equivalent to BASIC's LIST statement, writing out the program. For instance, Type step 1.1. will print out a single line of code, while Type part 1. will print out the entire part, and Type all. prints out the entire program. Further, it can also be used to print lists of internal values. Type all values. produces a list of all variables and their values, while Type size. prints out the program size. Keywords include size, time and users. Page triggers a page feed on the special JOSS terminals. JOSS would normally send a page feed when the terminal reached line 54 on the paper, so if one wanted to ensure a block of data would not be split in half, one could: $ is a pseudo-variable that returns the current line number. Line triggers a line feed on the special JOSS terminals. The To command jumps program execution to the specified part or step number, using To part 1. or To step 1.1. respectively. It is the equivalent of BASIC's GOTO. Contrast with Go, an indirect command used from the command line that starts programs, the equivalent of BASIC's RUN. Do is similar to To, but branches to a subroutine. As with To, you can Do part or Do step. If a step is provided, that single line is run and then returns to the statement after the Do. If a part is provided, execution starts at the first line of the block and continues until the end of the block is reached or a Done statement is encountered. Do had one special short form for looking in keeping with it being very common in most programs. This used the times modifier instead of a normal for, in the case for simple loops. So the following lines are equivalent: JOSS maintains a pointer to the currently executing line, which a Do would change. However, it included a special "parenthetic do" that could be used in direct mode to test certain sections of the code without changing the main pointer. For instance, if the program stopped due to an error and it was not clear which section caused the problem, one might test a particular subroutine with: The Done command returns from a subroutine call. As subroutines return automatically when the end of the part is reached, Done is only required for returning early, and is often used with a conditional. Equivalent to BASIC's RETURN. The Stop command terminates execution of the program and returns control to the editing environment. Equivalent to BASIC's END or STOP, although BASIC's STOP is intended to allow CONT to pick up execution at the same location, a feature that has no direct equivalent in JOSS's workspace-oriented system. Available in direct mode only, Go is the equivalent to BASIC's RUN and CONT, depending on whether a program is currently stopped due to an error or Stop command being encountered. Another direct-mode-only command, Cancel is used when the program has stopped for an error and the user wants to reset the program, which it does by clearing the program counter. A Go would pick up at the last location, but issuing a Cancel makes Go start at the top again. If the current breakpoint was due to a parenthetical (Do.), one can issue a parenthetical cancel, (Cancel.), to stop just that sub-execution and allow a Go to continue at the last non-parenthetical line. JOSS stored all numbers as radix-10 floating point. JOSS contained six mathematical operators: Mathematical expressions could use () and [] interchangeably in matched pairs to establish precedence. For instance: Would produce 360. The language contained the following built-in functions: JOSS also defined a number of functions that performed looping internally, in order to avoid the programmer having to write a For loop to perform simple tasks like summing a series of numbers. The parameters could be either a list of simple expressions separated by commas, or a range construct whose command could be any statement or function call. File management The JOSS system used a hard disk to store user programs in an allocated space. Within that space were a number of files that were referred to using a multi-part filename consisting of an integer and a five-letter name in parentheses, for instance, 123 (hello). The integer part is the equivalent of a directory, and the name is the sub-file within it, maintained by JOSS itself. Files are written with File all as item filename. and loaded with Recall item filename.. One could also read or save only certain parts of the workspace, for instance File part 1 as item filename. to save a single routine to a file. Additionally, one could set a default file to which all references were assumed with Use item filename. Files could be deleted with Discard. Sample program Note that this is not an original sample, but rather one from a modern simulator. There are some syntactic differences from the original JOSS language. Notes References Further reading External links |
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Contents Elon Musk Elon Reeve Musk (/ˈiːlɒn/ EE-lon; born June 28, 1971) is a businessman and entrepreneur known for his leadership of Tesla, SpaceX, Twitter, and xAI. Musk has been the wealthiest person in the world since 2025; as of February 2026,[update] Forbes estimates his net worth to be around US$852 billion. Born into a wealthy family in Pretoria, South Africa, Musk emigrated in 1989 to Canada; he has Canadian citizenship since his mother was born there. He received bachelor's degrees in 1997 from the University of Pennsylvania before moving to California to pursue business ventures. In 1995, Musk co-founded the software company Zip2. Following its sale in 1999, he co-founded X.com, an online payment company that later merged to form PayPal, which was acquired by eBay in 2002. Musk also became an American citizen in 2002. In 2002, Musk founded the space technology company SpaceX, becoming its CEO and chief engineer; the company has since led innovations in reusable rockets and commercial spaceflight. Musk joined the automaker Tesla as an early investor in 2004 and became its CEO and product architect in 2008; it has since become a leader in electric vehicles. In 2015, he co-founded OpenAI to advance artificial intelligence (AI) research, but later left; growing discontent with the organization's direction and their leadership in the AI boom in the 2020s led him to establish xAI, which became a subsidiary of SpaceX in 2026. In 2022, he acquired the social network Twitter, implementing significant changes, and rebranding it as X in 2023. His other businesses include the neurotechnology company Neuralink, which he co-founded in 2016, and the tunneling company the Boring Company, which he founded in 2017. In November 2025, a Tesla pay package worth $1 trillion for Musk was approved, which he is to receive over 10 years if he meets specific goals. Musk was the largest donor in the 2024 U.S. presidential election, where he supported Donald Trump. After Trump was inaugurated as president in early 2025, Musk served as Senior Advisor to the President and as the de facto head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). After a public feud with Trump, Musk left the Trump administration and returned to managing his companies. Musk is a supporter of global far-right figures, causes, and political parties. His political activities, views, and statements have made him a polarizing figure. Musk has been criticized for COVID-19 misinformation, promoting conspiracy theories, and affirming antisemitic, racist, and transphobic comments. His acquisition of Twitter was controversial due to a subsequent increase in hate speech and the spread of misinformation on the service, following his pledge to decrease censorship. His role in the second Trump administration attracted public backlash, particularly in response to DOGE. The emails he sent to Jeffrey Epstein are included in the Epstein files, which were published between 2025–26 and became a topic of worldwide debate. Early life Elon Reeve Musk was born on June 28, 1971, in Pretoria, South Africa's administrative capital. He is of British and Pennsylvania Dutch ancestry. His mother, Maye (née Haldeman), is a model and dietitian born in Saskatchewan, Canada, and raised in South Africa. Musk therefore holds both South African and Canadian citizenship from birth. His father, Errol Musk, is a South African electromechanical engineer, pilot, sailor, consultant, emerald dealer, and property developer, who partly owned a rental lodge at Timbavati Private Nature Reserve. His maternal grandfather, Joshua N. Haldeman, who died in a plane crash when Elon was a toddler, was an American-born Canadian chiropractor, aviator and political activist in the technocracy movement who moved to South Africa in 1950. Elon has a younger brother, Kimbal, a younger sister, Tosca, and four paternal half-siblings. Musk was baptized as a child in the Anglican Church of Southern Africa. Despite both Elon and Errol previously stating that Errol was a part owner of a Zambian emerald mine, in 2023, Errol recounted that the deal he made was to receive "a portion of the emeralds produced at three small mines". Errol was elected to the Pretoria City Council as a representative of the anti-apartheid Progressive Party and has said that his children shared their father's dislike of apartheid. After his parents divorced in 1979, Elon, aged around 9, chose to live with his father because Errol Musk had an Encyclopædia Britannica and a computer. Elon later regretted his decision and became estranged from his father. Elon has recounted trips to a wilderness school that he described as a "paramilitary Lord of the Flies" where "bullying was a virtue" and children were encouraged to fight over rations. In one incident, after an altercation with a fellow pupil, Elon was thrown down concrete steps and beaten severely, leading to him being hospitalized for his injuries. Elon described his father berating him after he was discharged from the hospital. Errol denied berating Elon and claimed, "The [other] boy had just lost his father to suicide, and Elon had called him stupid. Elon had a tendency to call people stupid. How could I possibly blame that child?" Elon was an enthusiastic reader of books, and had attributed his success in part to having read The Lord of the Rings, the Foundation series, and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. At age ten, he developed an interest in computing and video games, teaching himself how to program from the VIC-20 user manual. At age twelve, Elon sold his BASIC-based game Blastar to PC and Office Technology magazine for approximately $500 (equivalent to $1,600 in 2025). Musk attended Waterkloof House Preparatory School, Bryanston High School, and then Pretoria Boys High School, where he graduated. Musk was a decent but unexceptional student, earning a 61/100 in Afrikaans and a B on his senior math certification. Musk applied for a Canadian passport through his Canadian-born mother to avoid South Africa's mandatory military service, which would have forced him to participate in the apartheid regime, as well as to ease his path to immigration to the United States. While waiting for his application to be processed, he attended the University of Pretoria for five months. Musk arrived in Canada in June 1989, connected with a second cousin in Saskatchewan, and worked odd jobs, including at a farm and a lumber mill. In 1990, he entered Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario. Two years later, he transferred to the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied until 1995. Although Musk has said that he earned his degrees in 1995, the University of Pennsylvania did not award them until 1997 – a Bachelor of Arts in physics and a Bachelor of Science in economics from the university's Wharton School. He reportedly hosted large, ticketed house parties to help pay for tuition, and wrote a business plan for an electronic book-scanning service similar to Google Books. In 1994, Musk held two internships in Silicon Valley: one at energy storage startup Pinnacle Research Institute, which investigated electrolytic supercapacitors for energy storage, and another at Palo Alto–based startup Rocket Science Games. In 1995, he was accepted to a graduate program in materials science at Stanford University, but did not enroll. Musk decided to join the Internet boom of the 1990s, applying for a job at Netscape, to which he reportedly never received a response. The Washington Post reported that Musk lacked legal authorization to remain and work in the United States after failing to enroll at Stanford. In response, Musk said he was allowed to work at that time and that his student visa transitioned to an H1-B. According to numerous former business associates and shareholders, Musk said he was on a student visa at the time. Business career In 1995, Musk, his brother Kimbal, and Greg Kouri founded the web software company Zip2 with funding from a group of angel investors. They housed the venture at a small rented office in Palo Alto. Replying to Rolling Stone, Musk denounced the notion that they started their company with funds borrowed from Errol Musk, but in a tweet, he recognized that his father contributed 10% of a later funding round. The company developed and marketed an Internet city guide for the newspaper publishing industry, with maps, directions, and yellow pages. According to Musk, "The website was up during the day and I was coding it at night, seven days a week, all the time." To impress investors, Musk built a large plastic structure around a standard computer to create the impression that Zip2 was powered by a small supercomputer. The Musk brothers obtained contracts with The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune, and persuaded the board of directors to abandon plans for a merger with CitySearch. Musk's attempts to become CEO were thwarted by the board. Compaq acquired Zip2 for $307 million in cash in February 1999 (equivalent to $590,000,000 in 2025), and Musk received $22 million (equivalent to $43,000,000 in 2025) for his 7-percent share. In 1999, Musk co-founded X.com, an online financial services and e-mail payment company. The startup was one of the first federally insured online banks, and, in its initial months of operation, over 200,000 customers joined the service. The company's investors regarded Musk as inexperienced and replaced him with Intuit CEO Bill Harris by the end of the year. The following year, X.com merged with online bank Confinity to avoid competition. Founded by Max Levchin and Peter Thiel, Confinity had its own money-transfer service, PayPal, which was more popular than X.com's service. Within the merged company, Musk returned as CEO. Musk's preference for Microsoft software over Unix created a rift in the company and caused Thiel to resign. Due to resulting technological issues and lack of a cohesive business model, the board ousted Musk and replaced him with Thiel in 2000.[b] Under Thiel, the company focused on the PayPal service and was renamed PayPal in 2001. In 2002, PayPal was acquired by eBay for $1.5 billion (equivalent to $2,700,000,000 in 2025) in stock, of which Musk—the largest shareholder with 11.72% of shares—received $175.8 million (equivalent to $320,000,000 in 2025). In 2017, Musk purchased the domain X.com from PayPal for an undisclosed amount, stating that it had sentimental value. In 2001, Musk became involved with the nonprofit Mars Society and discussed funding plans to place a growth-chamber for plants on Mars. Seeking a way to launch the greenhouse payloads into space, Musk made two unsuccessful trips to Moscow to purchase intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) from Russian companies NPO Lavochkin and Kosmotras. Musk instead decided to start a company to build affordable rockets. With $100 million of his early fortune, (equivalent to $180,000,000 in 2025) Musk founded SpaceX in May 2002 and became the company's CEO and Chief Engineer. SpaceX attempted its first launch of the Falcon 1 rocket in 2006. Although the rocket failed to reach Earth orbit, it was awarded a Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program contract from NASA, then led by Mike Griffin. After two more failed attempts that nearly caused Musk to go bankrupt, SpaceX succeeded in launching the Falcon 1 into orbit in 2008. Later that year, SpaceX received a $1.6 billion NASA contract (equivalent to $2,400,000,000 in 2025) for Falcon 9-launched Dragon spacecraft flights to the International Space Station (ISS), replacing the Space Shuttle after its 2011 retirement. In 2012, the Dragon vehicle docked with the ISS, a first for a commercial spacecraft. Working towards its goal of reusable rockets, in 2015 SpaceX successfully landed the first stage of a Falcon 9 on a land platform. Later landings were achieved on autonomous spaceport drone ships, an ocean-based recovery platform. In 2018, SpaceX launched the Falcon Heavy; the inaugural mission carried Musk's personal Tesla Roadster as a dummy payload. Since 2019, SpaceX has been developing Starship, a reusable, super heavy-lift launch vehicle intended to replace the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy. In 2020, SpaceX launched its first crewed flight, the Demo-2, becoming the first private company to place astronauts into orbit and dock a crewed spacecraft with the ISS. In 2024, NASA awarded SpaceX an $843 million (equivalent to $865,000,000 in 2025) contract to build a spacecraft that NASA will use to deorbit the ISS at the end of its lifespan. In 2015, SpaceX began development of the Starlink constellation of low Earth orbit satellites to provide satellite Internet access. After the launch of prototype satellites in 2018, the first large constellation was deployed in May 2019. As of May 2025[update], over 7,600 Starlink satellites are operational, comprising 65% of all operational Earth satellites. The total cost of the decade-long project to design, build, and deploy the constellation was estimated by SpaceX in 2020 to be $10 billion (equivalent to $12,000,000,000 in 2025).[c] During the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Musk provided free Starlink service to Ukraine, permitting Internet access and communication at a yearly cost to SpaceX of $400 million (equivalent to $440,000,000 in 2025). However, Musk refused to block Russian state media on Starlink. In 2023, Musk denied Ukraine's request to activate Starlink over Crimea to aid an attack against the Russian navy, citing fears of a nuclear response. Tesla, Inc., originally Tesla Motors, was incorporated in July 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning. Both men played active roles in the company's early development prior to Musk's involvement. Musk led the Series A round of investment in February 2004; he invested $6.35 million (equivalent to $11,000,000 in 2025), became the majority shareholder, and joined Tesla's board of directors as chairman. Musk took an active role within the company and oversaw Roadster product design, but was not deeply involved in day-to-day business operations. Following a series of escalating conflicts in 2007 and the 2008 financial crisis, Eberhard was ousted from the firm.[page needed] Musk assumed leadership of the company as CEO and product architect in 2008. A 2009 lawsuit settlement with Eberhard designated Musk as a Tesla co-founder, along with Tarpenning and two others. Tesla began delivery of the Roadster, an electric sports car, in 2008. With sales of about 2,500 vehicles, it was the first mass production all-electric car to use lithium-ion battery cells. Under Musk, Tesla has since launched several well-selling electric vehicles, including the four-door sedan Model S (2012), the crossover Model X (2015), the mass-market sedan Model 3 (2017), the crossover Model Y (2020), and the pickup truck Cybertruck (2023). In May 2020, Musk resigned as chairman of the board as part of the settlement of a lawsuit from the SEC over him tweeting that funding had been "secured" for potentially taking Tesla private. The company has also constructed multiple lithium-ion battery and electric vehicle factories, called Gigafactories. Since its initial public offering in 2010, Tesla stock has risen significantly; it became the most valuable carmaker in summer 2020, and it entered the S&P 500 later that year. In October 2021, it reached a market capitalization of $1 trillion (equivalent to $1,200,000,000,000 in 2025), the sixth company in U.S. history to do so. Musk provided the initial concept and financial capital for SolarCity, which his cousins Lyndon and Peter Rive founded in 2006. By 2013, SolarCity was the second largest provider of solar power systems in the United States. In 2014, Musk promoted the idea of SolarCity building an advanced production facility in Buffalo, New York, triple the size of the largest solar plant in the United States. Construction of the factory started in 2014 and was completed in 2017. It operated as a joint venture with Panasonic until early 2020. Tesla acquired SolarCity for $2 billion in 2016 (equivalent to $2,700,000,000 in 2025) and merged it with its battery unit to create Tesla Energy. The deal's announcement resulted in a more than 10% drop in Tesla's stock price; at the time, SolarCity was facing liquidity issues. Multiple shareholder groups filed a lawsuit against Musk and Tesla's directors, stating that the purchase of SolarCity was done solely to benefit Musk and came at the expense of Tesla and its shareholders. Tesla directors settled the lawsuit in January 2020, leaving Musk the sole remaining defendant. Two years later, the court ruled in Musk's favor. In 2016, Musk co-founded Neuralink, a neurotechnology startup, with an investment of $100 million. Neuralink aims to integrate the human brain with artificial intelligence (AI) by creating devices that are embedded in the brain. Such technology could enhance memory or allow the devices to communicate with software. The company also hopes to develop devices to treat neurological conditions like spinal cord injuries. In 2022, Neuralink announced that clinical trials would begin by the end of the year. In September 2023, the Food and Drug Administration approved Neuralink to initiate six-year human trials. Neuralink has conducted animal testing on macaques at the University of California, Davis. In 2021, the company released a video in which a macaque played the video game Pong via a Neuralink implant. The company's animal trials—which have caused the deaths of some monkeys—have led to claims of animal cruelty. The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine has alleged that Neuralink violated the Animal Welfare Act. Employees have complained that pressure from Musk to accelerate development has led to botched experiments and unnecessary animal deaths. In 2022, a federal probe was launched into possible animal welfare violations by Neuralink.[needs update] In 2017, Musk founded the Boring Company to construct tunnels; he also revealed plans for specialized, underground, high-occupancy vehicles that could travel up to 150 miles per hour (240 km/h) and thus circumvent above-ground traffic in major cities. Early in 2017, the company began discussions with regulatory bodies and initiated construction of a 30-foot (9.1 m) wide, 50-foot (15 m) long, and 15-foot (4.6 m) deep "test trench" on the premises of SpaceX's offices, as that required no permits. The Los Angeles tunnel, less than two miles (3.2 km) in length, debuted to journalists in 2018. It used Tesla Model Xs and was reported to be a rough ride while traveling at suboptimal speeds. Two tunnel projects announced in 2018, in Chicago and West Los Angeles, have been canceled. A tunnel beneath the Las Vegas Convention Center was completed in early 2021. Local officials have approved further expansions of the tunnel system. April 14, 2022 In early 2017, Musk expressed interest in buying Twitter and had questioned the platform's commitment to freedom of speech. By 2022, Musk had reached 9.2% stake in the company, making him the largest shareholder.[d] Musk later agreed to a deal that would appoint him to Twitter's board of directors and prohibit him from acquiring more than 14.9% of the company. Days later, Musk made a $43 billion offer to buy Twitter. By the end of April Musk had successfully concluded his bid for approximately $44 billion. This included approximately $12.5 billion in loans and $21 billion in equity financing. Having backtracked on his initial decision, Musk bought the company on October 27, 2022. Immediately after the acquisition, Musk fired several top Twitter executives including CEO Parag Agrawal; Musk became the CEO instead. Under Elon Musk, Twitter instituted monthly subscriptions for a "blue check", and laid off a significant portion of the company's staff. Musk lessened content moderation and hate speech also increased on the platform after his takeover. In late 2022, Musk released internal documents relating to Twitter's moderation of Hunter Biden's laptop controversy in the lead-up to the 2020 presidential election. Musk also promised to step down as CEO after a Twitter poll, and five months later, Musk stepped down as CEO and transitioned his role to executive chairman and chief technology officer (CTO). Despite Musk stepping down as CEO, X continues to struggle with challenges such as viral misinformation, hate speech, and antisemitism controversies. Musk has been accused of trying to silence some of his critics such as Twitch streamer Asmongold, who criticized him during one of his streams. Musk has been accused of removing their accounts' blue checkmarks, which hinders visibility and is considered a form of shadow banning, or suspending their accounts without justification. Other activities In August 2013, Musk announced plans for a version of a vactrain, and assigned engineers from SpaceX and Tesla to design a transport system between Greater Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area, at an estimated cost of $6 billion. Later that year, Musk unveiled the concept, dubbed the Hyperloop, intended to make travel cheaper than any other mode of transport for such long distances. In December 2015, Musk co-founded OpenAI, a not-for-profit artificial intelligence (AI) research company aiming to develop artificial general intelligence, intended to be safe and beneficial to humanity. Musk pledged $1 billion of funding to the company, and initially gave $50 million. In 2018, Musk left the OpenAI board. Since 2018, OpenAI has made significant advances in machine learning. In July 2023, Musk launched the artificial intelligence company xAI, which aims to develop a generative AI program that competes with existing offerings like OpenAI's ChatGPT. Musk obtained funding from investors in SpaceX and Tesla, and xAI hired engineers from Google and OpenAI. December 16, 2022 Musk uses a private jet owned by Falcon Landing LLC, a SpaceX-linked company, and acquired a second jet in August 2020. His heavy use of the jets and the consequent fossil fuel usage have received criticism. Musk's flight usage is tracked on social media through ElonJet. In December 2022, Musk banned the ElonJet account on Twitter, and made temporary bans on the accounts of journalists that posted stories regarding the incident, including Donie O'Sullivan, Keith Olbermann, and journalists from The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, and The Intercept. In October 2025, Musk's company xAI launched Grokipedia, an AI-generated online encyclopedia that he promoted as an alternative to Wikipedia. Articles on Grokipedia are generated and reviewed by xAI's Grok chatbot. Media coverage and academic analysis described Grokipedia as frequently reusing Wikipedia content but framing contested political and social topics in line with Musk's own views and right-wing narratives. A study by Cornell University researchers and NBC News stated that Grokipedia cites sources that are blacklisted or considered "generally unreliable" on Wikipedia, for example, the conspiracy site Infowars and the neo-Nazi forum Stormfront. Wired, The Guardian and Time criticized Grokipedia for factual errors and for presenting Musk himself in unusually positive terms while downplaying controversies. Politics Musk is an outlier among business leaders who typically avoid partisan political advocacy. Musk was a registered independent voter when he lived in California. Historically, he has donated to both Democrats and Republicans, many of whom serve in states in which he has a vested interest. Since 2022, his political contributions have mostly supported Republicans, with his first vote for a Republican going to Mayra Flores in the 2022 Texas's 34th congressional district special election. In 2024, he started supporting international far-right political parties, activists, and causes, and has shared misinformation and numerous conspiracy theories. Since 2024, his views have been generally described as right-wing. Musk supported Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, Hillary Clinton in 2016, Joe Biden in 2020, and Donald Trump in 2024. In the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries, Musk endorsed candidate Andrew Yang and expressed support for Yang's proposed universal basic income, and endorsed Kanye West's 2020 presidential campaign. In 2021, Musk publicly expressed opposition to the Build Back Better Act, a $3.5 trillion legislative package endorsed by Joe Biden that ultimately failed to pass due to unanimous opposition from congressional Republicans and several Democrats. In 2022, gave over $50 million to Citizens for Sanity, a conservative political action committee. In 2023, he supported Republican Ron DeSantis for the 2024 U.S. presidential election, giving $10 million to his campaign, and hosted DeSantis's campaign announcement on a Twitter Spaces event. From June 2023 to January 2024, Musk hosted a bipartisan set of X Spaces with Republican and Democratic candidates, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Vivek Ramaswamy, and Dean Phillips. In October 2025, former vice-president Kamala Harris commented that it was a mistake from the Democratic side to not invite Musk to a White House electric vehicle event organized in August 2021 and featuring executives from General Motors, Ford and Stellantis, despite Tesla being "the major American manufacturer of extraordinary innovation in this space." Fortune remarked that this was a nod to United Auto Workers and organized labor. Harris said presidents should put aside political loyalties when it came to recognizing innovation, and guessed that the non-invitation impacted Musk's perspective. Fortune noted that, at the time, Musk said, "Yeah, seems odd that Tesla wasn't invited." A month later, he criticized Biden as "not the friendliest administration." Jacob Silverman, author of the book Gilded Rage: Elon Musk and the Radicalization of Silicon Valley, said that the tech industry represented by Musk, Thiel, Andreessen and other capitalists, actually flourished under Biden, but the tech leaders chose Trump for their common ground on cultural issues. By early 2024, Musk had become a vocal and financial supporter of Donald Trump. In July 2024, minutes after the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, Musk endorsed him for president saying; "I fully endorse President Trump and hope for his rapid recovery." During the presidential campaign, Musk joined Trump on stage at a campaign rally, and during the campaign promoted conspiracy theories and falsehoods about Democrats, election fraud and immigration, in support of Trump. Musk was the largest individual donor of the 2024 election. In 2025, Musk contributed $19 million to the Wisconsin Supreme Court race, hoping to influence the state's future redistricting efforts and its regulations governing car manufacturers and dealers. In 2023, Musk said he shunned the World Economic Forum because it was boring. The organization commented that they had not invited him since 2015. He has participated in Dialog, dubbed "Tech Bilderberg" and organized by Peter Thiel and Auren Hoffman, though. Musk's international political actions and comments have come under increasing scrutiny and criticism, especially from the governments and leaders of France, Germany, Norway, Spain and the United Kingdom, particularly due to his position in the U.S. government as well as ownership of X. An NBC News analysis found he had boosted far-right political movements to cut immigration and curtail regulation of business in at least 18 countries on six continents since 2023. During his speech after the second inauguration of Donald Trump, Musk twice made a gesture interpreted by many as a Nazi or a fascist Roman salute.[e] He thumped his right hand over his heart, fingers spread wide, and then extended his right arm out, emphatically, at an upward angle, palm down and fingers together. He then repeated the gesture to the crowd behind him. As he finished the gestures, he said to the crowd, "My heart goes out to you. It is thanks to you that the future of civilization is assured." It was widely condemned as an intentional Nazi salute in Germany, where making such gestures is illegal. The Anti-Defamation League said it was not a Nazi salute, but other Jewish organizations disagreed and condemned the salute. American public opinion was divided on partisan lines as to whether it was a fascist salute. Musk dismissed the accusations of Nazi sympathies, deriding them as "dirty tricks" and a "tired" attack. Neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups celebrated it as a Nazi salute. Multiple European political parties demanded that Musk be banned from entering their countries. The concept of DOGE emerged in a discussion between Musk and Donald Trump, and in August 2024, Trump committed to giving Musk an advisory role, with Musk accepting the offer. In November and December 2024, Musk suggested that the organization could help to cut the U.S. federal budget, consolidate the number of federal agencies, and eliminate the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and that its final stage would be "deleting itself". In January 2025, the organization was created by executive order, and Musk was designated a "special government employee". Musk led the organization and was a senior advisor to the president, although his official role is not clear. In sworn statement during a lawsuit, the director of the White House Office of Administration stated that Musk "is not an employee of the U.S. DOGE Service or U.S. DOGE Service Temporary Organization", "is not the U.S. DOGE Service administrator", and has "no actual or formal authority to make government decisions himself". Trump said two days later that he had put Musk in charge of DOGE. A federal judge has ruled that Musk acted as the de facto leader of DOGE. Musk's role in the second Trump administration, particularly in response to DOGE, has attracted public backlash. He was criticized for his treatment of federal government employees, including his influence over the mass layoffs of the federal workforce. He has prioritized secrecy within the organization and has accused others of violating privacy laws. A Senate report alleged that Musk could avoid up to $2 billion in legal liability as a result of DOGE's actions. In May 2025, Bill Gates accused Musk of "killing the world's poorest children" through his cuts to USAID, which modeling by Boston University estimated had resulted in 300,000 deaths by this time, most of them of children. By November 2025, the estimated death toll had increased to 400,000 children and 200,000 adults. Musk announced on May 28, 2025, that he would depart from the Trump administration as planned when the special government employee's 130 day deadline expired, with a White House official confirming that Musk's offboarding from the Trump administration was already underway. His departure was officially confirmed during a joint Oval Office press conference with Trump on May 30, 2025. @realDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public. June 5, 2025 After leaving office, Musk criticized the Trump administration's Big Beautiful Bill, calling it a "disgusting abomination" due to its provisions increasing the deficit. A feud began between Musk and Trump, with its most notable event being Musk alleging Trump had ties to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein on X (formerly Twitter) on June 5, 2025. Trump responded on Truth Social stating that Musk went "CRAZY" after the "EV Mandate" was purportedly taken away and threatened to cut Musk's government contracts. Musk then called for a third Trump impeachment. The next day, Trump stated that he did not wish to reconcile with Musk, and added that Musk would face "very serious consequences" if he funds Democratic candidates. On June 11, Musk publicly apologized for the tweets against Trump, saying they "went too far". Views November 6, 2022 Rejecting the conservative label, Musk has described himself as a political moderate, even as his views have become more right-wing over time. His views have been characterized as libertarian and far-right, and after his involvement in European politics, they have received criticism from world leaders such as Emmanuel Macron and Olaf Scholz. Within the context of American politics, Musk supported Democratic candidates up until 2022, at which point he voted for a Republican for the first time. He has stated support for universal basic income, gun rights, freedom of speech, a tax on carbon emissions, and H-1B visas. Musk has expressed concern about issues such as artificial intelligence (AI) and climate change, and has been a critic of wealth tax, short-selling, and government subsidies. An immigrant himself, Musk has been accused of being anti-immigration, and regularly blames immigration policies for illegal immigration. He is also a pronatalist who believes population decline is the biggest threat to civilization, and identifies as a cultural Christian. Musk has long been an advocate for space colonization, especially the colonization of Mars. He has repeatedly pushed for humanity colonizing Mars, in order to become an interplanetary species and lower the risks of human extinction. Musk has promoted conspiracy theories and made controversial statements that have led to accusations of racism, sexism, antisemitism, transphobia, disseminating disinformation, and support of white pride. While describing himself as a "pro-Semite", his comments regarding George Soros and Jewish communities have been condemned by the Anti-Defamation League and the Biden White House. Musk was criticized during the COVID-19 pandemic for making unfounded epidemiological claims, defying COVID-19 lockdowns restrictions, and supporting the Canada convoy protest against vaccine mandates. He has amplified false claims of white genocide in South Africa. Musk has been critical of Israel's actions in the Gaza Strip during the Gaza war, praised China's economic and climate goals, suggested that Taiwan and China should resolve cross-strait relations, and was described as having a close relationship with the Chinese government. In Europe, Musk expressed support for Ukraine in 2022 during the Russian invasion, recommended referendums and peace deals on the annexed Russia-occupied territories, and supported the far-right Alternative for Germany political party in 2024. Regarding British politics, Musk blamed the 2024 UK riots on mass migration and open borders, criticized Prime Minister Keir Starmer for what he described as a "two-tier" policing system, and was subsequently attacked as being responsible for spreading misinformation and amplifying the far-right. He has also voiced his support for far-right activist Tommy Robinson and pledged electoral support for Reform UK. In February 2026, Musk described Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez as a "tyrant" following Sánchez's proposal to prohibit minors under the age of 16 from accessing social media platforms. Legal affairs In 2018, Musk was sued by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for a tweet stating that funding had been secured for potentially taking Tesla private.[f] The securities fraud lawsuit characterized the tweet as false, misleading, and damaging to investors, and sought to bar Musk from serving as CEO of publicly traded companies. Two days later, Musk settled with the SEC, without admitting or denying the SEC's allegations. As a result, Musk and Tesla were fined $20 million each, and Musk was forced to step down for three years as Tesla chairman but was able to remain as CEO. Shareholders filed a lawsuit over the tweet, and in February 2023, a jury found Musk and Tesla not liable. Musk has stated in interviews that he does not regret posting the tweet that triggered the SEC investigation. In 2019, Musk stated in a tweet that Tesla would build half a million cars that year. The SEC reacted by asking a court to hold him in contempt for violating the terms of the 2018 settlement agreement. A joint agreement between Musk and the SEC eventually clarified the previous agreement details, including a list of topics about which Musk needed preclearance. In 2020, a judge blocked a lawsuit that claimed a tweet by Musk regarding Tesla stock price ("too high imo") violated the agreement. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)-released records showed that the SEC concluded Musk had subsequently violated the agreement twice by tweeting regarding "Tesla's solar roof production volumes and its stock price". In October 2023, the SEC sued Musk over his refusal to testify a third time in an investigation into whether he violated federal law by purchasing Twitter stock in 2022. In February 2024, Judge Laurel Beeler ruled that Musk must testify again. In January 2025, the SEC filed a lawsuit against Musk for securities violations related to his purchase of Twitter. In January 2024, Delaware judge Kathaleen McCormick ruled in a 2018 lawsuit that Musk's $55 billion pay package from Tesla be rescinded. McCormick called the compensation granted by the company's board "an unfathomable sum" that was unfair to shareholders. The Delaware Supreme Court overturned McCormick's decision in December 2025, restoring Musk's compensation package and awarding $1 in nominal damages. Personal life Musk became a U.S. citizen in 2002. From the early 2000s until late 2020, Musk resided in California, where both Tesla and SpaceX were founded. He then relocated to Cameron County, Texas, saying that California had become "complacent" about its economic success. While hosting Saturday Night Live in 2021, Musk stated that he has Asperger syndrome (an outdated term for autism spectrum disorder). When asked about his experience growing up with Asperger's syndrome in a TED2022 conference in Vancouver, Musk stated that "the social cues were not intuitive ... I would just tend to take things very literally ... but then that turned out to be wrong — [people were not] simply saying exactly what they mean, there's all sorts of other things that are meant, and [it] took me a while to figure that out." Musk suffers from back pain and has undergone several spine-related surgeries, including a disc replacement. In 2000, he contracted a severe case of malaria while on vacation in South Africa. Musk has stated he uses doctor-prescribed ketamine for occasional depression and that he doses "a small amount once every other week or something like that"; since January 2024, some media outlets have reported that he takes ketamine, marijuana, LSD, ecstasy, mushrooms, cocaine and other drugs. Musk at first refused to comment on his alleged drug use, before responding that he had not tested positive for drugs, and that if drugs somehow improved his productivity, "I would definitely take them!". The New York Times' investigations revealed Musk's overuse of ketamine and numerous other drugs, as well as strained family relationships and concerns from close associates who have become troubled by his public behavior as he became more involved in political activities and government work. According to The Washington Post, President Trump described Musk as "a big-time drug addict". Through his own label Emo G Records, Musk released a rap track, "RIP Harambe", on SoundCloud in March 2019. The following year, he released an EDM track, "Don't Doubt Ur Vibe", featuring his own lyrics and vocals. Musk plays video games, which he stated has a "'restoring effect' that helps his 'mental calibration'". Some games he plays include Quake, Diablo IV, Elden Ring, and Polytopia. Musk once claimed to be one of the world's top video game players but has since admitted to "account boosting", or cheating by hiring outside services to achieve top player rankings. Musk has justified the boosting by claiming that all top accounts do it so he has to as well to remain competitive. In 2024 and 2025, Musk criticized the video game Assassin's Creed Shadows and its creator Ubisoft for "woke" content. Musk posted to X that "DEI kills art" and specified the inclusion of the historical figure Yasuke in the Assassin's Creed game as offensive; he also called the game "terrible". Ubisoft responded by saying that Musk's comments were "just feeding hatred" and that they were focused on producing a game not pushing politics. Musk has fathered at least 14 children, one of whom died as an infant. The Wall Street Journal reported in 2025 that sources close to Musk suggest that the "true number of Musk's children is much higher than publicly known". He had six children with his first wife, Canadian author Justine Wilson, whom he met while attending Queen's University in Ontario, Canada; they married in 2000. In 2002, their first child Nevada Musk died of sudden infant death syndrome at the age of 10 weeks. After his death, the couple used in vitro fertilization (IVF) to continue their family; they had twins in 2004, followed by triplets in 2006. The couple divorced in 2008 and have shared custody of their children. The elder twin he had with Wilson came out as a trans woman and, in 2022, officially changed her name to Vivian Jenna Wilson, adopting her mother's surname because she no longer wished to be associated with Musk. Musk began dating English actress Talulah Riley in 2008. They married two years later at Dornoch Cathedral in Scotland. In 2012, the couple divorced, then remarried the following year. After briefly filing for divorce in 2014, Musk finalized a second divorce from Riley in 2016. Musk then dated the American actress Amber Heard for several months in 2017; he had reportedly been "pursuing" her since 2012. In 2018, Musk and Canadian musician Grimes confirmed they were dating. Grimes and Musk have three children, born in 2020, 2021, and 2022.[g] Musk and Grimes originally gave their eldest child the name "X Æ A-12", which would have violated California regulations as it contained characters that are not in the modern English alphabet; the names registered on the birth certificate are "X" as a first name, "Æ A-Xii" as a middle name, and "Musk" as a last name. They received criticism for choosing a name perceived to be impractical and difficult to pronounce; Musk has said the intended pronunciation is "X Ash A Twelve". Their second child was born via surrogacy. Despite the pregnancy, Musk confirmed reports that the couple were "semi-separated" in September 2021; in an interview with Time in December 2021, he said he was single. In October 2023, Grimes sued Musk over parental rights and custody of X Æ A-Xii. Elon Musk has taken X Æ A-Xii to multiple official events in Washington, D.C. during Trump's second term in office. Also in July 2022, The Wall Street Journal reported that Musk allegedly had an affair with Nicole Shanahan, the wife of Google co-founder Sergey Brin, in 2021, leading to their divorce the following year. Musk denied the report. Musk also had a relationship with Australian actress Natasha Bassett, who has been described as "an occasional girlfriend". In October 2024, The New York Times reported Musk bought a Texas compound for his children and their mothers, though Musk denied having done so. Musk also has four children with Shivon Zilis, director of operations and special projects at Neuralink: twins born via IVF in 2021, a child born in 2024 via surrogacy and a child born in 2025.[h] On February 14, 2025, Ashley St. Clair, an influencer and author, posted on X claiming to have given birth to Musk's son Romulus five months earlier, which media outlets reported as Musk's supposed thirteenth child.[i] On February 22, 2025, it was reported that St Clair had filed for sole custody of her five-month-old son and for Musk to be recognised as the child's father. On March 31, 2025, Musk wrote that, while he was unsure if he was the father of St. Clair's child, he had paid St. Clair $2.5 million and would continue paying her $500,000 per year.[j] Later reporting from the Wall Street Journal indicated that $1 million of these payments to St. Clair were structured as a loan. In 2014, Musk and Ghislaine Maxwell appeared together in a photograph taken at an Academy Awards after-party, which Musk later described as a "photobomb". The January 2026 Epstein files contain emails between Musk and Epstein from 2012 to 2013, after Epstein's first conviction. Emails released on January 30, 2026, indicated that Epstein invited Musk to visit his private island on multiple occasions. The correspondence showed that while Epstein repeatedly encouraged Musk to attend, Musk did not visit the island. In one instance, Musk discussed the possibility of attending a party with his then-wife Talulah Riley and asked which day would be the "wildest party"; according to the emails, the visit did not take place after Epstein later cancelled the plans.[k] On Christmas day in 2012, Musk emailed Epstein asking "Do you have any parties planned? I’ve been working to the edge of sanity this year and so, once my kids head home after Christmas, I really want to hit the party scene in St Barts or elsewhere and let loose. The invitation is much appreciated, but a peaceful island experience is the opposite of what I’m looking for". Epstein replied that the "ratio on my island" might make Musk's wife uncomfortable to which Musk responded, "Ratio is not a problem for Talulah". On September 11, 2013, Epstein sent an email asking Musk if he had any plans for coming to New York for the opening of the United Nations General Assembly where many "interesting people" would be coming to his house to which Musk responded that "Flying to NY to see UN diplomats do nothing would be an unwise use of time". Epstein responded by stating "Do you think i am retarded. Just kidding, there is no one over 25 and all very cute." Musk has denied any close relationship with Epstein and described him as a "creep" who attempted to ingratiate himself with influential people. When Musk was asked in 2019 if he introduced Epstein to Mark Zuckerberg, Musk responded: "I don’t recall introducing Epstein to anyone, as I don’t know the guy well enough to do so." The released emails nonetheless showed cordial exchanges on a range of topics, including Musk's inquiry about parties on the island. The correspondence also indicated that Musk suggested hosting Epstein at SpaceX, while Epstein separately discussed plans to tour SpaceX and bring "the girls", though there is no evidence that such a visit occurred. Musk has described the release of the files a "distraction", later accusing the second Trump administration of suppressing them to protect powerful individuals, including Trump himself.[l] Wealth Elon Musk is the wealthiest person in the world, with an estimated net worth of US$690 billion as of January 2026, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, and $852 billion according to Forbes, primarily from his ownership stakes in SpaceX and Tesla. Having been first listed on the Forbes Billionaires List in 2012, around 75% of Musk's wealth was derived from Tesla stock in November 2020, although he describes himself as "cash poor". According to Forbes, he became the first person in the world to achieve a net worth of $300 billion in 2021; $400 billion in December 2024; $500 billion in October 2025; $600 billion in mid-December 2025; $700 billion later that month; and $800 billion in February 2026. In November 2025, a Tesla pay package worth potentially $1 trillion for Musk was approved, which he is to receive over 10 years if he meets specific goals. Public image Although his ventures have been highly influential within their separate industries starting in the 2000s, Musk only became a public figure in the early 2010s. He has been described as an eccentric who makes spontaneous and impactful decisions, while also often making controversial statements, contrary to other billionaires who prefer reclusiveness to protect their businesses. Musk's actions and his expressed views have made him a polarizing figure. Biographer Ashlee Vance described people's opinions of Musk as polarized due to his "part philosopher, part troll" persona on Twitter. He has drawn denouncement for using his platform to mock the self-selection of personal pronouns, while also receiving praise for bringing international attention to matters like British survivors of grooming gangs. Musk has been described as an American oligarch due to his extensive influence over public discourse, social media, industry, politics, and government policy. After Trump's re-election, Musk's influence and actions during the transition period and the second presidency of Donald Trump led some to call him "President Musk", the "actual president-elect", "shadow president" or "co-president". Awards for his contributions to the development of the Falcon rockets include the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics George Low Transportation Award in 2008, the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale Gold Space Medal in 2010, and the Royal Aeronautical Society Gold Medal in 2012. In 2015, he received an honorary doctorate in engineering and technology from Yale University and an Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Honorary Membership. Musk was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2018.[m] In 2022, Musk was elected to the National Academy of Engineering. Time has listed Musk as one of the most influential people in the world in 2010, 2013, 2018, and 2021. Musk was selected as Time's "Person of the Year" for 2021. Then Time editor-in-chief Edward Felsenthal wrote that, "Person of the Year is a marker of influence, and few individuals have had more influence than Musk on life on Earth, and potentially life off Earth too." Notes References Works cited Further reading External links |
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Contents Minecraft Minecraft is a sandbox game developed and published by Mojang Studios. Following its initial public alpha release in 2009, it was formally released in 2011 for personal computers. The game has since been ported to numerous platforms, including mobile devices and various video game consoles. In Minecraft, players explore a procedurally generated world with virtually infinite terrain made up of voxels (cubes). They can discover and extract raw materials, craft tools and items, build structures, fight hostile mobs, and cooperate with or compete against other players in multiplayer. The game's large community offers a wide variety of user-generated content, such as modifications, servers, player skins, texture packs, and custom maps, which add new game mechanics and possibilities. Originally created by Markus "Notch" Persson using the Java programming language, Jens "Jeb" Bergensten was handed control over the game's development following its full release. In 2014, Mojang and the Minecraft intellectual property were purchased by Microsoft for US$2.5 billion; Xbox Game Studios hold the publishing rights for the Bedrock Edition, the unified cross-platform version which evolved from the Pocket Edition codebase[i] and replaced the legacy console versions. Bedrock is updated concurrently with Mojang's original Java Edition, although with numerous, generally small, differences. Minecraft is the best-selling video game in history with over 350 million copies sold. It has received critical acclaim, winning several awards and being cited as one of the greatest video games of all time. Social media, parodies, adaptations, merchandise, and the annual Minecon conventions have played prominent roles in popularizing it. The wider Minecraft franchise includes several spin-off games, such as Minecraft: Story Mode, Minecraft Dungeons, and Minecraft Legends. A film adaptation, titled A Minecraft Movie, was released in 2025 and became the second highest-grossing video game film of all time. Gameplay Minecraft is a 3D sandbox video game that has no required goals to accomplish, giving players a large amount of freedom in choosing how to play the game. The game features an optional achievement system. Gameplay is in the first-person perspective by default, but players have the option of third-person perspectives. The game world is composed of rough 3D objects—mainly cubes, referred to as blocks—representing various materials, such as dirt, stone, ores, tree trunks, water, and lava. The core gameplay revolves around picking up and placing these objects. These blocks are arranged in a voxel grid, while players can move freely around the world. Players can break, or mine, blocks and then place them elsewhere, enabling them to build things. Very few blocks are affected by gravity, instead maintaining their voxel position in the air. Players can also craft a wide variety of items, such as armor, which mitigates damage from attacks; weapons (such as swords or bows and arrows), which allow monsters and animals to be killed more easily; and tools (such as pickaxes or shovels), which break certain types of blocks more quickly. Some items have multiple tiers depending on the material used to craft them, with higher-tier items being more effective and durable. They may also freely craft helpful blocks—such as furnaces which can cook food and smelt ores, and torches that produce light—or exchange items with villagers (NPC) through trading emeralds for different goods and vice versa. The game has an inventory system, allowing players to carry a limited number of items. The in-game time system follows a day and night cycle, with one full cycle lasting for 20 real-time minutes. The game also contains a material called redstone, which can be used to make primitive mechanical devices, electrical circuits, and logic gates, allowing for the construction of many complex systems. New players are given a randomly selected default character skin out of nine possibilities, including Steve or Alex, but are able to create and upload their own skins. Players encounter various mobs (short for mobile entities) including animals, villagers, and hostile creatures. Passive mobs, such as cows, pigs, and chickens, spawn during the daytime and can be hunted for food and crafting materials, while hostile mobs—including large spiders, witches, skeletons, and zombies—spawn during nighttime or in dark places such as caves. Some hostile mobs, such as zombies and skeletons, burn under the sun if they have no headgear and are not standing in water. Other creatures unique to Minecraft include the creeper (an exploding creature that sneaks up on the player) and the enderman (a creature with the ability to teleport as well as pick up and place blocks). There are also variants of mobs that spawn in different conditions; for example, zombies have husk and drowned variants that spawn in deserts and oceans, respectively. The Minecraft environment is procedurally generated as players explore it using a map seed that is randomly chosen at the time of world creation (or manually specified by the player). Divided into biomes representing different environments with unique resources and structures, worlds are designed to be effectively infinite in traditional gameplay, though technical limits on the player have existed throughout development, both intentionally and not. Implementation of horizontally infinite generation initially resulted in a glitch termed the "Far Lands" at over 12 million blocks away from the world center, where terrain generated as wall-like, fissured patterns. The Far Lands and associated glitches were considered the effective edge of the world until they were resolved, with the current horizontal limit instead being a special impassable barrier called the world border, located 30 million blocks away. Vertical space is comparatively limited, with an unbreakable bedrock layer at the bottom and a building limit several hundred blocks into the sky. Minecraft features three independent dimensions accessible through portals and providing alternate game environments. The Overworld is the starting dimension and represents the real world, with a terrestrial surface setting including plains, mountains, forests, oceans, caves, and small sources of lava. The Nether is a hell-like underworld dimension accessed via an obsidian portal and composed mainly of lava. Mobs that populate the Nether include shrieking, fireball-shooting ghasts, alongside anthropomorphic pigs called piglins and their zombified counterparts. Piglins in particular have a bartering system, where players can give them gold ingots and receive items in return. Structures known as Nether Fortresses generate in the Nether, containing mobs such as wither skeletons and blazes, which can drop blaze rods needed to access the End dimension. The player can also choose to build an optional boss mob known as the Wither, using skulls obtained from wither skeletons and soul sand. The End can be reached through an end portal, consisting of twelve end portal frames. End portals are found in underground structures in the Overworld known as strongholds. To find strongholds, players must craft eyes of ender using an ender pearl and blaze powder. Eyes of ender can then be thrown, traveling in the direction of the stronghold. Once the player reaches the stronghold, they can place eyes of ender into each portal frame to activate the end portal. The dimension consists of islands floating in a dark, bottomless void. A boss enemy called the Ender Dragon guards the largest, central island. Killing the dragon opens access to an exit portal, which, when entered, cues the game's ending credits and the End Poem, a roughly 1,500-word work written by Irish novelist Julian Gough, which takes about nine minutes to scroll past, is the game's only narrative text, and the only text of significant length directed at the player.: 10–12 At the conclusion of the credits, the player is teleported back to their respawn point and may continue the game indefinitely. In Survival mode, players have to gather natural resources such as wood and stone found in the environment in order to craft certain blocks and items. Depending on the difficulty, monsters spawn in darker areas outside a certain radius of the character, requiring players to build a shelter in order to survive at night. The mode also has a health bar which is depleted by attacks from mobs, falls, drowning, falling into lava, suffocation, starvation, and other events. Players also have a hunger bar, which must be periodically refilled by eating food in-game unless the player is playing on peaceful difficulty. If the hunger bar is empty, the player starves. Health replenishes when players have a full hunger bar or continuously on peaceful. Upon losing all health, players die. The items in the players' inventories are dropped unless the game is reconfigured not to do so. Players then re-spawn at their spawn point, which by default is where players first spawn in the game and can be changed by sleeping in a bed or using a respawn anchor. Dropped items can be recovered if players can reach them before they despawn after 5 minutes. Players may acquire experience points (commonly referred to as "xp" or "exp") by killing mobs and other players, mining, smelting ores, animal breeding, and cooking food. Experience can then be spent on enchanting tools, armor and weapons. Enchanted items are generally more powerful, last longer, or have other special effects. The game features two more game modes based on Survival, known as Hardcore mode and Adventure mode. Hardcore mode plays identically to Survival mode, but with the game's difficulty setting locked to "Hard" and with permadeath, forcing them to delete the world or explore it as a spectator after dying. Adventure mode was added to the game in a post-launch update, and prevents the player from directly modifying the game's world. It was designed primarily for use in custom maps, allowing map designers to let players experience it as intended. In Creative mode, players have access to an infinite number of all resources and items in the game through the inventory menu and can place or mine them instantly. Players can toggle the ability to fly freely around the game world at will, and their characters usually do not take any damage nor are affected by hunger. The game mode helps players focus on building and creating projects of any size without disturbance. Multiplayer in Minecraft enables multiple players to interact and communicate with each other on a single world. It is available through direct game-to-game multiplayer, local area network (LAN) play, local split screen (console-only), and servers (player-hosted and business-hosted). Players can run their own server by making a realm, using a host provider, hosting one themselves or connect directly to another player's game via Xbox Live, PlayStation Network or Nintendo Switch Online. Single-player worlds have LAN support, allowing players to join a world on locally interconnected computers without a server setup. Minecraft multiplayer servers are guided by server operators, who have access to server commands such as setting the time of day and teleporting players. Operators can also set up restrictions concerning which usernames or IP addresses are allowed or disallowed to enter the server. Multiplayer servers have a wide range of activities, with some servers having their own unique rules and customs. The largest and most popular server is Hypixel, which has been visited by over 14 million unique players. Player versus player combat (PvP) can be enabled to allow fighting between players. In 2013, Mojang announced Minecraft Realms, a server hosting service intended to enable players to run server multiplayer games easily and safely without having to set up their own. Unlike a standard server, only invited players can join Realms servers, and these servers do not use server addresses. Minecraft: Java Edition Realms server owners can invite up to twenty people to play on their server, with up to ten players online at a time. Minecraft Realms server owners can invite up to 3,000 people to play on their server, with up to ten players online at one time. The Minecraft: Java Edition Realms servers do not support user-made plugins, but players can play custom Minecraft maps. Minecraft Bedrock Realms servers support user-made add-ons, resource packs, behavior packs, and custom Minecraft maps. At Electronic Entertainment Expo 2016, support for cross-platform play between Windows 10, iOS, and Android platforms was added through Realms starting in June 2016, with Xbox One and Nintendo Switch support to come later in 2017, and support for virtual reality devices. On 31 July 2017, Mojang released the beta version of the update allowing cross-platform play. Nintendo Switch support for Realms was released in July 2018. The modding community consists of fans, users and third-party programmers. Using a variety of application program interfaces that have arisen over time, they have produced a wide variety of downloadable content for Minecraft, such as modifications, texture packs and custom maps. Modifications of the Minecraft code, called mods, add a variety of gameplay changes, ranging from new blocks, items, and mobs to entire arrays of mechanisms. The modding community is responsible for a substantial supply of mods from ones that enhance gameplay, such as mini-maps, waypoints, and durability counters, to ones that add to the game elements from other video games and media. While a variety of mod frameworks were independently developed by reverse engineering the code, Mojang has also enhanced vanilla Minecraft with official frameworks for modification, allowing the production of community-created resource packs, which alter certain game elements including textures and sounds. Players can also create their own "maps" (custom world save files) that often contain specific rules, challenges, puzzles and quests, and share them for others to play. Mojang added an adventure mode in August 2012 and "command blocks" in October 2012, which were created specially for custom maps in Java Edition. Data packs, introduced in version 1.13 of the Java Edition, allow further customization, including the ability to add new achievements, dimensions, functions, loot tables, predicates, recipes, structures, tags, and world generation. The Xbox 360 Edition supported downloadable content, which was available to purchase via the Xbox Games Store; these content packs usually contained additional character skins. It later received support for texture packs in its twelfth title update while introducing "mash-up packs", which combined texture packs with skin packs and changes to the game's sounds, music and user interface. The first mash-up pack (and by extension, the first texture pack) for the Xbox 360 Edition was released on 4 September 2013, and was themed after the Mass Effect franchise. Unlike Java Edition, however, the Xbox 360 Edition did not support player-made mods or custom maps. A cross-promotional resource pack based on the Super Mario franchise by Nintendo was released exclusively for the Wii U Edition worldwide on 17 May 2016, and later bundled free with the Nintendo Switch Edition at launch. Another based on Fallout was released on consoles that December, and for Windows and Mobile in April 2017. In April 2018, malware was discovered in several downloadable user-made Minecraft skins for use with the Java Edition of the game. Avast stated that nearly 50,000 accounts were infected, and when activated, the malware would attempt to reformat the user's hard drive. Mojang promptly patched the issue, and released a statement stating that "the code would not be run or read by the game itself", and would run only when the image containing the skin itself was opened. In June 2017, Mojang released the "1.1 Discovery Update" to the Pocket Edition of the game, which later became the Bedrock Edition. The update introduced the "Marketplace", a catalogue of purchasable user-generated content intended to give Minecraft creators "another way to make a living from the game". Various skins, maps, texture packs and add-ons from different creators can be bought with "Minecoins", a digital currency that is purchased with real money. Additionally, users can access specific content with a subscription service titled "Marketplace Pass". Alongside content from independent creators, the Marketplace also houses items published by Mojang and Microsoft themselves, as well as official collaborations between Minecraft and other intellectual properties. By 2022, the Marketplace had over 1.7 billion content downloads, generating over $500 million in revenue. Development Before creating Minecraft, Markus "Notch" Persson was a game developer at King, where he worked until March 2009. At King, he primarily developed browser games and learned several programming languages. During his free time, he prototyped his own games, often drawing inspiration from other titles, and was an active participant on the TIGSource forums for independent developers. One such project was "RubyDung", a base-building game inspired by Dwarf Fortress, but with an isometric, three-dimensional perspective similar to RollerCoaster Tycoon. Among the features in RubyDung that he explored was a first-person view similar to Dungeon Keeper, though he ultimately discarded this idea, feeling the graphics were too pixelated at the time. Around March 2009, Persson left King and joined jAlbum, while continuing to work on his prototypes. Infiniminer, a block-based open-ended mining game first released in April 2009, inspired Persson's vision for RubyDung's future direction. Infiniminer heavily influenced the visual style of gameplay, including bringing back the first-person mode, the "blocky" visual style and the block-building fundamentals. However, unlike Infiniminer, Persson wanted Minecraft to have RPG elements. The first public alpha build of Minecraft was released on 17 May 2009 on TIGSource. Over the years, Persson regularly released test builds that added new features, including tools, mobs, and entire new dimensions. In 2011, partly due to the game's rising popularity, Persson decided to release a full 1.0 version—a second part of the "Adventure Update"—on 18 November 2011. Shortly after, Persson stepped down from development, handing the project's lead to Jens "Jeb" Bergensten. On 15 September 2014, Microsoft, the developer behind the Microsoft Windows operating system and Xbox video game console, announced a $2.5 billion acquisition of Mojang, which included the Minecraft intellectual property. Persson had suggested the deal on Twitter, asking a corporation to buy his stake in the game after receiving criticism for enforcing terms in the game's end-user license agreement (EULA), which had been in place for the past three years. According to Persson, Mojang CEO Carl Manneh received a call from a Microsoft executive shortly after the tweet, asking if Persson was serious about a deal. Mojang was also approached by other companies including Activision Blizzard and Electronic Arts. The deal with Microsoft was arbitrated on 6 November 2014 and led to Persson becoming one of Forbes' "World's Billionaires". After 2014, Minecraft's primary versions received usually annual major updates—free to players who have purchased the game— each primarily centered around a specific theme. For instance, version 1.13, the Update Aquatic, focused on ocean-related features, while version 1.16, the Nether Update, introduced significant changes to the Nether dimension. However, in late 2024, Mojang announced a shift in their update strategy; rather than releasing large updates annually, they opted for a more frequent release schedule with smaller, incremental updates, stating, "We know that you want new Minecraft content more often." The Bedrock Edition has also received regular updates, now matching the themes of the Java Edition updates. Other versions of the game, such as various console editions and the Pocket Edition, were either merged into Bedrock or discontinued and have not received further updates. On 7 May 2019, coinciding with Minecraft's 10th anniversary, a JavaScript recreation of an old 2009 Java Edition build named Minecraft Classic was made available to play online for free. On 16 April 2020, a Bedrock Edition-exclusive beta version of Minecraft, called Minecraft RTX, was released by Nvidia. It introduced physically-based rendering, real-time path tracing, and DLSS for RTX-enabled GPUs. The public release was made available on 8 December 2020. Path tracing can only be enabled in supported worlds, which can be downloaded for free via the in-game Minecraft Marketplace, with a texture pack from Nvidia's website, or with compatible third-party texture packs. It cannot be enabled by default with any texture pack on any world. Initially, Minecraft RTX was affected by many bugs, display errors, and instability issues. On 22 March 2025, a new visual mode called Vibrant Visuals, an optional graphical overhaul similar to Minecraft RTX, was announced. It promises modern rendering features—such as dynamic shadows, screen space reflections, volumetric fog, and bloom—without the need of RTX-capable hardware. Vibrant Visuals was released as a part of the Chase the Skies update on 17 June 2025 for Bedrock Edition and is planned to release on Java Edition at a later date. Development began for the original edition of Minecraft—then known as Cave Game, and now known as the Java Edition—in May 2009,[k] and ended on 13 May, when Persson released a test video on YouTube of an early version of the game, dubbed the "Cave game tech test" or the "Cave game tech demo". The game was named Minecraft: Order of the Stone the next day, after a suggestion made by a player. "Order of the Stone" came from the webcomic The Order of the Stick, and "Minecraft" was chosen "because it's a good name". The title was later shortened to just Minecraft, omitting the subtitle. Persson completed the game's base programming over a weekend in May 2009, and private testing began on TigIRC on 16 May. The first public release followed on 17 May 2009 as a developmental version shared on the TIGSource forums. Based on feedback from forum users, Persson continued updating the game. This initial public build later became known as Classic. Further developmental phases—dubbed Survival Test, Indev, and Infdev—were released throughout 2009 and 2010. The first major update, known as Alpha, was released on 30 June 2010. At the time, Persson was still working a day job at jAlbum but later resigned to focus on Minecraft full-time as sales of the alpha version surged. Updates were distributed automatically, introducing new blocks, items, mobs, and changes to game mechanics such as water flow. With revenue generated from the game, Persson founded Mojang, a video game studio, alongside former colleagues Jakob Porser and Carl Manneh. On 11 December 2010, Persson announced that Minecraft would enter its beta phase on 20 December. He assured players that bug fixes and all pre-release updates would remain free. As development progressed, Mojang expanded, hiring additional employees to work on the project. The game officially exited beta and launched in full on 18 November 2011. On 1 December 2011, Jens "Jeb" Bergensten took full creative control over Minecraft, replacing Persson as lead designer. On 28 February 2012, Mojang announced the hiring of the developers behind Bukkit, a popular developer API for Minecraft servers, to improve Minecraft's support of server modifications. This move included Mojang taking apparent ownership of the CraftBukkit server mod, though this apparent acquisition later became controversial, and its legitimacy was questioned due to CraftBukkit's open-source nature and licensing under the GNU General Public License and Lesser General Public License. In August 2011, Minecraft: Pocket Edition was released as an early alpha for the Xperia Play via the Android Market, later expanding to other Android devices on 8 October 2011. The iOS version followed on 17 November 2011. A port was made available for Windows Phones shortly after Microsoft acquired Mojang. Unlike Java Edition, Pocket Edition initially focused on Minecraft's creative building and basic survival elements but lacked many features of the PC version. Bergensten confirmed on Twitter that the Pocket Edition was written in C++ rather than Java, as iOS does not support Java. On 10 December 2014, a port of Pocket Edition was released for Windows Phone 8.1. In July 2015, a port of the Pocket Edition to Windows 10 was released as the Windows 10 Edition, with full crossplay to other Pocket versions. In January 2017, Microsoft announced that it would no longer maintain the Windows Phone versions of Pocket Edition. On 20 September 2017, with the "Better Together Update", the Pocket Edition was ported to the Xbox One, and was renamed to the Bedrock Edition. The console versions of Minecraft debuted with the Xbox 360 edition, developed by 4J Studios and released on 9 May 2012. Announced as part of the Xbox Live Arcade NEXT promotion, this version introduced a redesigned crafting system, a new control interface, in-game tutorials, split-screen multiplayer, and online play via Xbox Live. Unlike the PC version, its worlds were finite, bordered by invisible walls. Initially, the Xbox 360 version resembled outdated PC versions but received updates to bring it closer to Java Edition before eventually being discontinued. The Xbox One version launched on 5 September 2014, featuring larger worlds and support for more players. Minecraft expanded to PlayStation platforms with PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 editions released on 17 December 2013 and 4 September 2014, respectively. Originally planned as a PS4 launch title, it was delayed before its eventual release. A PlayStation Vita version followed in October 2014. Like the Xbox versions, the PlayStation editions were developed by 4J Studios. Nintendo platforms received Minecraft: Wii U Edition on 17 December 2015, with a physical release in North America on 17 June 2016 and in Europe on 30 June. The Nintendo Switch version launched via the eShop on 11 May 2017. During a Nintendo Direct presentation on 13 September 2017, Nintendo announced that Minecraft: New Nintendo 3DS Edition, based on the Pocket Edition, would be available for download immediately after the livestream, and a physical copy available on a later date. The game is compatible only with the New Nintendo 3DS or New Nintendo 2DS XL systems and does not work with the original 3DS or 2DS systems. On 20 September 2017, the Better Together Update introduced Bedrock Edition across Xbox One, Windows 10, VR, and mobile platforms, enabling cross-play between these versions. Bedrock Edition later expanded to Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4, with the latter receiving the update in December 2019, allowing cross-platform play for users with a free Xbox Live account. The Bedrock Edition released a native version for PlayStation 5 on 22 October 2024, while the Xbox Series X/S version launched on 17 June 2025. On 18 December 2018, the PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, Xbox 360, and Wii U versions of Minecraft received their final update and would later become known as "Legacy Console Editions". On 15 January 2019, the New Nintendo 3DS version of Minecraft received its final update, effectively becoming discontinued as well. An educational version of Minecraft, designed for use in schools, launched on 1 November 2016. It is available on Android, ChromeOS, iPadOS, iOS, MacOS, and Windows. On 20 August 2018, Mojang announced that it would bring Education Edition to iPadOS in Autumn 2018. It was released to the App Store on 6 September 2018. On 27 March 2019, it was announced that it would be operated by JD.com in China. On 26 June 2020, a public beta for the Education Edition was made available to Google Play Store compatible Chromebooks. The full game was released to the Google Play Store for Chromebooks on 7 August 2020. On 20 May 2016, China Edition (also known as My World) was announced as a localized edition for China, where it was released under a licensing agreement between NetEase and Mojang. The PC edition was released for public testing on 8 August 2017. The iOS version was released on 15 September 2017, and the Android version was released on 12 October 2017. The PC edition is based on the original Java Edition, while the iOS and Android mobile versions are based on the Bedrock Edition. The edition is free-to-play and had over 700 million registered accounts by September 2023. This version of Bedrock Edition is exclusive to Microsoft's Windows 10 and Windows 11 operating systems. The beta release for Windows 10 launched on the Windows Store on 29 July 2015. After nearly a year and a half in beta, Microsoft fully released the version on 19 December 2016. Called the "Ender Update", this release implemented new features to this version of Minecraft like world templates and add-on packs. On 7 June 2022, the Java and Bedrock Editions of Minecraft were merged into a single bundle for purchase on Windows; those who owned one version would automatically gain access to the other version. Both game versions would otherwise remain separate. Around 2011, prior to Minecraft's full release, Mojang collaborated with The Lego Group to create a Lego brick-based Minecraft game called Brickcraft. This would have modified the base Minecraft game to use Lego bricks, which meant adapting the basic 1×1 block to account for larger pieces typically used in Lego sets. Persson worked on an early version called "Project Rex Kwon Do", named after the character of the same name from the film Napoleon Dynamite. Although Lego approved the project and Mojang assigned two developers for six months, it was canceled due to the Lego Group's demands, according to Mojang's Daniel Kaplan. Lego considered buying Mojang to complete the game, but when Microsoft offered over $2 billion for the company, Lego stepped back, unsure of Minecraft's potential. On 26 June 2025, a build of Brickcraft dated 28 June 2012 was published on a community archive website Omniarchive. Initially, Markus Persson planned to support the Oculus Rift with a Minecraft port. However, after Facebook acquired Oculus in 2013, he abruptly canceled the plans, stating, "Facebook creeps me out." In 2016, a community-made mod, Minecraft VR, added VR support for Java Edition, followed by Vivecraft for HTC Vive. Later that year, Microsoft introduced official Oculus Rift support for Windows 10 Edition, leading to the discontinuation of the Minecraft VR mod due to trademark complaints. Vivecraft was endorsed by Minecraft VR contributors for its Rift support. Also available is a Gear VR version, titled Minecraft: Gear VR Edition. Windows Mixed Reality support was added in 2017. On 7 September 2020, Mojang Studios announced that the PlayStation 4 Bedrock version would receive PlayStation VR support later that month. In September 2024, the Minecraft team announced they would no longer support PlayStation VR, which received its final update in March 2025. Music and sound design Minecraft's music and sound effects were produced by German musician Daniel Rosenfeld, better known as C418. To create the sound effects for the game, Rosenfeld made extensive use of Foley techniques. On learning the processes for the game, he remarked, "Foley's an interesting thing, and I had to learn its subtleties. Early on, I wasn't that knowledgeable about it. It's a whole trial-and-error process. You just make a sound and eventually you go, 'Oh my God, that's it! Get the microphone!' There's no set way of doing anything at all." He reminisced on creating the in-game sound for grass blocks, stating "It turns out that to make grass sounds you don't actually walk on grass and record it, because grass sounds like nothing. What you want to do is get a VHS, break it apart, and just lightly touch the tape." According to Rosenfeld, his favorite sound to design for the game was the hisses of spiders. He elaborates, "I like the spiders. Recording that was a whole day of me researching what a spider sounds like. Turns out, there are spiders that make little screeching sounds, so I think I got this recording of a fire hose, put it in a sampler, and just pitched it around until it sounded like a weird spider was talking to you." Many of the sound design decisions by Rosenfeld were done accidentally or spontaneously. The creeper notably lacks any specific noises apart from a loud fuse-like sound when about to explode; Rosenfeld later recalled "That was just a complete accident by Markus and me [sic]. We just put in a placeholder sound of burning a matchstick. It seemed to work hilariously well, so we kept it." On other sounds, such as those of the zombie, Rosenfeld remarked, "I actually never wanted the zombies so scary. I intentionally made them sound comical. It's nice to hear that they work so well [...]." Rosenfeld remarked that the sound engine was "terrible" to work with, remembering "If you had two song files at once, it [the game engine] would actually crash. There were so many more weird glitches like that the guys never really fixed because they were too busy with the actual game and not the sound engine." The background music in Minecraft consists of instrumental ambient music. To compose the music of Minecraft, Rosenfeld used the package from Ableton Live, along with several additional plug-ins. Speaking on them, Rosenfeld said "They can be pretty much everything from an effect to an entire orchestra. Additionally, I've got some synthesizers that are attached to the computer. Like a Moog Voyager, Dave Smith Prophet 08 and a Virus TI." On 4 March 2011, Rosenfeld released a soundtrack titled Minecraft – Volume Alpha; it includes most of the tracks featured in Minecraft, as well as other music not featured in the game. Kirk Hamilton of Kotaku chose the music in Minecraft as one of the best video game soundtracks of 2011. On 9 November 2013, Rosenfeld released the second official soundtrack, titled Minecraft – Volume Beta, which included the music that was added in a 2013 "Music Update" for the game. A physical release of Volume Alpha, consisting of CDs, black vinyl, and limited-edition transparent green vinyl LPs, was issued by indie electronic label Ghostly International on 21 August 2015. On 14 August 2020, Ghostly released Volume Beta on CD and vinyl, with alternate color LPs and lenticular cover pressings released in limited quantities. The final update Rosenfeld worked on was 2018's 1.13 Update Aquatic. His music remained the only music in the game until 2020's "Nether Update", introducing pieces from Lena Raine. Since then, other composers have made contributions, including Kumi Tanioka, Samuel Åberg, Aaron Cherof, and Amos Roddy, with Raine remaining as the new primary composer. Ownership of all music besides Rosenfeld's independently released albums has been retained by Microsoft, with their label publishing all of the other artists' releases. Gareth Coker also composed some of the music for the game's mini games from the Legacy Console editions. Rosenfeld had stated his intent to create a third album of music for the game in a 2015 interview with Fact, and confirmed its existence in a 2017 tweet, stating that his work on the record as of then had tallied up to be longer than the previous two albums combined, which in total clocks in at over 3 hours and 18 minutes. However, due to licensing issues with Microsoft, the third volume has since not seen release. On 8 January 2021, Rosenfeld was asked in an interview with Anthony Fantano whether or not there was still a third volume of his music intended for release. Rosenfeld responded, saying, "I have something—I consider it finished—but things have become complicated, especially as Minecraft is now a big property, so I don't know." Reception Minecraft has received critical acclaim, with praise for the creative freedom it grants players in-game, as well as the ease of enabling emergent gameplay. Critics have expressed enjoyment in Minecraft's complex crafting system, commenting that it is an important aspect of the game's open-ended gameplay. Most publications were impressed by the game's "blocky" graphics, with IGN describing them as "instantly memorable". Reviewers also liked the game's adventure elements, noting that the game creates a good balance between exploring and building. The game's multiplayer feature has been generally received favorably, with IGN commenting that "adventuring is always better with friends". Jaz McDougall of PC Gamer said Minecraft is "intuitively interesting and contagiously fun, with an unparalleled scope for creativity and memorable experiences". It has been regarded as having introduced millions of children to the digital world, insofar as its basic game mechanics are logically analogous to computer commands. IGN was disappointed about the troublesome steps needed to set up multiplayer servers, calling it a "hassle". Critics also said that visual glitches occur periodically. Despite its release out of beta in 2011, GameSpot said the game had an "unfinished feel", adding that some game elements seem "incomplete or thrown together in haste". A review of the alpha version, by Scott Munro of the Daily Record, called it "already something special" and urged readers to buy it. Jim Rossignol of Rock Paper Shotgun also recommended the alpha of the game, calling it "a kind of generative 8-bit Lego Stalker". On 17 September 2010, gaming webcomic Penny Arcade began a series of comics and news posts about the addictiveness of the game. The Xbox 360 version was generally received positively by critics, but did not receive as much praise as the PC version. Although reviewers were disappointed by the lack of features such as mod support and content from the PC version, they acclaimed the port's addition of a tutorial and in-game tips and crafting recipes, saying that they make the game more user-friendly. The Xbox One Edition was one of the best received ports, being praised for its relatively large worlds. The PlayStation 3 Edition also received generally favorable reviews, being compared to the Xbox 360 Edition and praised for its well-adapted controls. The PlayStation 4 edition was the best received port to date, being praised for having 36 times larger worlds than the PlayStation 3 edition and described as nearly identical to the Xbox One edition. The PlayStation Vita Edition received generally positive reviews from critics but was noted for its technical limitations. The Wii U version received generally positive reviews from critics but was noted for a lack of GamePad integration. The 3DS version received mixed reviews, being criticized for its high price, technical issues, and lack of cross-platform play. The Nintendo Switch Edition received fairly positive reviews from critics, being praised, like other modern ports, for its relatively larger worlds. Minecraft: Pocket Edition initially received mixed reviews from critics. Although reviewers appreciated the game's intuitive controls, they were disappointed by the lack of content. The inability to collect resources and craft items, as well as the limited types of blocks and lack of hostile mobs, were especially criticized. After updates added more content, Pocket Edition started receiving more positive reviews. Reviewers complimented the controls and the graphics, but still noted a lack of content. Minecraft surpassed over a million purchases less than a month after entering its beta phase in early 2011. At the same time, the game had no publisher backing and has never been commercially advertised except through word of mouth, and various unpaid references in popular media such as the Penny Arcade webcomic. By April 2011, Persson estimated that Minecraft had made €23 million (US$33 million) in revenue, with 800,000 sales of the alpha version of the game, and over 1 million sales of the beta version. In November 2011, prior to the game's full release, Minecraft beta surpassed 16 million registered users and 4 million purchases. By March 2012, Minecraft had become the 6th best-selling PC game of all time. As of 10 October 2014[update], the game had sold 17 million copies on PC, becoming the best-selling PC game of all time. On 25 February 2014, the game reached 100 million registered users. By May 2019, 180 million copies had been sold across all platforms, making it the single best-selling video game of all time. The free-to-play Minecraft China version had over 700 million registered accounts by September 2023. By 2023, the game had sold over 300 million copies. As of April 2025, Minecraft has sold over 350 million copies. The Xbox 360 version of Minecraft became profitable within the first day of the game's release in 2012, when the game broke the Xbox Live sales records with 400,000 players online. Within a week of being on the Xbox Live Marketplace, Minecraft sold a million copies. GameSpot announced in December 2012 that Minecraft sold over 4.48 million copies since the game debuted on Xbox Live Arcade in May 2012. In 2012, Minecraft was the most purchased title on Xbox Live Arcade; it was also the fourth most played title on Xbox Live based on average unique users per day. As of 4 April 2014[update], the Xbox 360 version has sold 12 million copies. In addition, Minecraft: Pocket Edition has reached a figure of 21 million in sales. The PlayStation 3 Edition sold one million copies in five weeks. The release of the game's PlayStation Vita version boosted Minecraft sales by 79%, outselling both PS3 and PS4 debut releases and becoming the largest Minecraft launch on a PlayStation console. The PS Vita version sold 100,000 digital copies in Japan within the first two months of release, according to an announcement by SCE Japan Asia. By January 2015, 500,000 digital copies of Minecraft were sold in Japan across all PlayStation platforms, with a surge in primary school children purchasing the PS Vita version. As of 2022, the Vita version has sold over 1.65 million physical copies in Japan, making it the best-selling Vita game in the country. Minecraft helped improve Microsoft's total first-party revenue by $63 million for the 2015 second quarter. The game, including all of its versions, had over 112 million monthly active players by September 2019. On its 11th anniversary in May 2020, the company announced that Minecraft had reached over 200 million copies sold across platforms with over 126 million monthly active players. By April 2021, the number of active monthly users had climbed to 140 million. In July 2010, PC Gamer listed Minecraft as the fourth-best game to play at work. In December of that year, Good Game selected Minecraft as their choice for Best Downloadable Game of 2010, Gamasutra named it the eighth best game of the year as well as the eighth best indie game of the year, and Rock, Paper, Shotgun named it the "game of the year". Indie DB awarded the game the 2010 Indie of the Year award as chosen by voters, in addition to two out of five Editor's Choice awards for Most Innovative and Best Singleplayer Indie. It was also awarded Game of the Year by PC Gamer UK. The game was nominated for the Seumas McNally Grand Prize, Technical Excellence, and Excellence in Design awards at the March 2011 Independent Games Festival and won the Grand Prize and the community-voted Audience Award. At Game Developers Choice Awards 2011, Minecraft won awards in the categories for Best Debut Game, Best Downloadable Game and Innovation Award, winning every award for which it was nominated. It also won GameCity's video game arts award. On 5 May 2011, Minecraft was selected as one of the 80 games that would be displayed at the Smithsonian American Art Museum as part of The Art of Video Games exhibit that opened on 16 March 2012. At the 2011 Spike Video Game Awards, Minecraft won the award for Best Independent Game and was nominated in the Best PC Game category. In 2012, at the British Academy Video Games Awards, Minecraft was nominated in the GAME Award of 2011 category and Persson received The Special Award. In 2012, Minecraft XBLA was awarded a Golden Joystick Award in the Best Downloadable Game category, and a TIGA Games Industry Award in the Best Arcade Game category. In 2013, it was nominated as the family game of the year at the British Academy Video Games Awards. During the 16th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards, the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences nominated the Xbox 360 version of Minecraft for "Strategy/Simulation Game of the Year". Minecraft Console Edition won the award for TIGA Game Of The Year in 2014. In 2015, the game placed 6th on USgamer's The 15 Best Games Since 2000 list. In 2016, Minecraft placed 6th on Time's The 50 Best Video Games of All Time list. Minecraft was nominated for the 2013 Kids' Choice Awards for Favorite App, but lost to Temple Run. It was nominated for the 2014 Kids' Choice Awards for Favorite Video Game, but lost to Just Dance 2014. The game later won the award for the Most Addicting Game at the 2015 Kids' Choice Awards. In addition, the Java Edition was nominated for "Favorite Video Game" at the 2018 Kids' Choice Awards, while the game itself won the "Still Playing" award at the 2019 Golden Joystick Awards, as well as the "Favorite Video Game" award at the 2020 Kids' Choice Awards. Minecraft also won "Stream Game of the Year" at inaugural Streamer Awards in 2021. The game later garnered a Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Award nomination for Favorite Video Game in 2021, and won the same category in 2022 and 2023. At the Golden Joystick Awards 2025, it won the Still Playing Award - PC and Console. Minecraft has been subject to several notable controversies. In June 2014, Mojang announced that it would begin enforcing the portion of Minecraft's end-user license agreement (EULA) which prohibits servers from giving in-game advantages to players in exchange for donations or payments. Spokesperson Owen Hill stated that servers could still require players to pay a fee to access the server and could sell in-game cosmetic items. The change was supported by Persson, citing emails he received from parents of children who had spent hundreds of dollars on servers. The Minecraft community and server owners protested, arguing that the EULA's terms were more broad than Mojang was claiming, that the crackdown would force smaller servers to shut down for financial reasons, and that Mojang was suppressing competition for its own Minecraft Realms subscription service. The controversy contributed to Notch's decision to sell Mojang. In 2020, Mojang announced an eventual change to the Java Edition to require a login from a Microsoft account rather than a Mojang account, the latter of which would be sunsetted. This also required Java Edition players to create Xbox network Gamertags. Mojang defended the move to Microsoft accounts by saying that improved security could be offered, including two-factor authentication, blocking cyberbullies in chat, and improved parental controls. The community responded with intense backlash, citing various technical difficulties encountered in the process and how account migration would be mandatory, even for those who do not play on servers. As of 10 March 2022, Microsoft required that all players migrate in order to maintain access the Java Edition of Minecraft. Mojang announced a deadline of 19 September 2023 for account migration, after which all legacy Mojang accounts became inaccessible and unable to be migrated. In June 2022, Mojang added a player-reporting feature in Java Edition. Players could report other players on multiplayer servers for sending messages prohibited by the Xbox Live Code of Conduct; report categories included profane language,[l] substance abuse, hate speech, threats of violence, and nudity. If a player was found to be in violation of Xbox Community Standards, they would be banned from all servers for a specific period of time or permanently. The update containing the report feature (1.19.1) was released on 27 July 2022. Mojang received substantial backlash and protest from community members, one of the most common complaints being that banned players would be forbidden from joining any server, even private ones. Others took issue to what they saw as Microsoft increasing control over its player base and exercising censorship, leading some to start a hashtag #saveminecraft and dub the version "1.19.84", a reference to the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. The "Mob Vote" was an online event organized by Mojang in which the Minecraft community voted between three original mob concepts; initially, the winning mob was to be implemented in a future update, while the losing mobs were scrapped, though after the first mob vote this was changed, and losing mobs would now have a chance to come to the game in the future. The first Mob Vote was held during Minecon Earth 2017 and became an annual event starting with Minecraft Live 2020. The Mob Vote was often criticized for forcing players to choose one mob instead of implementing all three, causing divisions and flaming within the community, and potentially allowing internet bots and Minecraft content creators with large fanbases to conduct vote brigading. The Mob Vote was also blamed for a perceived lack of new content added to Minecraft since Microsoft's acquisition of Mojang in 2014. The 2023 Mob Vote featured three passive mobs—the crab, the penguin, and the armadillo—with voting scheduled to start on 13 October. In response, a Change.org petition was created on 6 October, demanding that Mojang eliminate the Mob Vote and instead implement all three mobs going forward. The petition received approximately 445,000 signatures by 13 October and was joined by calls to boycott the Mob Vote, as well as a partially tongue-in-cheek "revolutionary" propaganda campaign in which sympathizers created anti-Mojang and pro-boycott posters in the vein of real 20th century propaganda posters. Mojang did not release an official response to the boycott, and the Mob Vote otherwise proceeded normally, with the armadillo winning the vote. In September 2024, as part of a blog post detailing their future plans for Minecraft's development, Mojang announced the Mob Vote would be retired. Cultural impact In September 2019, The Guardian classified Minecraft as the best video game of the 21st century to date, and in November 2019, Polygon called it the "most important game of the decade" in its 2010s "decade in review". In June 2020, Minecraft was inducted into the World Video Game Hall of Fame. Minecraft is recognized as one of the first successful games to use an early access model to draw in sales prior to its full release version to help fund development. As Minecraft helped to bolster indie game development in the early 2010s, it also helped to popularize the use of the early access model in indie game development. Social media sites such as YouTube, Facebook, and Reddit have played a significant role in popularizing Minecraft. Research conducted by the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania showed that one-third of Minecraft players learned about the game via Internet videos. In 2010, Minecraft-related videos began to gain influence on YouTube, often made by commentators. The videos usually contain screen-capture footage of the game and voice-overs. Common coverage in the videos includes creations made by players, walkthroughs of various tasks, and parodies of works in popular culture. By May 2012, over four million Minecraft-related YouTube videos had been uploaded. The game would go on to be a prominent fixture within YouTube's gaming scene during the entire 2010s; in 2014, it was the second-most searched term on the entire platform. By 2018, it was still YouTube's biggest game globally. Some popular commentators have received employment at Machinima, a now-defunct gaming video company that owned a highly watched entertainment channel on YouTube. The Yogscast is a British company that regularly produces Minecraft videos; their YouTube channel has attained billions of views, and their panel at Minecon 2011 had the highest attendance. Another well-known YouTube personality is Jordan Maron, known online as CaptainSparklez, who has also created many Minecraft music parodies, including "Revenge", a parody of Usher's "DJ Got Us Fallin' in Love". Minecraft's popularity on YouTube was described by Polygon as quietly dominant, although in 2019, thanks in part to PewDiePie's playthroughs of the game, Minecraft experienced a visible uptick in popularity on the platform. Longer-running series include Far Lands or Bust, dedicated to reaching the obsolete "Far Lands" glitch by foot on an older version of the game. YouTube announced that on 14 December 2021 that the total amount of Minecraft-related views on the website had exceeded one trillion. Minecraft has been referenced by other video games, such as Torchlight II, Team Fortress 2, Borderlands 2, Choplifter HD, Super Meat Boy, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, The Binding of Isaac, The Stanley Parable, and FTL: Faster Than Light. Minecraft is officially represented in downloadable content for the crossover fighter Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, with Steve as a playable character with a moveset including references to building, crafting, and redstone, alongside an Overworld-themed stage. It was also referenced by electronic music artist Deadmau5 in his performances. The game is also referenced heavily in "Informative Murder Porn", the second episode of the seventeenth season of the animated television series South Park. In 2025, A Minecraft Movie was released. It made $313 million in the box office in the first week, a record-breaking opening for a video game adaptation. Minecraft has been noted as a cultural touchstone for Generation Z, as many of the generation's members played the game at a young age. The possible applications of Minecraft have been discussed extensively, especially in the fields of computer-aided design (CAD) and education. In a panel at Minecon 2011, a Swedish developer discussed the possibility of using the game to redesign public buildings and parks, stating that rendering using Minecraft was much more user-friendly for the community, making it easier to envision the functionality of new buildings and parks. In 2012, a member of the Human Dynamics group at the MIT Media Lab, Cody Sumter, said: "Notch hasn't just built a game. He's tricked 40 million people into learning to use a CAD program." Various software has been developed to allow virtual designs to be printed using professional 3D printers or personal printers such as MakerBot and RepRap. In September 2012, Mojang began the Block by Block project in cooperation with UN Habitat to create real-world environments in Minecraft. The project allows young people who live in those environments to participate in designing the changes they would like to see. Using Minecraft, the community has helped reconstruct the areas of concern, and citizens are invited to enter the Minecraft servers and modify their own neighborhood. Carl Manneh, Mojang's managing director, called the game "the perfect tool to facilitate this process", adding "The three-year partnership will support UN-Habitat's Sustainable Urban Development Network to upgrade 300 public spaces by 2016." Mojang signed Minecraft building community, FyreUK, to help render the environments into Minecraft. The first pilot project began in Kibera, one of Nairobi's informal settlements and is in the planning phase. The Block by Block project is based on an earlier initiative started in October 2011, Mina Kvarter (My Block), which gave young people in Swedish communities a tool to visualize how they wanted to change their part of town. According to Manneh, the project was a helpful way to visualize urban planning ideas without necessarily having a training in architecture. The ideas presented by the citizens were a template for political decisions. In April 2014, the Danish Geodata Agency generated all of Denmark in fullscale in Minecraft based on their own geodata. This is possible because Denmark is one of the flattest countries with the highest point at 171 meters (ranking as the country with the 30th smallest elevation span), where the limit in default Minecraft was around 192 meters above in-game sea level when the project was completed. Taking advantage of the game's accessibility where other websites are censored, the non-governmental organization Reporters Without Borders has used an open Minecraft server to create the Uncensored Library, a repository within the game of journalism by authors from countries (including Egypt, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Vietnam) who have been censored and arrested, such as Jamal Khashoggi. The neoclassical virtual building was created over about 250 hours by an international team of 24 people. Despite its unpredictable nature, Minecraft speedrunning, where players time themselves from spawning into a new world to reaching The End and defeating the Ender Dragon boss, is popular. Some speedrunners use a combination of mods, external programs, and debug menus, while other runners play the game in a more vanilla or more consistency-oriented way. Minecraft has been used in educational settings through initiatives such as MinecraftEdu, founded in 2011 to make the game affordable and accessible for schools in collaboration with Mojang. MinecraftEdu provided features allowing teachers to monitor student progress, including screenshot submissions as evidence of lesson completion, and by 2012 reported that approximately 250,000 students worldwide had access to the platform. Mojang also developed Minecraft: Education Edition with pre-built lesson plans for up to 30 students in a closed environment. Educators have used Minecraft to teach subjects such as history, language arts, and science through custom-built environments, including reconstructions of historical landmarks and large-scale models of biological structures such as animal cells. The introduction of redstone blocks enabled the construction of functional virtual machines such as a hard drive and an 8-bit computer. Mods have been created to use these mechanics for teaching programming. In 2014, the British Museum announced a project to reproduce its building and exhibits in Minecraft in collaboration with the public. Microsoft and Code.org have offered Minecraft-based tutorials and activities designed to teach programming, reporting by 2018 that more than 85 million children had used their resources. In 2025, the Musée de Minéralogie in Paris held a temporary exhibition titled "Minerals in Minecraft." Following the initial surge in popularity of Minecraft in 2010, other video games were criticised for having various similarities to Minecraft, and some were described as being "clones", often due to a direct inspiration from Minecraft, or a superficial similarity. Examples include Ace of Spades, CastleMiner, CraftWorld, FortressCraft, Terraria, BlockWorld 3D, Total Miner, and Luanti (formerly Minetest). David Frampton, designer of The Blockheads, reported that one failure of his 2D game was the "low resolution pixel art" that too closely resembled the art in Minecraft, which resulted in "some resistance" from fans. A homebrew adaptation of the alpha version of Minecraft for the Nintendo DS, titled DScraft, has been released; it has been noted for its similarity to the original game considering the technical limitations of the system. In response to Microsoft's acquisition of Mojang and their Minecraft IP, various developers announced further clone titles developed specifically for Nintendo's consoles, as they were the only major platforms not to officially receive Minecraft at the time. These clone titles include UCraft (Nexis Games), Cube Life: Island Survival (Cypronia), Discovery (Noowanda), Battleminer (Wobbly Tooth Games), Cube Creator 3D (Big John Games), and Stone Shire (Finger Gun Games). Despite this, the fears of fans were unfounded, with official Minecraft releases on Nintendo consoles eventually resuming. Markus Persson made another similar game, Minicraft, for a Ludum Dare competition in 2011. In 2025, Persson announced through a poll on his X account that he was considering developing a spiritual successor to Minecraft. He later clarified that he was "100% serious", and that he had "basically announced Minecraft 2". Within days, however, Persson cancelled the plans after speaking to his team. In November 2024, artificial intelligence companies Decart and Etched released Oasis, an artificially generated version of Minecraft, as a proof of concept. Every in-game element is completely AI-generated in real time and the model does not store world data, leading to "hallucinations" such as items and blocks appearing that were not there before. In January 2026, indie game developer Unomelon announced that their voxel sandbox game Allumeria would be playable in Steam Next Fest that year. On 10 February, Mojang issued a DMCA takedown of Allumeria on Steam through Valve, alleging the game was infringing on Minecraft's copyright. Some reports suggested that the takedown may have used an automatic AI copyright claiming service. The DMCA was later withdrawn. Minecon was an annual official fan convention dedicated to Minecraft. The first full Minecon was held in November 2011 at the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. The event included the official launch of Minecraft; keynote speeches, including one by Persson; building and costume contests; Minecraft-themed breakout classes; exhibits by leading gaming and Minecraft-related companies; commemorative merchandise; and autograph and picture times with Mojang employees and well-known contributors from the Minecraft community. In 2016, Minecon was held in-person for the last time, with the following years featuring annual "Minecon Earth" livestreams on minecraft.net and YouTube instead. These livestreams, later rebranded to "Minecraft Live", included the mob/biome votes, and announcements of new game updates. In 2025, "Minecraft Live" became a biannual event as part of Minecraft's changing update schedule.[citation needed] Notes References External links |
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Contents Internet The Internet (or internet)[a] is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP)[b] to communicate between networks and devices. It is a network of networks that comprises private, public, academic, business, and government networks of local to global scope, linked by electronic, wireless, and optical networking technologies. The Internet carries a vast range of information services and resources, such as the interlinked hypertext documents and applications of the World Wide Web (WWW), electronic mail, discussion groups, internet telephony, streaming media and file sharing. Most traditional communication media, including telephone, radio, television, paper mail, newspapers, and print publishing, have been transformed by the Internet, giving rise to new media such as email, online music, digital newspapers, news aggregators, and audio and video streaming websites. The Internet has enabled and accelerated new forms of personal interaction through instant messaging, Internet forums, and social networking services. Online shopping has also grown to occupy a significant market across industries, enabling firms to extend brick and mortar presences to serve larger markets. Business-to-business and financial services on the Internet affect supply chains across entire industries. The origins of the Internet date back to research that enabled the time-sharing of computer resources, the development of packet switching, and the design of computer networks for data communication. The set of communication protocols to enable internetworking on the Internet arose from research and development commissioned in the 1970s by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) of the United States Department of Defense in collaboration with universities and researchers across the United States and in the United Kingdom and France. The Internet has no single centralized governance in either technological implementation or policies for access and usage. Each constituent network sets its own policies. The overarching definitions of the two principal name spaces on the Internet, the Internet Protocol address (IP address) space and the Domain Name System (DNS), are directed by a maintainer organization, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). The technical underpinning and standardization of the core protocols is an activity of the non-profit Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Terminology The word internetted was used as early as 1849, meaning interconnected or interwoven. The word Internet was used in 1945 by the United States War Department in a radio operator's manual, and in 1974 as the shorthand form of Internetwork. Today, the term Internet most commonly refers to the global system of interconnected computer networks, though it may also refer to any group of smaller networks. The word Internet may be capitalized as a proper noun, although this is becoming less common. This reflects the tendency in English to capitalize new terms and move them to lowercase as they become familiar. The word is sometimes still capitalized to distinguish the global internet from smaller networks, though many publications, including the AP Stylebook since 2016, recommend the lowercase form in every case. In 2016, the Oxford English Dictionary found that, based on a study of around 2.5 billion printed and online sources, "Internet" was capitalized in 54% of cases. The terms Internet and World Wide Web are often used interchangeably; it is common to speak of "going on the Internet" when using a web browser to view web pages. However, the World Wide Web, or the Web, is only one of a large number of Internet services. It is the global collection of web pages, documents and other web resources linked by hyperlinks and URLs. History In the 1960s, computer scientists began developing systems for time-sharing of computer resources. J. C. R. Licklider proposed the idea of a universal network while working at Bolt Beranek & Newman and, later, leading the Information Processing Techniques Office at the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) of the United States Department of Defense. Research into packet switching,[c] one of the fundamental Internet technologies, started in the work of Paul Baran at RAND in the early 1960s and, independently, Donald Davies at the United Kingdom's National Physical Laboratory in 1965. After the Symposium on Operating Systems Principles in 1967, packet switching from the proposed NPL network was incorporated into the design of the ARPANET, an experimental resource sharing network proposed by ARPA. ARPANET development began with two network nodes which were interconnected between the University of California, Los Angeles and the Stanford Research Institute on 29 October 1969. The third site was at the University of California, Santa Barbara, followed by the University of Utah. By the end of 1971, 15 sites were connected to the young ARPANET. Thereafter, the ARPANET gradually developed into a decentralized communications network, connecting remote centers and military bases in the United States. Other user networks and research networks, such as the Merit Network and CYCLADES, were developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Early international collaborations for the ARPANET were rare. Connections were made in 1973 to Norway (NORSAR and, later, NDRE) and to Peter Kirstein's research group at University College London, which provided a gateway to British academic networks, the first internetwork for resource sharing. ARPA projects, the International Network Working Group and commercial initiatives led to the development of various protocols and standards by which multiple separate networks could become a single network, or a network of networks. In 1974, Vint Cerf at Stanford University and Bob Kahn at DARPA published a proposal for "A Protocol for Packet Network Intercommunication". Cerf and his graduate students used the term internet as a shorthand for internetwork in RFC 675. The Internet Experiment Notes and later RFCs repeated this use. The work of Louis Pouzin and Robert Metcalfe had important influences on the resulting TCP/IP design. National PTTs and commercial providers developed the X.25 standard and deployed it on public data networks. The ARPANET initially served as a backbone for the interconnection of regional academic and military networks in the United States to enable resource sharing. Access to the ARPANET was expanded in 1981 when the National Science Foundation (NSF) funded the Computer Science Network (CSNET). In 1982, the Internet Protocol Suite (TCP/IP) was standardized, which facilitated worldwide proliferation of interconnected networks. TCP/IP network access expanded again in 1986 when the National Science Foundation Network (NSFNet) provided access to supercomputer sites in the United States for researchers, first at speeds of 56 kbit/s and later at 1.5 Mbit/s and 45 Mbit/s. The NSFNet expanded into academic and research organizations in Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Japan in 1988–89. Although other network protocols such as UUCP and PTT public data networks had global reach well before this time, this marked the beginning of the Internet as an intercontinental network. Commercial Internet service providers emerged in 1989 in the United States and Australia. The ARPANET was decommissioned in 1990. The linking of commercial networks and enterprises by the early 1990s, as well as the advent of the World Wide Web, marked the beginning of the transition to the modern Internet. Steady advances in semiconductor technology and optical networking created new economic opportunities for commercial involvement in the expansion of the network in its core and for delivering services to the public. In mid-1989, MCI Mail and Compuserve established connections to the Internet, delivering email and public access products to the half million users of the Internet. Just months later, on 1 January 1990, PSInet launched an alternate Internet backbone for commercial use; one of the networks that added to the core of the commercial Internet of later years. In March 1990, the first high-speed T1 (1.5 Mbit/s) link between the NSFNET and Europe was installed between Cornell University and CERN, allowing much more robust communications than were capable with satellites. Later in 1990, Tim Berners-Lee began writing WorldWideWeb, the first web browser, after two years of lobbying CERN management. By Christmas 1990, Berners-Lee had built all the tools necessary for a working Web: the HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) 0.9, the HyperText Markup Language (HTML), the first Web browser (which was also an HTML editor and could access Usenet newsgroups and FTP files), the first HTTP server software (later known as CERN httpd), the first web server, and the first Web pages that described the project itself. In 1991 the Commercial Internet eXchange was founded, allowing PSInet to communicate with the other commercial networks CERFnet and Alternet. Stanford Federal Credit Union was the first financial institution to offer online Internet banking services to all of its members in October 1994. In 1996, OP Financial Group, also a cooperative bank, became the second online bank in the world and the first in Europe. By 1995, the Internet was fully commercialized in the U.S. when the NSFNet was decommissioned, removing the last restrictions on use of the Internet to carry commercial traffic. As technology advanced and commercial opportunities fueled reciprocal growth, the volume of Internet traffic started experiencing similar characteristics as that of the scaling of MOS transistors, exemplified by Moore's law, doubling every 18 months. This growth, formalized as Edholm's law, was catalyzed by advances in MOS technology, laser light wave systems, and noise performance. Since 1995, the Internet has tremendously impacted culture and commerce, including the rise of near-instant communication by email, instant messaging, telephony (Voice over Internet Protocol or VoIP), two-way interactive video calls, and the World Wide Web. Increasing amounts of data are transmitted at higher and higher speeds over fiber optic networks operating at 1 Gbit/s, 10 Gbit/s, or more. The Internet continues to grow, driven by ever-greater amounts of online information and knowledge, commerce, entertainment and social networking services. During the late 1990s, it was estimated that traffic on the public Internet grew by 100 percent per year, while the mean annual growth in the number of Internet users was thought to be between 20% and 50%. This growth is often attributed to the lack of central administration, which allows organic growth of the network, as well as the non-proprietary nature of the Internet protocols, which encourages vendor interoperability and prevents any one company from exerting too much control over the network. In November 2006, the Internet was included on USA Today's list of the New Seven Wonders. As of 31 March 2011[update], the estimated total number of Internet users was 2.095 billion (30% of world population). It is estimated that in 1993 the Internet carried only 1% of the information flowing through two-way telecommunication. By 2000 this figure had grown to 51%, and by 2007 more than 97% of all telecommunicated information was carried over the Internet. Modern smartphones can access the Internet through cellular carrier networks, and internet usage by mobile and tablet devices exceeded desktop worldwide for the first time in October 2016. As of 2018[update], 80% of the world's population were covered by a 4G network. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) estimated that, by the end of 2017, 48% of individual users regularly connect to the Internet, up from 34% in 2012. Mobile Internet connectivity has played an important role in expanding access in recent years, especially in Asia and the Pacific and in Africa. The number of unique mobile cellular subscriptions increased from 3.9 billion in 2012 to 4.8 billion in 2016, two-thirds of the world's population, with more than half of subscriptions located in Asia and the Pacific. The limits that users face on accessing information via mobile applications coincide with a broader process of fragmentation of the Internet. Fragmentation restricts access to media content and tends to affect the poorest users the most. One solution, zero-rating, is the practice of Internet service providers allowing users free connectivity to access specific content or applications without cost. Social impact The Internet has enabled new forms of social interaction, activities, and social associations, giving rise to the scholarly study of the sociology of the Internet. Between 2000 and 2009, the number of Internet users globally rose from 390 million to 1.9 billion. By 2010, 22% of the world's population had access to computers with 1 billion Google searches every day, 300 million Internet users reading blogs, and 2 billion videos viewed daily on YouTube. In 2014 the world's Internet users surpassed 3 billion or 44 percent of world population, but two-thirds came from the richest countries, with 78 percent of Europeans using the Internet, followed by 57 percent of the Americas. However, by 2018, Asia alone accounted for 51% of all Internet users, with 2.2 billion out of the 4.3 billion Internet users in the world. China's Internet users surpassed a major milestone in 2018, when the country's Internet regulatory authority, China Internet Network Information Centre, announced that China had 802 million users. China was followed by India, with some 700 million users, with the United States third with 275 million users. However, in terms of penetration, in 2022, China had a 70% penetration rate compared to India's 60% and the United States's 90%. In 2022, 54% of the world's Internet users were based in Asia, 14% in Europe, 7% in North America, 10% in Latin America and the Caribbean, 11% in Africa, 4% in the Middle East and 1% in Oceania. In 2019, Kuwait, Qatar, the Falkland Islands, Bermuda and Iceland had the highest Internet penetration by the number of users, with 93% or more of the population with access. As of 2022, it was estimated that 5.4 billion people use the Internet, more than two-thirds of the world's population. Early computer systems were limited to the characters in the American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII), a subset of the Latin alphabet. After English (27%), the most requested languages on the World Wide Web are Chinese (25%), Spanish (8%), Japanese (5%), Portuguese and German (4% each), Arabic, French and Russian (3% each), and Korean (2%). Modern character encoding standards, such as Unicode, allow for development and communication in the world's widely used languages. However, some glitches such as mojibake (incorrect display of some languages' characters) still remain. Several neologisms exist that refer to Internet users: Netizen (as in "citizen of the net") refers to those actively involved in improving online communities, the Internet in general or surrounding political affairs and rights such as free speech, Internaut refers to operators or technically highly capable users of the Internet, digital citizen refers to a person using the Internet in order to engage in society, politics, and government participation. The Internet allows greater flexibility in working hours and location, especially with the spread of unmetered high-speed connections. The Internet can be accessed almost anywhere by numerous means, including through mobile Internet devices. Mobile phones, datacards, handheld game consoles and cellular routers allow users to connect to the Internet wirelessly.[citation needed] Educational material at all levels from pre-school (e.g. CBeebies) to post-doctoral (e.g. scholarly literature through Google Scholar) is available on websites. The internet has facilitated the development of virtual universities and distance education, enabling both formal and informal education. The Internet allows researchers to conduct research remotely via virtual laboratories, with profound changes in reach and generalizability of findings as well as in communication between scientists and in the publication of results. By the late 2010s the Internet had been described as "the main source of scientific information "for the majority of the global North population".: 111 Wikis have also been used in the academic community for sharing and dissemination of information across institutional and international boundaries. In those settings, they have been found useful for collaboration on grant writing, strategic planning, departmental documentation, and committee work. The United States Patent and Trademark Office uses a wiki to allow the public to collaborate on finding prior art relevant to examination of pending patent applications. Queens, New York has used a wiki to allow citizens to collaborate on the design and planning of a local park. The English Wikipedia has the largest user base among wikis on the World Wide Web and ranks in the top 10 among all sites in terms of traffic. The Internet has been a major outlet for leisure activity since its inception, with entertaining social experiments such as MUDs and MOOs being conducted on university servers, and humor-related Usenet groups receiving much traffic. Many Internet forums have sections devoted to games and funny videos. Another area of leisure activity on the Internet is multiplayer gaming. This form of recreation creates communities, where people of all ages and origins enjoy the fast-paced world of multiplayer games. These range from MMORPG to first-person shooters, from role-playing video games to online gambling. While online gaming has been around since the 1970s, modern modes of online gaming began with subscription services such as GameSpy and MPlayer. Streaming media is the real-time delivery of digital media for immediate consumption or enjoyment by end users. Streaming companies (such as Netflix, Disney+, Amazon's Prime Video, Mubi, Hulu, and Apple TV+) now dominate the entertainment industry, eclipsing traditional broadcasters. Audio streamers such as Spotify and Apple Music also have significant market share in the audio entertainment market. Video sharing websites are also a major factor in the entertainment ecosystem. YouTube was founded on 15 February 2005 and is now the leading website for free streaming video with more than two billion users. It uses a web player to stream and show video files. YouTube users watch hundreds of millions, and upload hundreds of thousands, of videos daily. Other video sharing websites include Vimeo, Instagram and TikTok.[citation needed] Although many governments have attempted to restrict both Internet pornography and online gambling, this has generally failed to stop their widespread popularity. A number of advertising-funded ostensible video sharing websites known as "tube sites" have been created to host shared pornographic video content. Due to laws requiring the documentation of the origin of pornography, these websites now largely operate in conjunction with pornographic movie studios and their own independent creator networks, acting as de-facto video streaming services. Major players in this field include the market leader Aylo, the operator of PornHub and numerous other branded sites, as well as other independent operators such as xHamster and Xvideos. As of 2023[update], Internet traffic to pornographic video sites rivalled that of mainstream video streaming and sharing services. Remote work is facilitated by tools such as groupware, virtual private networks, conference calling, videotelephony, and VoIP so that work may be performed from any location, such as the worker's home.[citation needed] The spread of low-cost Internet access in developing countries has opened up new possibilities for peer-to-peer charities, which allow individuals to contribute small amounts to charitable projects for other individuals. Websites, such as DonorsChoose and GlobalGiving, allow small-scale donors to direct funds to individual projects of their choice. A popular twist on Internet-based philanthropy is the use of peer-to-peer lending for charitable purposes. Kiva pioneered this concept in 2005, offering the first web-based service to publish individual loan profiles for funding. The low cost and nearly instantaneous sharing of ideas, knowledge, and skills have made collaborative work dramatically easier, with the help of collaborative software, which allow groups to easily form, cheaply communicate, and share ideas. An example of collaborative software is the free software movement, which has produced, among other things, Linux, Mozilla Firefox, and OpenOffice.org (later forked into LibreOffice).[citation needed] Content management systems allow collaborating teams to work on shared sets of documents simultaneously without accidentally destroying each other's work.[citation needed] The internet also allows for cloud computing, virtual private networks, remote desktops, and remote work.[citation needed] The online disinhibition effect describes the tendency of many individuals to behave more stridently or offensively online than they would in person. A significant number of feminist women have been the target of various forms of harassment, including insults and hate speech, to, in extreme cases, rape and death threats, in response to posts they have made on social media. Social media companies have been criticized in the past for not doing enough to aid victims of online abuse. Children also face dangers online such as cyberbullying and approaches by sexual predators, who sometimes pose as children themselves. Due to naivety, they may also post personal information about themselves online, which could put them or their families at risk unless warned not to do so. Many parents choose to enable Internet filtering or supervise their children's online activities in an attempt to protect their children from pornography or violent content on the Internet. The most popular social networking services commonly forbid users under the age of 13. However, these policies can be circumvented by registering an account with a false birth date, and a significant number of children aged under 13 join such sites.[citation needed] Social networking services for younger children, which claim to provide better levels of protection for children, also exist. Internet usage has been correlated to users' loneliness. Lonely people tend to use the Internet as an outlet for their feelings and to share their stories with others, such as in the "I am lonely will anyone speak to me" thread.[citation needed] Cyberslacking can become a drain on corporate resources; employees spend a significant amount of time surfing the Web while at work. Internet addiction disorder is excessive computer use that interferes with daily life. Nicholas G. Carr believes that Internet use has other effects on individuals, for instance improving skills of scan-reading and interfering with the deep thinking that leads to true creativity. Electronic business encompasses business processes spanning the entire value chain: purchasing, supply chain management, marketing, sales, customer service, and business relationship. E-commerce seeks to add revenue streams using the Internet to build and enhance relationships with clients and partners. According to International Data Corporation, the size of worldwide e-commerce, when global business-to-business and -consumer transactions are combined, equate to $16 trillion in 2013. A report by Oxford Economics added those two together to estimate the total size of the digital economy at $20.4 trillion, equivalent to roughly 13.8% of global sales. While much has been written of the economic advantages of Internet-enabled commerce, there is also evidence that some aspects of the Internet such as maps and location-aware services may serve to reinforce economic inequality and the digital divide. Electronic commerce may be responsible for consolidation and the decline of mom-and-pop, brick and mortar businesses resulting in increases in income inequality. A 2013 Institute for Local Self-Reliance report states that brick-and-mortar retailers employ 47 people for every $10 million in sales, while Amazon employs only 14. Similarly, the 700-employee room rental start-up Airbnb was valued at $10 billion in 2014, about half as much as Hilton Worldwide, which employs 152,000 people. At that time, Uber employed 1,000 full-time employees and was valued at $18.2 billion, about the same valuation as Avis Rent a Car and The Hertz Corporation combined, which together employed almost 60,000 people. Advertising on popular web pages can be lucrative, and e-commerce. Online advertising is a form of marketing and advertising which uses the Internet to deliver promotional marketing messages to consumers. It includes email marketing, search engine marketing (SEM), social media marketing, many types of display advertising (including web banner advertising), and mobile advertising. In 2011, Internet advertising revenues in the United States surpassed those of cable television and nearly exceeded those of broadcast television.: 19 Many common online advertising practices are controversial and increasingly subject to regulation. The Internet has achieved new relevance as a political tool. The presidential campaign of Howard Dean in 2004 in the United States was notable for its success in soliciting donation via the Internet. Many political groups use the Internet to achieve a new method of organizing for carrying out their mission, having given rise to Internet activism. Social media websites, such as Facebook and Twitter, helped people organize the Arab Spring, by helping activists organize protests, communicate grievances, and disseminate information. Many have understood the Internet as an extension of the Habermasian notion of the public sphere, observing how network communication technologies provide something like a global civic forum. However, incidents of politically motivated Internet censorship have now been recorded in many countries, including western democracies. E-government is the use of technological communications devices, such as the Internet, to provide public services to citizens and other persons in a country or region. E-government offers opportunities for more direct and convenient citizen access to government and for government provision of services directly to citizens. Cybersectarianism is a new organizational form that involves: highly dispersed small groups of practitioners that may remain largely anonymous within the larger social context and operate in relative secrecy, while still linked remotely to a larger network of believers who share a set of practices and texts, and often a common devotion to a particular leader. Overseas supporters provide funding and support; domestic practitioners distribute tracts, participate in acts of resistance, and share information on the internal situation with outsiders. Collectively, members and practitioners of such sects construct viable virtual communities of faith, exchanging personal testimonies and engaging in the collective study via email, online chat rooms, and web-based message boards. In particular, the British government has raised concerns about the prospect of young British Muslims being indoctrinated into Islamic extremism by material on the Internet, being persuaded to join terrorist groups such as the so-called "Islamic State", and then potentially committing acts of terrorism on returning to Britain after fighting in Syria or Iraq.[citation needed] Applications and services The Internet carries many applications and services, most prominently the World Wide Web, including social media, electronic mail, mobile applications, multiplayer online games, Internet telephony, file sharing, and streaming media services. The World Wide Web is a global collection of documents, images, multimedia, applications, and other resources, logically interrelated by hyperlinks and referenced with Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs), which provide a global system of named references. URIs symbolically identify services, web servers, databases, and the documents and resources that they can provide. HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is the main access protocol of the World Wide Web. Web services also use HTTP for communication between software systems for information transfer, sharing and exchanging business data and logistics and is one of many languages or protocols that can be used for communication on the Internet. World Wide Web browser software, such as Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Apple's Safari, and Google Chrome, enable users to navigate from one web page to another via the hyperlinks embedded in the documents. These documents may also contain computer data, including graphics, sounds, text, video, multimedia and interactive content. Client-side scripts can include animations, games, office applications and scientific demonstrations. Email is an important communications service available via the Internet. The concept of sending electronic text messages between parties, analogous to mailing letters or memos, predates the creation of the Internet. Internet telephony is a common communications service realized with the Internet. The name of the principal internetworking protocol, the Internet Protocol, lends its name to voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP).[citation needed] VoIP systems now dominate many markets, being as easy and convenient as a traditional telephone, while having substantial cost savings, especially over long distances. File sharing is the practice of transferring large amounts of data in the form of computer files across the Internet, for example via file servers. The load of bulk downloads to many users can be eased by the use of "mirror" servers or peer-to-peer networks. Access to the file may be controlled by user authentication, the transit of the file over the Internet may be obscured by encryption, and money may change hands for access to the file. The price can be paid by the remote charging of funds from, for example, a credit card whose details are also passed—usually fully encrypted—across the Internet. The origin and authenticity of the file received may be checked by a digital signature. Governance The Internet is a global network that comprises many voluntarily interconnected autonomous networks. It operates without a central governing body. The technical underpinning and standardization of the core protocols (IPv4 and IPv6) is an activity of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), a non-profit organization of loosely affiliated international participants that anyone may associate with by contributing technical expertise. While the hardware components in the Internet infrastructure can often be used to support other software systems, it is the design and the standardization process of the software that characterizes the Internet and provides the foundation for its scalability and success. The responsibility for the architectural design of the Internet software systems has been assumed by the IETF. The IETF conducts standard-setting work groups, open to any individual, about the various aspects of Internet architecture. The resulting contributions and standards are published as Request for Comments (RFC) documents on the IETF web site. The principal methods of networking that enable the Internet are contained in specially designated RFCs that constitute the Internet Standards. Other less rigorous documents are simply informative, experimental, or historical, or document the best current practices when implementing Internet technologies. To maintain interoperability, the principal name spaces of the Internet are administered by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). ICANN is governed by an international board of directors drawn from across the Internet technical, business, academic, and other non-commercial communities. The organization coordinates the assignment of unique identifiers for use on the Internet, including domain names, IP addresses, application port numbers in the transport protocols, and many other parameters. Globally unified name spaces are essential for maintaining the global reach of the Internet. This role of ICANN distinguishes it as perhaps the only central coordinating body for the global Internet. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration, an agency of the United States Department of Commerce, had final approval over changes to the DNS root zone until the IANA stewardship transition on 1 October 2016. Regional Internet registries (RIRs) were established for five regions of the world to assign IP address blocks and other Internet parameters to local registries, such as Internet service providers, from a designated pool of addresses set aside for each region:[citation needed] The Internet Society (ISOC) was founded in 1992 with a mission to "assure the open development, evolution and use of the Internet for the benefit of all people throughout the world". Its members include individuals as well as corporations, organizations, governments, and universities. Among other activities ISOC provides an administrative home for a number of less formally organized groups that are involved in developing and managing the Internet, including: the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), Internet Architecture Board (IAB), Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG), Internet Research Task Force (IRTF), and Internet Research Steering Group (IRSG). On 16 November 2005, the United Nations-sponsored World Summit on the Information Society in Tunis established the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) to discuss Internet-related issues.[citation needed] Infrastructure The communications infrastructure of the Internet consists of its hardware components and a system of software layers that control various aspects of the architecture. As with any computer network, the Internet physically consists of routers, media (such as cabling and radio links), repeaters, and modems. However, as an example of internetworking, many of the network nodes are not necessarily Internet equipment per se. Internet packets are carried by other full-fledged networking protocols, with the Internet acting as a homogeneous networking standard, running across heterogeneous hardware, with the packets guided to their destinations by IP routers.[citation needed] Internet service providers (ISPs) establish worldwide connectivity between individual networks at various levels of scope. At the top of the routing hierarchy are the tier 1 networks, large telecommunication companies that exchange traffic directly with each other via very high speed fiber-optic cables and governed by peering agreements. Tier 2 and lower-level networks buy Internet transit from other providers to reach at least some parties on the global Internet, though they may also engage in peering. End-users who only access the Internet when needed to perform a function or obtain information, represent the bottom of the routing hierarchy.[citation needed] An ISP may use a single upstream provider for connectivity, or implement multihoming to achieve redundancy and load balancing. Internet exchange points are major traffic exchanges with physical connections to multiple ISPs. Large organizations, such as academic institutions, large enterprises, and governments, may perform the same function as ISPs, engaging in peering and purchasing transit on behalf of their internal networks. Research networks tend to interconnect with large subnetworks such as GEANT, GLORIAD, Internet2, and the UK's national research and education network, JANET.[citation needed] Common methods of Internet access by users include broadband over coaxial cable, fiber optics or copper wires, Wi-Fi, satellite, and cellular telephone technology.[citation needed] Grassroots efforts have led to wireless community networks. Commercial Wi-Fi services that cover large areas are available in many cities, such as New York, London, Vienna, Toronto, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Chicago and Pittsburgh. Most servers that provide internet services are today hosted in data centers, and content is often accessed through high-performance content delivery networks. Colocation centers often host private peering connections between their customers, internet transit providers, cloud providers, meet-me rooms for connecting customers together, Internet exchange points, and landing points and terminal equipment for fiber optic submarine communication cables, connecting the internet. Internet Protocol Suite The Internet standards describe a framework known as the Internet protocol suite (also called TCP/IP, based on the first two components.) This is a suite of protocols that are ordered into a set of four conceptional layers by the scope of their operation, originally documented in RFC 1122 and RFC 1123:[citation needed] The most prominent component of the Internet model is the Internet Protocol. IP enables internetworking, essentially establishing the Internet itself. Two versions of the Internet Protocol exist, IPv4 and IPv6.[citation needed] Aside from the complex array of physical connections that make up its infrastructure, the Internet is facilitated by bi- or multi-lateral commercial contracts (e.g., peering agreements), and by technical specifications or protocols that describe the exchange of data over the network.[citation needed] For locating individual computers on the network, the Internet provides IP addresses. IP addresses are used by the Internet infrastructure to direct internet packets to their destinations. They consist of fixed-length numbers, which are found within the packet. IP addresses are generally assigned to equipment either automatically via Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol, or are configured.[citation needed] Domain Name Systems convert user-inputted domain names (e.g. "en.wikipedia.org") into IP addresses.[citation needed] Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) defines an IP address as a 32-bit number. IPv4 is the initial version used on the first generation of the Internet and is still in dominant use. It was designed in 1981 to address up to ≈4.3 billion (109) hosts. However, the explosive growth of the Internet has led to IPv4 address exhaustion, which entered its final stage in 2011, when the global IPv4 address allocation pool was exhausted. Because of the growth of the Internet and the depletion of available IPv4 addresses, a new version of IP IPv6, was developed in the mid-1990s, which provides vastly larger addressing capabilities and more efficient routing of Internet traffic. IPv6 uses 128 bits for the IP address and was standardized in 1998. IPv6 deployment has been ongoing since the mid-2000s and is currently in growing deployment around the world, since Internet address registries began to urge all resource managers to plan rapid adoption and conversion. By design, IPv6 is not directly interoperable with IPv4. Instead, it establishes a parallel version of the Internet not directly accessible with IPv4 software. Thus, translation facilities exist for internetworking, and some nodes have duplicate networking software for both networks. Essentially all modern computer operating systems support both versions of the Internet Protocol.[citation needed] Network infrastructure, however, has been lagging in this development.[citation needed] A subnet or subnetwork is a logical subdivision of an IP network.: 1, 16 Computers that belong to a subnet are addressed with an identical most-significant bit-group in their IP addresses. This results in the logical division of an IP address into two fields, the network number or routing prefix and the rest field or host identifier. The rest field is an identifier for a specific host or network interface.[citation needed] The routing prefix may be expressed in Classless Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR) notation written as the first address of a network, followed by a slash character (/), and ending with the bit-length of the prefix. For example, 198.51.100.0/24 is the prefix of the Internet Protocol version 4 network starting at the given address, having 24 bits allocated for the network prefix, and the remaining 8 bits reserved for host addressing. Addresses in the range 198.51.100.0 to 198.51.100.255 belong to this network. The IPv6 address specification 2001:db8::/32 is a large address block with 296 addresses, having a 32-bit routing prefix.[citation needed] For IPv4, a network may also be characterized by its subnet mask or netmask, which is the bitmask that when applied by a bitwise AND operation to any IP address in the network, yields the routing prefix. Subnet masks are also expressed in dot-decimal notation like an address. For example, 255.255.255.0 is the subnet mask for the prefix 198.51.100.0/24.[citation needed] Computers and routers use routing tables in their operating system to forward IP packets to reach a node on a different subnetwork. Routing tables are maintained by manual configuration or automatically by routing protocols. End-nodes typically use a default route that points toward an ISP providing transit, while ISP routers use the Border Gateway Protocol to establish the most efficient routing across the complex connections of the global Internet.[citation needed] The default gateway is the node that serves as the forwarding host (router) to other networks when no other route specification matches the destination IP address of a packet. Security Internet resources, hardware, and software components are the target of criminal or malicious attempts to gain unauthorized control to cause interruptions, commit fraud, engage in blackmail or access private information. Malware is malicious software used and distributed via the Internet. It includes computer viruses which are copied with the help of humans, computer worms which copy themselves automatically, software for denial of service attacks, ransomware, botnets, and spyware that reports on the activity and typing of users.[citation needed] Usually, these activities constitute cybercrime. Defense theorists have also speculated about the possibilities of hackers using cyber warfare using similar methods on a large scale. Malware poses serious problems to individuals and businesses on the Internet. According to Symantec's 2018 Internet Security Threat Report (ISTR), malware variants number has increased to 669,947,865 in 2017, which is twice as many malware variants as in 2016. Cybercrime, which includes malware attacks as well as other crimes committed by computer, was predicted to cost the world economy US$6 trillion in 2021, and is increasing at a rate of 15% per year. Since 2021, malware has been designed to target computer systems that run critical infrastructure such as the electricity distribution network. Malware can be designed to evade antivirus software detection algorithms. The vast majority of computer surveillance involves the monitoring of data and traffic on the Internet. In the United States for example, under the Communications Assistance For Law Enforcement Act, all phone calls and broadband Internet traffic (emails, web traffic, instant messaging, etc.) are required to be available for unimpeded real-time monitoring by Federal law enforcement agencies. Under the Act, all U.S. telecommunications providers are required to install packet sniffing technology to allow Federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies to intercept all of their customers' broadband Internet and VoIP traffic.[d] The large amount of data gathered from packet capture requires surveillance software that filters and reports relevant information, such as the use of certain words or phrases, the access to certain types of web sites, or communicating via email or chat with certain parties. Agencies, such as the Information Awareness Office, NSA, GCHQ and the FBI, spend billions of dollars per year to develop, purchase, implement, and operate systems for interception and analysis of data. Similar systems are operated by Iranian secret police to identify and suppress dissidents. The required hardware and software were allegedly installed by German Siemens AG and Finnish Nokia. Some governments, such as those of Myanmar, Iran, North Korea, Mainland China, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, restrict access to content on the Internet within their territories, especially to political and religious content, with domain name and keyword filters. In Norway, Denmark, Finland, and Sweden, major Internet service providers have voluntarily agreed to restrict access to sites listed by authorities. While this list of forbidden resources is supposed to contain only known child pornography sites, the content of the list is secret. Many countries, including the United States, have enacted laws against the possession or distribution of certain material, such as child pornography, via the Internet but do not mandate filter software. Many free or commercially available software programs, called content-control software are available to users to block offensive specific on individual computers or networks in order to limit access by children to pornographic material or depiction of violence.[citation needed] Performance As the Internet is a heterogeneous network, its physical characteristics, including, for example the data transfer rates of connections, vary widely. It exhibits emergent phenomena that depend on its large-scale organization. PB per monthYear020,00040,00060,00080,000100,000120,000140,000199019952000200520102015Petabytes per monthGlobal Internet Traffic Volume The volume of Internet traffic is difficult to measure because no single point of measurement exists in the multi-tiered, non-hierarchical topology. Traffic data may be estimated from the aggregate volume through the peering points of the Tier 1 network providers, but traffic that stays local in large provider networks may not be accounted for.[citation needed] An Internet blackout or outage can be caused by local signaling interruptions. Disruptions of submarine communications cables may cause blackouts or slowdowns to large areas, such as in the 2008 submarine cable disruption. Less-developed countries are more vulnerable due to the small number of high-capacity links. Land cables are also vulnerable, as in 2011 when a woman digging for scrap metal severed most connectivity for the nation of Armenia. Internet blackouts affecting almost entire countries can be achieved by governments as a form of Internet censorship, as in the blockage of the Internet in Egypt, whereby approximately 93% of networks were without access in 2011 in an attempt to stop mobilization for anti-government protests. Estimates of the Internet's electricity usage have been the subject of controversy, according to a 2014 peer-reviewed research paper that found claims differing by a factor of 20,000 published in the literature during the preceding decade, ranging from 0.0064 kilowatt hours per gigabyte transferred (kWh/GB) to 136 kWh/GB. The researchers attributed these discrepancies mainly to the year of reference (i.e. whether efficiency gains over time had been taken into account) and to whether "end devices such as personal computers and servers are included" in the analysis. In 2011, academic researchers estimated the overall energy used by the Internet to be between 170 and 307 GW, less than two percent of the energy used by humanity. This estimate included the energy needed to build, operate, and periodically replace the estimated 750 million laptops, a billion smart phones and 100 million servers worldwide as well as the energy that routers, cell towers, optical switches, Wi-Fi transmitters and cloud storage devices use when transmitting Internet traffic. According to a non-peer-reviewed study published in 2018 by The Shift Project (a French think tank funded by corporate sponsors), nearly 4% of global CO2 emissions could be attributed to global data transfer and the necessary infrastructure. The study also said that online video streaming alone accounted for 60% of this data transfer and therefore contributed to over 300 million tons of CO2 emission per year, and argued for new "digital sobriety" regulations restricting the use and size of video files. See also Notes References Sources Further reading External links |
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Contents OpenAI OpenAI is an American artificial intelligence research organization comprising both a non-profit foundation and a controlled for-profit public benefit corporation (PBC), headquartered in San Francisco. It aims to develop "safe and beneficial" artificial general intelligence (AGI), which it defines as "highly autonomous systems that outperform humans at most economically valuable work". OpenAI is widely recognized for its development of the GPT family of large language models, the DALL-E series of text-to-image models, and the Sora series of text-to-video models, which have influenced industry research and commercial applications. Its release of ChatGPT in November 2022 has been credited with catalyzing widespread interest in generative AI. The organization was founded in 2015 in Delaware but evolved a complex corporate structure. As of October 2025, following restructuring approved by California and Delaware regulators, the non-profit OpenAI Foundation holds 26% of the for-profit OpenAI Group PBC, with Microsoft holding 27% and employees/other investors holding 47%. Under its governance arrangements, the OpenAI Foundation holds the authority to appoint the board of the for-profit OpenAI Group PBC, a mechanism designed to align the entity’s strategic direction with the Foundation’s charter. Microsoft previously invested over $13 billion into OpenAI, and provides Azure cloud computing resources. In October 2025, OpenAI conducted a $6.6 billion share sale that valued the company at $500 billion. In 2023 and 2024, OpenAI faced multiple lawsuits for alleged copyright infringement against authors and media companies whose work was used to train some of OpenAI's products. In November 2023, OpenAI's board removed Sam Altman as CEO, citing a lack of confidence in him, but reinstated him five days later following a reconstruction of the board. Throughout 2024, roughly half of then-employed AI safety researchers left OpenAI, citing the company's prominent role in an industry-wide problem. Founding In December 2015, OpenAI was founded as a not for profit organization by Sam Altman, Elon Musk, Ilya Sutskever, Greg Brockman, Trevor Blackwell, Vicki Cheung, Andrej Karpathy, Durk Kingma, John Schulman, Pamela Vagata, and Wojciech Zaremba, with Sam Altman and Elon Musk as the co-chairs. A total of $1 billion in capital was pledged by Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, Elon Musk, Reid Hoffman, Jessica Livingston, Peter Thiel, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Infosys. However, the actual capital collected significantly lagged pledges. According to company disclosures, only $130 million had been received by 2019. In its founding charter, OpenAI stated an intention to collaborate openly with other institutions by making certain patents and research publicly available, but later restricted access to its most capable models, citing competitive and safety concerns. OpenAI was initially run from Brockman's living room. It was later headquartered at the Pioneer Building in the Mission District, San Francisco. According to OpenAI's charter, its founding mission is "to ensure that artificial general intelligence (AGI)—by which we mean highly autonomous systems that outperform humans at most economically valuable work—benefits all of humanity." Musk and Altman stated in 2015 that they were partly motivated by concerns about AI safety and existential risk from artificial general intelligence. OpenAI stated that "it's hard to fathom how much human-level AI could benefit society", and that it is equally difficult to comprehend "how much it could damage society if built or used incorrectly". The startup also wrote that AI "should be an extension of individual human wills and, in the spirit of liberty, as broadly and evenly distributed as possible", and that "because of AI's surprising history, it's hard to predict when human-level AI might come within reach. When it does, it'll be important to have a leading research institution which can prioritize a good outcome for all over its own self-interest." Co-chair Sam Altman expected a decades-long project that eventually surpasses human intelligence. Brockman met with Yoshua Bengio, one of the "founding fathers" of deep learning, and drew up a list of great AI researchers. Brockman was able to hire nine of them as the first employees in December 2015. OpenAI did not pay AI researchers salaries comparable to those of Facebook or Google. It also did not pay stock options which AI researchers typically get. Nevertheless, OpenAI spent $7 million on its first 52 employees in 2016. OpenAI's potential and mission drew these researchers to the firm; a Google employee said he was willing to leave Google for OpenAI "partly because of the very strong group of people and, to a very large extent, because of its mission." OpenAI co-founder Wojciech Zaremba stated that he turned down "borderline crazy" offers of two to three times his market value to join OpenAI instead. In April 2016, OpenAI released a public beta of "OpenAI Gym", its platform for reinforcement learning research. Nvidia gifted its first DGX-1 supercomputer to OpenAI in August 2016 to help it train larger and more complex AI models with the capability of reducing processing time from six days to two hours. In December 2016, OpenAI released "Universe", a software platform for measuring and training an AI's general intelligence across the world's supply of games, websites, and other applications. Corporate structure In 2019, OpenAI transitioned from non-profit to "capped" for-profit, with the profit being capped at 100 times any investment. According to OpenAI, the capped-profit model allows OpenAI Global, LLC to legally attract investment from venture funds and, in addition, to grant employees stakes in the company. Many top researchers work for Google Brain, DeepMind, or Facebook, which offer equity that a nonprofit would be unable to match. Before the transition, OpenAI was legally required to publicly disclose the compensation of its top employees. The company then distributed equity to its employees and partnered with Microsoft, announcing an investment package of $1 billion into the company. Since then, OpenAI systems have run on an Azure-based supercomputing platform from Microsoft. OpenAI Global, LLC then announced its intention to commercially license its technologies. It planned to spend $1 billion "within five years, and possibly much faster". Altman stated that even a billion dollars may turn out to be insufficient, and that the lab may ultimately need "more capital than any non-profit has ever raised" to achieve artificial general intelligence. The nonprofit, OpenAI, Inc., is the sole controlling shareholder of OpenAI Global, LLC, which, despite being a for-profit company, retains a formal fiduciary responsibility to OpenAI, Inc.'s nonprofit charter. A majority of OpenAI, Inc.'s board is barred from having financial stakes in OpenAI Global, LLC. In addition, minority members with a stake in OpenAI Global, LLC are barred from certain votes due to conflict of interest. Some researchers have argued that OpenAI Global, LLC's switch to for-profit status is inconsistent with OpenAI's claims to be "democratizing" AI. On February 29, 2024, Elon Musk filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman, accusing them of shifting focus from public benefit to profit maximization—a case OpenAI dismissed as "incoherent" and "frivolous," though Musk later revived legal action against Altman and others in August. On April 9, 2024, OpenAI countersued Musk in federal court, alleging that he had engaged in "bad-faith tactics" to slow the company's progress and seize its innovations for his personal benefit. OpenAI also argued that Musk had previously supported the creation of a for-profit structure and had expressed interest in controlling OpenAI himself. The countersuit seeks damages and legal measures to prevent further alleged interference. On February 10, 2025, a consortium of investors led by Elon Musk submitted a $97.4 billion unsolicited bid to buy the nonprofit that controls OpenAI, declaring willingness to match or exceed any better offer. The offer was rejected on 14 February 2025, with OpenAI stating that it was not for sale, but the offer complicated Altman's restructuring plan by suggesting a lower bar for how much the nonprofit should be valued. OpenAI, Inc. was originally designed as a nonprofit in order to ensure that AGI "benefits all of humanity" rather than "the private gain of any person". In 2019, it created OpenAI Global, LLC, a capped-profit subsidiary controlled by the nonprofit. In December 2024, OpenAI proposed a restructuring plan to convert the capped-profit into a Delaware-based public benefit corporation (PBC), and to release it from the control of the nonprofit. The nonprofit would sell its control and other assets, getting equity in return, and would use it to fund and pursue separate charitable projects, including in science and education. OpenAI's leadership described the change as necessary to secure additional investments, and claimed that the nonprofit's founding mission to ensure AGI "benefits all of humanity" would be better fulfilled. The plan has been criticized by former employees. A legal letter named "Not For Private Gain" asked the attorneys general of California and Delaware to intervene, stating that the restructuring is illegal and would remove governance safeguards from the nonprofit and the attorneys general. The letter argues that OpenAI's complex structure was deliberately designed to remain accountable to its mission, without the conflicting pressure of maximizing profits. It contends that the nonprofit is best positioned to advance its mission of ensuring AGI benefits all of humanity by continuing to control OpenAI Global, LLC, whatever the amount of equity that it could get in exchange. PBCs can choose how they balance their mission with profit-making. Controlling shareholders have a large influence on how closely a PBC sticks to its mission. On October 28, 2025, OpenAI announced that it had adopted the new PBC corporate structure after receiving approval from the attorneys general of California and Delaware. Under the new structure, OpenAI's for-profit branch became a public benefit corporation known as OpenAI Group PBC, while the non-profit was renamed to the OpenAI Foundation. The OpenAI Foundation holds a 26% stake in the PBC, while Microsoft holds a 27% stake and the remaining 47% is owned by employees and other investors. All members of the OpenAI Group PBC board of directors will be appointed by the OpenAI Foundation, which can remove them at any time. Members of the Foundation's board will also serve on the for-profit board. The new structure allows the for-profit PBC to raise investor funds like most traditional tech companies, including through an initial public offering, which Altman claimed was the most likely path forward. In January 2023, OpenAI Global, LLC was in talks for funding that would value the company at $29 billion, double its 2021 value. On January 23, 2023, Microsoft announced a new US$10 billion investment in OpenAI Global, LLC over multiple years, partially needed to use Microsoft's cloud-computing service Azure. From September to December, 2023, Microsoft rebranded all variants of its Copilot to Microsoft Copilot, and they added MS-Copilot to many installations of Windows and released Microsoft Copilot mobile apps. Following OpenAI's 2025 restructuring, Microsoft owns a 27% stake in the for-profit OpenAI Group PBC, valued at $135 billion. In a deal announced the same day, OpenAI agreed to purchase $250 billion of Azure services, with Microsoft ceding their right of first refusal over OpenAI's future cloud computing purchases. As part of the deal, OpenAI will continue to share 20% of its revenue with Microsoft until it achieves AGI, which must now be verified by an independent panel of experts. The deal also loosened restrictions on both companies working with third parties, allowing Microsoft to pursue AGI independently and allowing OpenAI to develop products with other companies. In 2017, OpenAI spent $7.9 million, a quarter of its functional expenses, on cloud computing alone. In comparison, DeepMind's total expenses in 2017 were $442 million. In the summer of 2018, training OpenAI's Dota 2 bots required renting 128,000 CPUs and 256 GPUs from Google for multiple weeks. In October 2024, OpenAI completed a $6.6 billion capital raise with a $157 billion valuation including investments from Microsoft, Nvidia, and SoftBank. On January 21, 2025, Donald Trump announced The Stargate Project, a joint venture between OpenAI, Oracle, SoftBank and MGX to build an AI infrastructure system in conjunction with the US government. The project takes its name from OpenAI's existing "Stargate" supercomputer project and is estimated to cost $500 billion. The partners planned to fund the project over the next four years. In July, the United States Department of Defense announced that OpenAI had received a $200 million contract for AI in the military, along with Anthropic, Google, and xAI. In the same month, the company made a deal with the UK Government to use ChatGPT and other AI tools in public services. OpenAI subsequently began a $50 million fund to support nonprofit and community organizations. In April 2025, OpenAI raised $40 billion at a $300 billion post-money valuation, which was the highest-value private technology deal in history. The financing round was led by SoftBank, with other participants including Microsoft, Coatue, Altimeter and Thrive. In July 2025, the company reported annualized revenue of $12 billion. This was an increase from $3.7 billion in 2024, which was driven by ChatGPT subscriptions, which reached 20 million paid subscribers by April 2025, up from 15.5 million at the end of 2024, alongside a rapidly expanding enterprise customer base that grew to five million business users. The company’s cash burn remains high because of the intensive computational costs required to train and operate large language models. It projects an $8 billion operating loss in 2025. OpenAI reports revised long-term spending projections totaling approximately $115 billion through 2029, with annual expenditures projected to escalate significantly, reaching $17 billion in 2026, $35 billion in 2027, and $45 billion in 2028. These expenditures are primarily allocated toward expanding compute infrastructure, developing proprietary AI chips, constructing data centers, and funding intensive model training programs, with more than half of the spending through the end of the decade expected to support research-intensive compute for model training and development. The company's financial strategy prioritizes market expansion and technological advancement over near-term profitability, with OpenAI targeting cash-flow-positive operations by 2029 and projecting revenue of approximately $200 billion by 2030. This aggressive spending trajectory underscores both the enormous capital requirements of scaling cutting-edge AI technology and OpenAI's commitment to maintaining its position as a leader in the artificial intelligence industry. In October 2025, OpenAI completed an employee share sale of up to $10 billion to existing investors which valued the company at $500 billion. The deal values OpenAI as the most valuable privately owned company in the world—surpassing SpaceX as the world's most valuable private company. On November 17, 2023, Sam Altman was removed as CEO when its board of directors (composed of Helen Toner, Ilya Sutskever, Adam D'Angelo and Tasha McCauley) cited a lack of confidence in him. Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati took over as interim CEO. Greg Brockman, the president of OpenAI, was also removed as chairman of the board and resigned from the company's presidency shortly thereafter. Three senior OpenAI researchers subsequently resigned: director of research and GPT-4 lead Jakub Pachocki, head of AI risk Aleksander Mądry, and researcher Szymon Sidor. On November 18, 2023, there were reportedly talks of Altman returning as CEO amid pressure placed upon the board by investors such as Microsoft and Thrive Capital, who objected to Altman's departure. Although Altman himself spoke in favor of returning to OpenAI, he has since stated that he considered starting a new company and bringing former OpenAI employees with him if talks to reinstate him didn't work out. The board members agreed "in principle" to resign if Altman returned. On November 19, 2023, negotiations with Altman to return failed and Murati was replaced by Emmett Shear as interim CEO. The board initially contacted Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei (a former OpenAI executive) about replacing Altman, and proposed a merger of the two companies, but both offers were declined. On November 20, 2023, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced Altman and Brockman would be joining Microsoft to lead a new advanced AI research team, but added that they were still committed to OpenAI despite recent events. Before the partnership with Microsoft was finalized, Altman gave the board another opportunity to negotiate with him. About 738 of OpenAI's 770 employees, including Murati and Sutskever, signed an open letter stating they would quit their jobs and join Microsoft if the board did not rehire Altman and then resign. This prompted OpenAI investors to consider legal action against the board as well. In response, OpenAI management sent an internal memo to employees stating that negotiations with Altman and the board had resumed and would take some time. On November 21, 2023, after continued negotiations, Altman and Brockman returned to the company in their prior roles along with a reconstructed board made up of new members Bret Taylor (as chairman) and Lawrence Summers, with D'Angelo remaining. According to subsequent reporting, shortly before Altman’s firing, some employees raised concerns to the board about how he had handled the safety implications of a recent internal AI capability discovery. On November 29, 2023, OpenAI announced that an anonymous Microsoft employee had joined the board as a non-voting member to observe the company's operations; Microsoft resigned from the board in July 2024. In February 2024, the Securities and Exchange Commission subpoenaed OpenAI's internal communication to determine if Altman's alleged lack of candor misled investors. In 2024, following the temporary removal of Sam Altman and his return, many employees gradually left OpenAI, including most of the original leadership team and a significant number of AI safety researchers. In August 2023, it was announced that OpenAI had acquired the New York-based start-up Global Illumination, a company that deploys AI to develop digital infrastructure and creative tools. In June 2024, OpenAI acquired Multi, a startup focused on remote collaboration. In March 2025, OpenAI reached a deal with CoreWeave to acquire $350 million worth of CoreWeave shares and access to AI infrastructure, in return for $11.9 billion paid over five years. Microsoft was already CoreWeave's biggest customer in 2024. Alongside their other business dealings, OpenAI and Microsoft were renegotiating the terms of their partnership to facilitate a potential future initial public offering by OpenAI, while ensuring Microsoft's continued access to advanced AI models. On May 21, OpenAI announced the $6.5 billion acquisition of io, an AI hardware start-up founded by former Apple designer Jony Ive in 2024. In September 2025, OpenAI agreed to acquire the product testing startup Statsig for $1.1 billion in an all-stock deal and appointed Statsig's founding CEO Vijaye Raji as OpenAI's chief technology officer of applications. The company also announced development of an AI-driven hiring service designed to rival LinkedIn. OpenAI acquired personal finance app Roi in October 2025. In October 2025, OpenAI acquired Software Applications Incorporated, the developer of Sky, a macOS-based natural language interface designed to operate across desktop applications. The Sky team joined OpenAI, and the company announced plans to integrate Sky’s capabilities into ChatGPT. In December 2025, it was announced OpenAI had agreed to acquire Neptune, an AI tooling startup that helps companies track and manage model training, for an undisclosed amount. In January 2026, it was announced OpenAI had acquired healthcare technology startup Torch for approximately $60 million. The acquisition followed the launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT Health product and was intended to strengthen the company’s medical data and healthcare artificial intelligence capabilities. OpenAI has been criticized for outsourcing the annotation of data sets to Sama, a company based in San Francisco that employed workers in Kenya. These annotations were used to train an AI model to detect toxicity, which could then be used to moderate toxic content, notably from ChatGPT's training data and outputs. However, these pieces of text usually contained detailed descriptions of various types of violence, including sexual violence. The investigation uncovered that OpenAI began sending snippets of data to Sama as early as November 2021. The four Sama employees interviewed by Time described themselves as mentally scarred. OpenAI paid Sama $12.50 per hour of work, and Sama was redistributing the equivalent of between $1.32 and $2.00 per hour post-tax to its annotators. Sama's spokesperson said that the $12.50 was also covering other implicit costs, among which were infrastructure expenses, quality assurance and management. In 2024, OpenAI began collaborating with Broadcom to design a custom AI chip capable of both training and inference, targeted for mass production in 2026 and to be manufactured by TSMC on a 3 nm process node. This initiative intended to reduce OpenAI's dependence on Nvidia GPUs, which are costly and face high demand in the market. In January 2024, Arizona State University purchased ChatGPT Enterprise in OpenAI's first deal with a university. In June 2024, Apple Inc. signed a contract with OpenAI to integrate ChatGPT features into its products as part of its new Apple Intelligence initiative. In June 2025, OpenAI began renting Google Cloud's Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) to support ChatGPT and related services, marking its first meaningful use of non‑Nvidia AI chips. In September 2025, it was revealed that OpenAI signed a contract with Oracle to purchase $300 billion in computing power over the next five years. In September 2025, OpenAI and NVIDIA announced a memorandum of understanding that included a potential deployment of at least 10 gigawatts of NVIDIA systems and a $100 billion investment from NVIDIA in OpenAI. OpenAI expected the negotiations to be completed within weeks. As of January 2026, this has not been realized, and the two sides are rethinking the future of their partnership. In October 2025, OpenAI announced a multi-billion dollar deal with AMD. OpenAI committed to purchasing six gigawatts worth of AMD chips, starting with the MI450. OpenAI will have the option to buy up to 160 million shares of AMD, about 10% of the company, depending on development, performance and share price targets. In December 2025, Disney said it would make a $1 billion investment in OpenAI, and signed a three-year licensing deal that will let users generate videos using Sora—OpenAI's short-form AI video platform. More than 200 Disney, Marvel, Star Wars and Pixar characters will be available to OpenAI users. In early 2026, Amazon entered advanced discussions to invest up to $50 billion in OpenAI as part of a potential artificial intelligence partnership. Under the proposed agreement, OpenAI’s models could be integrated into Amazon’s digital assistant Alexa and other internal projects. OpenAI provides LLMs to the Artificial Intelligence Cyber Challenge and to the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health. In October 2024, The Intercept revealed that OpenAI's tools are considered "essential" for AFRICOM's mission and included in an "Exception to Fair Opportunity" contractual agreement between the United States Department of Defense and Microsoft. In December 2024, OpenAI said it would partner with defense-tech company Anduril to build drone defense technologies for the United States and its allies. In 2025, OpenAI's Chief Product Officer, Kevin Weil, was commissioned lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army to join Detachment 201 as senior advisor. In June 2025, the U.S. Department of Defense awarded OpenAI a $200 million one-year contract to develop AI tools for military and national security applications. OpenAI announced a new program, OpenAI for Government, to give federal, state, and local governments access to its models, including ChatGPT. Services In February 2019, GPT-2 was announced, which gained attention for its ability to generate human-like text. In 2020, OpenAI announced GPT-3, a language model trained on large internet datasets. GPT-3 is aimed at natural language answering questions, but it can also translate between languages and coherently generate improvised text. It also announced that an associated API, named the API, would form the heart of its first commercial product. Eleven employees left OpenAI, mostly between December 2020 and January 2021, in order to establish Anthropic. In 2021, OpenAI introduced DALL-E, a specialized deep learning model adept at generating complex digital images from textual descriptions, utilizing a variant of the GPT-3 architecture. In December 2022, OpenAI received widespread media coverage after launching a free preview of ChatGPT, its new AI chatbot based on GPT-3.5. According to OpenAI, the preview received over a million signups within the first five days. According to anonymous sources cited by Reuters in December 2022, OpenAI Global, LLC was projecting $200 million of revenue in 2023 and $1 billion in revenue in 2024. After ChatGPT was launched, Google announced a similar chatbot, Bard, amid internal concerns that ChatGPT could threaten Google’s position as a primary source of online information. On February 7, 2023, Microsoft announced that it was building AI technology based on the same foundation as ChatGPT into Microsoft Bing, Edge, Microsoft 365 and other products. On March 14, 2023, OpenAI released GPT-4, both as an API (with a waitlist) and as a feature of ChatGPT Plus. On November 6, 2023, OpenAI launched GPTs, allowing individuals to create customized versions of ChatGPT for specific purposes, further expanding the possibilities of AI applications across various industries. On November 14, 2023, OpenAI announced they temporarily suspended new sign-ups for ChatGPT Plus due to high demand. Access for newer subscribers re-opened a month later on December 13. In December 2024, the company launched the Sora model. It also launched OpenAI o1, an early reasoning model that was internally codenamed strawberry. Additionally, ChatGPT Pro—a $200/month subscription service offering unlimited o1 access and enhanced voice features—was introduced, and preliminary benchmark results for the upcoming OpenAI o3 models were shared. On January 23, 2025, OpenAI released Operator, an AI agent and web automation tool for accessing websites to execute goals defined by users. The feature was only available to Pro users in the United States. OpenAI released deep research agent, nine days later. It scored a 27% accuracy on the benchmark Humanity's Last Exam (HLE). Altman later stated GPT-4.5 would be the last model without full chain-of-thought reasoning. In July 2025, reports indicated that AI models by both OpenAI and Google DeepMind solved mathematics problems at the level of top-performing students in the International Mathematical Olympiad. OpenAI's large language model was able to achieve gold medal-level performance, reflecting significant progress in AI's reasoning abilities. On October 6, 2025, OpenAI unveiled its Agent Builder platform during the company's DevDay event. The platform includes a visual drag-and-drop interface that lets developers and businesses design, test, and deploy agentic workflows with limited coding. On October 21, 2025, OpenAI introduced ChatGPT Atlas, a browser integrating the ChatGPT assistant directly into web navigation, to compete with existing browsers such as Google Chrome and Apple Safari. On December 11, 2025, OpenAI announced GPT-5.2. This model will be better at creating spreadsheets, building presentations, perceiving images, writing code and understanding long context. On January 27, 2026, OpenAI introduced Prism, a LaTeX-native workspace meant to assist scientists to help with research and writing. The platform utilizes GPT-5.2 as a backend to automate the process of drafting for scientific papers, including features for managing citations, complex equation formatting, and real-time collaborative editing. In March 2023, the company was criticized for disclosing particularly few technical details about products like GPT-4, contradicting its initial commitment to openness and making it harder for independent researchers to replicate its work and develop safeguards. OpenAI cited competitiveness and safety concerns to justify this repudiation. OpenAI's former chief scientist Ilya Sutskever argued in 2023 that open-sourcing increasingly capable models was increasingly risky, and that the safety reasons for not open-sourcing the most potent AI models would become "obvious" in a few years. In September 2025, OpenAI published a study on how people use ChatGPT for everyday tasks. The study found that "non-work tasks" (according to an LLM-based classifier) account for more than 72 percent of all ChatGPT usage, with a minority of overall usage related to business productivity. In July 2023, OpenAI launched the superalignment project, aiming within four years to determine how to align future superintelligent systems. OpenAI promised to dedicate 20% of its computing resources to the project, although the team denied receiving anything close to 20%. OpenAI ended the project in May 2024 after its co-leaders Ilya Sutskever and Jan Leike left the company. In August 2025, OpenAI was criticized after thousands of private ChatGPT conversations were inadvertently exposed to public search engines like Google due to an experimental "share with search engines" feature. The opt-in toggle, intended to allow users to make specific chats discoverable, resulted in some discussions including personal details such as names, locations, and intimate topics appearing in search results when users accidentally enabled it while sharing links. OpenAI announced the feature's permanent removal on August 1, 2025, and the company began coordinating with search providers to remove the exposed content, emphasizing that it was not a security breach but a design flaw that heightened privacy risks. CEO Sam Altman acknowledged the issue in a podcast, noting users often treat ChatGPT as a confidant for deeply personal matters, which amplified concerns about AI handling sensitive data. Management In 2018, Musk resigned from his Board of Directors seat, citing "a potential future conflict [of interest]" with his role as CEO of Tesla due to Tesla's AI development for self-driving cars. OpenAI stated that Musk's financial contributions were below $45 million. On March 3, 2023, Reid Hoffman resigned from his board seat, citing a desire to avoid conflicts of interest with his investments in AI companies via Greylock Partners, and his co-founding of the AI startup Inflection AI. Hoffman remained on the board of Microsoft, a major investor in OpenAI. In May 2024, Chief Scientist Ilya Sutskever resigned and was succeeded by Jakub Pachocki. Co-leader Jan Leike also departed amid concerns over safety and trust. OpenAI then signed deals with Reddit, News Corp, Axios, and Vox Media. Paul Nakasone then joined the board of OpenAI. In August 2024, cofounder John Schulman left OpenAI to join Anthropic, and OpenAI's president Greg Brockman took extended leave until November. In September 2024, CTO Mira Murati left the company. In November 2025, Lawrence Summers resigned from the board of directors. Governance and legal issues In May 2023, Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and Ilya Sutskever posted recommendations for the governance of superintelligence. They stated that superintelligence could happen within the next 10 years, allowing a "dramatically more prosperous future" and that "given the possibility of existential risk, we can't just be reactive". They proposed creating an international watchdog organization similar to IAEA to oversee AI systems above a certain capability threshold, suggesting that relatively weak AI systems on the other side should not be overly regulated. They also called for more technical safety research for superintelligences, and asked for more coordination, for example through governments launching a joint project which "many current efforts become part of". In July 2023, the FTC issued a civil investigative demand to OpenAI to investigate whether the company's data security and privacy practices to develop ChatGPT were unfair or harmed consumers (including by reputational harm) in violation of Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914. These are typically preliminary investigative matters and are nonpublic, but the FTC's document was leaked. In July 2023, the FTC launched an investigation into OpenAI over allegations that the company scraped public data and published false and defamatory information. They asked OpenAI for comprehensive information about its technology and privacy safeguards, as well as any steps taken to prevent the recurrence of situations in which its chatbot generated false and derogatory content about people. The agency also raised concerns about ‘circular’ spending arrangements—for example, Microsoft extending Azure credits to OpenAI while both companies shared engineering talent—and warned that such structures could negatively affect the public. In September 2024, OpenAI's global affairs chief endorsed the UK's "smart" AI regulation during testimony to a House of Lords committee. In February 2025, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman stated that the company is interested in collaborating with the People's Republic of China, despite regulatory restrictions imposed by the U.S. government. This shift comes in response to the growing influence of the Chinese artificial intelligence company DeepSeek, which has disrupted the AI market with open models, including DeepSeek V3 and DeepSeek R1. Following DeepSeek's market emergence, OpenAI enhanced security protocols to protect proprietary development techniques from industrial espionage. Some industry observers noted similarities between DeepSeek's model distillation approach and OpenAI's methodology, though no formal intellectual property claim was filed. According to Oliver Roberts, in March 2025, the United States had 781 state AI bills or laws. OpenAI advocated for preempting state AI laws with federal laws. According to Scott Kohler, OpenAI has opposed California's AI legislation and suggested that the state bill encroaches on a more competent federal government. Public Citizen opposed a federal preemption on AI and pointed to OpenAI's growth and valuation as evidence that existing state laws have not hampered innovation. Before May 2024, OpenAI required departing employees to sign a lifelong non-disparagement agreement forbidding them from criticizing OpenAI and acknowledging the existence of the agreement. Daniel Kokotajlo, a former employee, publicly stated that he forfeited his vested equity in OpenAI in order to leave without signing the agreement. Sam Altman stated that he was unaware of the equity cancellation provision, and that OpenAI never enforced it to cancel any employee's vested equity. However, leaked documents and emails refute this claim. On May 23, 2024, OpenAI sent a memo releasing former employees from the agreement. OpenAI was sued for copyright infringement by authors Sarah Silverman, Matthew Butterick, Paul Tremblay and Mona Awad in July 2023. In September 2023, 17 authors, including George R. R. Martin, John Grisham, Jodi Picoult and Jonathan Franzen, joined the Authors Guild in filing a class action lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging that the company's technology was illegally using their copyrighted work. The New York Times also sued the company in late December 2023. In May 2024 it was revealed that OpenAI had destroyed its Books1 and Books2 training datasets, which were used in the training of GPT-3, and which the Authors Guild believed to have contained over 100,000 copyrighted books. In 2021, OpenAI developed a speech recognition tool called Whisper. OpenAI used it to transcribe more than one million hours of YouTube videos into text for training GPT-4. The automated transcription of YouTube videos raised concerns within OpenAI employees regarding potential violations of YouTube's terms of service, which prohibit the use of videos for applications independent of the platform, as well as any type of automated access to its videos. Despite these concerns, the project proceeded with notable involvement from OpenAI's president, Greg Brockman. The resulting dataset proved instrumental in training GPT-4. In February 2024, The Intercept as well as Raw Story and Alternate Media Inc. filed lawsuit against OpenAI on copyright litigation ground. The lawsuit is said to have charted a new legal strategy for digital-only publishers to sue OpenAI. On April 30, 2024, eight newspapers filed a lawsuit in the Southern District of New York against OpenAI and Microsoft, claiming illegal harvesting of their copyrighted articles. The suing publications included The Mercury News, The Denver Post, The Orange County Register, St. Paul Pioneer Press, Chicago Tribune, Orlando Sentinel, Sun Sentinel, and New York Daily News. In June 2023, a lawsuit claimed that OpenAI scraped 300 billion words online without consent and without registering as a data broker. It was filed in San Francisco, California, by sixteen anonymous plaintiffs. They also claimed that OpenAI and its partner as well as customer Microsoft continued to unlawfully collect and use personal data from millions of consumers worldwide to train artificial intelligence models. On May 22, 2024, OpenAI entered into an agreement with News Corp to integrate news content from The Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, The Times, and The Sunday Times into its AI platform. Meanwhile, other publications like The New York Times chose to sue OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement over the use of their content to train AI models. In November 2024, a coalition of Canadian news outlets, including the Toronto Star, Metroland Media, Postmedia, The Globe and Mail, The Canadian Press and CBC, sued OpenAI for using their news articles to train its software without permission. In October 2024 during a New York Times interview, Suchir Balaji accused OpenAI of violating copyright law in developing its commercial LLMs which he had helped engineer. He was a likely witness in a major copyright trial against the AI company, and was one of several of its current or former employees named in court filings as potentially having documents relevant to the case. On November 26, 2024, Balaji died by suicide. His death prompted the circulation of conspiracy theories alleging that he had been deliberately silenced. California Congressman Ro Khanna endorsed calls for an investigation. On April 24, 2025, Ziff Davis sued OpenAI in Delaware federal court for copyright infringement. Ziff Davis is known for publications such as ZDNet, PCMag, CNET, IGN and Lifehacker. In April 2023, the EU's European Data Protection Board (EDPB) formed a dedicated task force on ChatGPT "to foster cooperation and to exchange information on possible enforcement actions conducted by data protection authorities" based on the "enforcement action undertaken by the Italian data protection authority against OpenAI about the ChatGPT service". In late April 2024 NOYB filed a complaint with the Austrian Datenschutzbehörde against OpenAI for violating the European General Data Protection Regulation. A text created with ChatGPT gave a false date of birth for a living person without giving the individual the option to see the personal data used in the process. A request to correct the mistake was denied. Additionally, neither the recipients of ChatGPT's work nor the sources used, could be made available, OpenAI claimed. OpenAI was criticized for lifting its ban on using ChatGPT for "military and warfare". Up until January 10, 2024, its "usage policies" included a ban on "activity that has high risk of physical harm, including", specifically, "weapons development" and "military and warfare". Its new policies prohibit "[using] our service to harm yourself or others" and to "develop or use weapons". In August 2025, the parents of a 16-year-old boy who died by suicide filed a wrongful death lawsuit against OpenAI (and CEO Sam Altman), alleging that months of conversations with ChatGPT about mental health and methods of self-harm contributed to their son's death and that safeguards were inadequate for minors. OpenAI expressed condolences and said it was strengthening protections (including updated crisis response behavior and parental controls). Coverage described it as a first-of-its-kind wrongful death case targeting the company's chatbot. The complaint was filed in California state court in San Francisco. In November 2025, the Social Media Victims Law Center and Tech Justice Law Project filed seven lawsuits against OpenAI, of which four lawsuits alleged wrongful death. The suits were filed on behalf of Zane Shamblin, 23, of Texas; Amaurie Lacey, 17, of Georgia; Joshua Enneking, 26, of Florida; and Joe Ceccanti, 48, of Oregon, who each committed suicide after prolonged ChatGPT usage. In December 2025, Stein-Erik Soelberg, who was 56 years old at the time, allegedly murdered his mother Suzanne Adams. In the months prior the paranoid, delusional man often discussed his ideas with ChatGPT. Adam's estate then sued OpenAI claiming that the company shared responsibility due to the risk of chatbot psychosis despite the fact that chatbot psychosis is not a real medical diagnosis. OpenAI responded saying they will make ChatGPT safer for users disconnected from reality. See also References Further reading External links |
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