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Mini Robots To Perform Surgeries On Astronauts In Space [VIDEO] Hands-Free Surgery Astronauts in space may need to learn how to perform emergency surgeries, with the help of mini robots The robot itself weighs 0.9 pounds, is the size of a fist, has two arms fitted with tools to hold, while its head is a small video camera. The camera feed is sent to a control station where a human surgeon can operate it using job sticks. But just how possible is it to operate the robot arms on Mars, from a control station on Earth? This question has lead NASA to the decision that they would train their astronauts to use the robot in emergencies to perform surgeries on each other. Right now they are testing the robot prototype on pigs, and its first zero gravity test will happen in the next few months. Join the Discussion
One who is skilled in the practice of accounting or who is in charge of public or private accounts. An accountant is responsible for reporting financial results, whether for a company or for an individual, in accordance with government and regulatory authority rules. Use accountant in a sentence Featured Advertiser trade date accounting on the side
James Connolly Revolutionary Song First published as the introduction to Songs of Freedom by Irish Authors, Dublin 1907. This little book of revolutionary songs is published for a twofold purpose. First, it is in response to the belief of the Editor that no revolutionary movement is complete without its poetical expression. If such a movement has caught hold of the imagination of the masses they will seek a vent in song for the aspirations, the fears and the hopes, the loves and the hatreds engendered by the struggle. Until the movement is marked by the joyous, defiant, singing of revolutionary songs, it lacks one of the most distinctive marks of a popular revolutionary movement, it is the dogma of a few, and not the faith of the multitude. In this belief this small bouquet of songs, culled from a very limited garden, is offered until some one with greater means shall present to the American Working Class a more suitable collection, drawn not from the store of one nation alone, but from the Socialist poetry of the World. The propagandist effect of such a volume of songs with their proper musical setting, would be simply incalculable. The second purpose of this volume may be readily guessed by a glance at its contents. It will be seen that every song herein contained was written by an Irishman. This is in no spirit of insularity, but rather is meant as an encouragement to other Irishmen and women, to take their part and do their share in the upbuilding of the revolutionary movement of the Working Class. Most of these songs were written in Ireland, by men actually engaged in the revolutionary struggle of their time, whatever ruggedness may attach to their numbers is due to the fact that they were born in the stress and strain of the fight, and not in the scholarly seclusion of the study. In conclusion, if this venture meets approval, we will carry our next into the field of recitative poetry, where a rich Irish harvest awaits the gleaner. Last updated on 11.8.2003
Artificial Intelligence Will Get Dumber as an Age of Improbability and Surprise Begins Posted by Dan Verhaeghe Number-crunching machines are great with numbers, naturally, and they are able to understand the exponential growth of technology. Futurist Ray Kurzweil, who was in Toronto last week, says that humans are terrible at seeing the future—mostly because we think linearly instead of exponentially. Humans are also terrible at thinking logically, according to Kurzweil. Very few people can think logically and exponentially, he argues. Kurzweil believes intuition is on the way out—but I argue against that in this post. explains intuitive learners this way: “Intuitive learners tend to focus more on the world of possibility. Unlike sensing learners who are interested in the here and now, intuitive learners enjoy considering ideas, possibilities, and potential outcomes. These learners like abstract thinking, daydreaming, and imagining the future.” Based on my technological knowledge, even without knowing a line of code, I can see how things would work in the future to an increasing degree. It’s called an imagination, but machines and mostly numerical-thinking people usually have less of one. Programming is also mostly mathematical and scientific so people who build the Internet think very numerically as well. That might be why Ray Kurzweil could not understand why young people understand technology so much better than older people. It’s because we grew up with technology, and in doing so we were able to learn its ways through more than just technology knowledge as it was in our hands. We could touch and feel it and as a result became intuitive as well with technology on a very powerful level. You could say we became “wired” unlike our parents. Every digital device we use also sparks different creativity much like every type of pen or pencil and artist picks up. Consider that the tech industry is largely dominated by men. Most men don’t use their intuitive abilities as much as women. Therefore they don’t feel the world around them as well, so like Kurzweil they rely on statistics, Moore’s Law, concrete evidence, and numbers. That’s one of the reasons why feminism will more likely prevail in the coming years in technology: because they’ll be able to intuitively see through the numbers artificial intelligence will be able to deliver on data generalizations easier than men. Forward-thinking machines are based on probability, but as you may have noticed with IBM’s Watson last year, they struggle with the improbable. My theory is that as the world becomes more technologically advanced, more intangibles that we can’t quite explain will occur, and thus machines won’t be able to adapt very well. An intangible or improbability might represent the increasing diversity of the way we think, feel, act, and are as an increasingly multicultural race. Technology is also adversely affecting what was once believed to be common psychology. That will only lead to more improbability which will probably mess up machines like Watson that can only understand the probable. You may remember Watson was never even close to being perfect. Just because a single machine could know the whole Internet may make it factually smarter than you, but you’ll still have an advantage when it comes to analyzing the facts and comparing it to human culture to see perhaps increasing deviations. That in turn will create an increasing element of surprise due to the increasing inaccuracy of artificial intelligence. That’s much like we see in survey marketing where it is only 95% accurate, or when sometimes we’re surprised by the end result in an election, for example. After all, you can’t really predict sports, and there aren't even that many rules compared to what governs the world. And it’s a constrained environment. Imagine trying to predict something much larger like a city, a province, a country, or the world on a daily basis. You would think the best team on paper would win all 82 games of an NHL season but they never do. So how can machines become smarter than man? I don’t believe that when we have more connected devices than the 13 billion neurons each human brain has will the singularity have been reached. That’s when an artificial intelligence entity will have the capacity to be a “super digital brain” more powerful than a human brain. I actually think it will go in the opposite direction for machines. I think the stats computers generate will actually eventually become less relevant with even more data to work with. That's because they will become increasingly general and especially as the connected device paradigm expands to tens of billions. We as humans will become increasingly diverse with more intangibles that machines can’t account for. And quantifying big data will only work for certain fields or subjects that are truly numerical and come into contact with little to no intangibles. blog comments powered by Disqus Dan Verhaeghe Dan Verhaeghe Who's Hiring Recent Comments Powered by Disqus
SUBSEQUENT TO HIS inauguration ceremony and parade, President Roosevelt chose to forego the traditional celebratory balls and begin work directly, an indication of the severity of the national economic crisis. FDR Inaugural Listen \| Text That afternoon, in unprecedented fashion, his cabinet was sworn in, unceremoniously, at the White House and the Roosevelt Administration was underway. Almost immediately there was a change in atmosphere and attitude at the White House and in Washington--there seemed to be a sense of motion, energy and determination. The next day, the president issued two proclamations, both of which he had brought with him to Washington. The first called Congress to meet in a special session on March 9; the second declared a four-day bank holiday to stabilize the economy while the administration developed legislation to address the banking crisis. Originally, Roosevelt had planned to pass the banking legislation and allow Congress to adjourn. But after observing the speed and ease with which the legislature acquiesced, the president decided to seize on the momentum provided by the banking victory and use it to drive through the next parts of his New Deal. After being approached by several cabinet members regarding agriculture and the government economy, Roosevelt decided to address farming and government spending and attack prohibition. And so the Hundred Days began. Roosevelt outlines the New Deal and reassures the nation For Roosevelt, the obvious place to start was agriculture. He insisted that a farm bill was an immediate necessity in order to "restore vitality to the demoralized farmers, without whose purchasing power industrial surpluses could never be reduced." (Biles, 36) Roosevelt sent Congress the farm relief bill on March 16, beginning his second week in office. Next, delivering on a promise made in his nomination acceptance speech, FDR sought to pay the unemployed to work on conservation projects, establishing the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), which provided work for 250,000 young men, ages 18-25. Almost immediately, CCC work camps began to appear and by its end in 1941, over two million had worked on its projects. The administration then proceeded to establish the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA), which would, doling out the $500 million appropriated it through grants and matching grants, help states establish their own relief projects. Contrary to Hoover's "help oneself" policies that focused on the private sector, Roosevelt wanted to "provide federal relief to as many people as soon as possible." (Watkins, 124) (click image to view) More Hundred Days cartoons Not only was the White House firing on all pistons, the traditionally separate cabinet agencies were working together with a new synergy, often co-implementing programs and working outside their fields of expertise. In the torrent of legislative activity that was the first one hundred days, the government, fighting charges of socialism, established the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) to bring hydro-electric power, soil conservation and flood control to seven southern states; addressed the home mortgage foreclosures which had caused Americans to lose homes at the rate of 1000 per day, helping the real estate and construction markets; abandoned the gold standard to avoid the gold runs from foreign nations and reign in inflation; and passed the National Industrial Recovery Act in order to stimulate industry and establish labor standards. (Among other laws not mentioned are the Farm Credit Act, the Railroad Coordination Act and the Glass-Steagall Act, which established the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). In the "Hundred Days," Roosevelt enjoyed an often-pliant Congress and a honeymoon with the press. By its end, he had passed 15 major laws, given 15 messages to Congress and 10 speeches, held press conferences and cabinet meetings twice a week and sponsored an international conference, made all major policy decisions, foreign and domestic, and, as Arthur Schlesinger notes, "never displayed fright or panic and rarely even bad temper." (21) When the smoke had cleared and the panic eased, critics and supporters alike had an opportunity to evaluate the first stage of the New Deal. There was something to please--and annoy--everyone. Some progressives felt that Roosevelt had not gone far enough and some conservatives feared government interference with industry and increased executive authority, but the urgency of the national crisis seemed to take precedence. While there was criticism of specific legislation, most were pleased that something was being done and Washington was in motion.
Using Moore’s Law to Predict Future Memory Trends In 1965 Gordon Moore came out with a law that says that the number of transistors that can be placed inexpensively on an integrated circuit doubles approximately every 18-24 months. Here’s a graph that demonstrates the law that has held true for over 50 years and is estimated to continue until at least 2015-2020. Similar laws that calculate technological trends… Drawing from Moore’s law, Mark Kryder in 2005 said that areal storage density doubles annually, a phenomenon that had come to be known as Kryder’s Law. In 1990, my computer had 4mb RAM with a 80-megabyte hard drive with Adobe Photoshop 3.0 (among other apps) and had room to spare. Nielsen’s law states that network connection speeds for high-end home users would increase 50% per year, or double every 21 months. Butter’s Law of Photonics says that the amount of data coming out of an optical fiber is doubling every nine months and so the cost of it decreases by half in the same time as well. Hendy’s law says that the number of pixels per dollar found in digital cameras will double every year. Barry Hendy of Kodak Australia plotted “pixels per dollar” as a basic measure of value for a digital camera and demonstrated the historical linearity of the trend of LCD screens, LED screens and resolution. So what will hard drive capacity be like in a decade? We could use moore’s law to predict future trends. The price of a 1-terabyte hard drive is $80 now, an improvement of 1 million times since the 40 megabyte drive of 1989, and 28 million times since IBM’S five-megabyte-drive in 1956 that cost $50,000. In 2013, a 2TB drive will be $80. In 2015, a 4TB drive will be $80. After that the doubling rate may lengthen to 3 years instead of 2 years so.. In 2018, an 8TB drive will be $80. And finally in 2021, for $80, you’d be able to buy a 16 terabyte hard drive.. What about RAM? A single 8GB stick of RAM is about $80 right now. In 2021, you’d be able to buy a single stick of RAM that contains 64GB for the same price. Bloat: The Great Moore’s Law Compensator aka Bloat In 1995, Niklaus Wirth came out with Wirth’s law, a computing adage that says software is getting slower more rapidly than hardware becomes faster due to bloat. A humorous variant came out of this called Gates’ Law, based on Bill Gates, due to Microsoft’s software getting more bloated year after year. Gates law: The speed of commercial software slows down by half every 18 months, thereby negating the benefits of Moore’s law. In 2008, Randal C. Kennedy, did performance tests between successive versions of Microsoft Office. He found that Office 2007, on a modern computer, took twice as longer to perform the same tasks than a year-2000 equivalent computer with Office 2000. I suppose if hard drive capacities didn’t increase, programmers would have been forced to code much more tightly and efficiently. Luckily, we have gigantic, fast hard drives. :)
leaves Next post: Can a word really be untranslatable? wolf Previous Post: 9 words you need to know to win the Game of Thrones railway track Word histories: conscious uncoupling Conscious is perhaps the less controversial word of the pair. A look through the Oxford Thesaurus of English brings up adjectives like aware, deliberate, intentional, and considered. But did you know that the earliest recorded use of conscious related only to misdeeds? The OED currently dates the word to 1573, with the definition ‘having awareness of one’s own wrongdoing, affected by a feeling of guilt’. This sense is now confined to literary contexts, but it was only a few decades before the general sense ‘having knowledge or awareness; able to perceive or experience something’ became common. The idea of it being used as an adjective referring to a deliberate action came later, in 1726, according to the OED’s current research. The verb uncouple has an intriguing history. The current earliest evidence in the OED dates to the early fourteenth century, where it means ‘to release (dogs) from being fastened together in couples; to set free for the chase’. Interestingly, this is found earlier than its opposite (‘to tie or fasten (dogs) together in pairs’), currently dated to c.1400 in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. In c.1386, in the hands of Chaucer and ‘The Monk’s Tale’, uncouple is given a figurative use: ‘He maked hym so konnyng and so sowple / That longe tyme it was er tirannye / Or any vice dorste on hym vncowple.’ The wider meaning ‘to unfasten, disconnect, detach’ arrives in the early sixteenth century, and that is where things rested for some centuries. The twentieth century saw another couple of uncouples – one of which is applicable to the Paltrow-Martins, and one of which refers to a very different field. In 1948, a biochemical use is first recorded – which the OED defines ‘to separate the processes of (phosphorylation) from those of oxidation’. But six years earlier, an American Thesaurus of Slang includes the word as a synonym for ‘to divorce’, and this forms the earliest example found in the OED sense defined as ‘to separate at the end of a relationship’. Other instances of uncouple meaning ‘to split up’ can be found in a 1977 Washington Post article and one from the Boston Globe in 1989. So, despite all the attention given to the term ‘conscious uncoupling’, people have been uncoupling in exactly the same way as Gwyneth and Chris – and using the same word – since at least 1942. So perhaps not quite as controversial as some commentators suggested.
The Conference Board, a global research association, made a splash with their 2011 global outlook. The group’s most interesting claims are that emerging markets will drive “global growth” and that China could pass the U.S. on one measure of economic size as early as 2012. The Conference Board is making two mistakes many observers make, and which the media gladly eats up. First, the Conference Board projects China could have a larger economy than America when adjusting for purchasing power parity (ppp). PPP is a way to account for different prices across countries. For example, most things are cheaper in China than the U.S., so a dollar’s worth of money, or 6.7 yuan, generally buys more in the PRC than the U.S. In that light, the dollar value of China’s GDP should be revised higher in comparison to America’s. For 2009, the World Bank has American GDP near $14.3 trillion and Chinese GDP at $9.1 trillion using ppp, where using normal GDP China was at $4.9 trillion. Moreover, China almost always revises GDP higher after the fact and boasts much faster growth than the U.S. It’s not going to pass the U.S. in 2012 but, in current ppp terms, it could get close. Hence the headline. Now the part headlines miss: prices change. What a dollar’s worth of money buys in the PRC is slipping. Chinese prices are rising faster than American prices, arguably much faster. The ppp comparison between the U.S. and China’s is going to change, making China’s economy look smaller. This has happened before. The last time the World Bank adjusted its ppp measurements, the ostensible size of the Chinese economy fell 40 percent. PPP has advantages but, as you move farther in time from the price measurements that give purchasing power across economies, ppp can tell a very inaccurate story. The Conference Board might have adjusted for prices changing over time but they gave no indication of having done so. More important: most commentators will not adjust for changing prices; they will take the current ppp measurement and run. That will in turn generate a lot of false claims that China’s economy is soon to be bigger than America’s. The second mistake the Conference Board made is already common: fast-growing economies drive global growth. That seems sensible but it gives fast-growing economies too much credit. Fast-growing economies may be helping everyone but they may be only helping themselves. In 2010, China will not add to the rest of the world’s GDP, its trade surplus means it will take almost $200 billion away from the rest of the world’s GDP. This is just a function of how GDP is counted. The PRC does contribute to the world economy in many ways but it is badly misleading to suggest that it is doing the most to help the rest of the world. China is raising the average of GDP growth among countries but doing so in part by continuing to drain GDP from the rest of the world. In terms of adding to the rest of the world’s GDP, even though we’re growing slowly, the U.S. remains by far the biggest contributor.
o How do I dig, divide and transplant my daylilies? Although there are different techniques used to divide daylilies, the goal is to separate the fans with as little damage as possible to the fan and it's roots. A tool is needed to pry or cut apart the fans at the base or crown. Many use a screwdriver, serrated bread knife or a hand saw. Some slice between them with a shovel, while others use two screwdrivers prying apart in opposite directions. It will be easier to see what you are doing if you cut back the foliage by at least half. This will also allow the newly divided and replanted fans to adjust more easily. Dig up the entire clump, including about 6 - 8 inches of soil surrounding the clump (many of the roots grow out from the center). Wash off as much dirt as possible. Find where the fans are connected at the crown of the plant - that is where you carefully cut or pry them apart. Some fans are not connected, you merely need to disentangle their roots. Breakage or cutting of some of the roots is inevitable, but try to preserve as much as possible. If a fan snaps off of the crown, the leaves will not grow new roots. But it is possible that the crown, if the roots are attached, will sprout new leaves. Replant each fan at least a foot apart. Dig a hole that will accomodate the roots, and make a mound in the hole so that the crown sits on the mound, just below ground level, and the roots spread out and down from the crown. Entered by Gardengail FAQ Page GardenWeb Home Page \| Forums \| Forum
High School Math Teachers Don’t Think Girls Can Do Math »« Local Conferency Goodness Stand Your Ground: White Men Only You already know about John McNeil, the black man in Georgia who was imprisoned for shooting a man who had just threatened his son with a knife. The afternoon of December 6th, 2005, Brian Epp showed up in John McNeil’s yard. McNeil’s son, La’Ron, testified that Epp threatened him with a knife, and La’Ron ran into the house to call his father on the phone. McNeil immediately called 911 for help, and when he arrived in his driveway, Epp was getting something from his own truck. John McNeil grabbed his handgun from the glove compartment, as Epp quickly approached him. McNeil fired a warning shot into the ground, trying to keep Epp back. As Epp kept coming towards him, he reached into his pocket, and John McNeil shot Brian Epp once in the head. A neighbor who witnessed the incident corroborated McNeil’s statements to the police, and John McNeil was not arrested. Georgia has a Stand Your Ground law, and John McNeil’s actions-defending his family against a threatening and violent intruder-were the classic Stand Your Ground case. A year later, John McNeil was on trial for murder, he was convicted and is now serving a life sentence in prison. The prosecutor received “anonymous” emails, including one discovered to be from Brian Epp’s widow, demanding the state try John McNeil. And the prosecutor gave in. Now meet Marissa Alexander, who is waiting to be sentenced to as much as 20 years in prison for aggravated assault. According to Marissa, she had an injunction for protection against her husband in place when this happened. Nonetheless, the judge dismissed her motion for immunity under stand your ground. “The law says you need to be in reasonable [fear] of deadly force at the time you’re using the force,” former prosecutor Jay Plotkin said. “She was in the garage away from the person. She claimed she was in fear and there was no indication this person was going to attack her or confront her.” Plotkin, who didn’t work on this particular case, said Marissa’s attorney still used the self-defense claim, but the jury didn’t buy it. Stand your ground laws depend on the shooter convincing someone else–sometimes an entire jury–that they have a right to be afraid in the situation in which they use deadly force. A black man had to ask for that right to be recognized. It was denied, even with this law in place. An abused woman had to ask for that right to be recognized. It was denied, even with this law in place. The systems that denied them that right have a well-documented history of unequally denying rights to people who share skin color and gender identity with these two. Given all that, who is this law actually for? 1. MichaelD says Damned if I know. Course I have a hard time understanding the need for handguns other concealable weapons in general… 2. D. C. Sessions says Given all that, who is this law actually for? I’ll take “rhetorical questions” for 20 to life, Stephanie. And in the not-so-rhetorical questions department, how are you feeling today? 3. says Oh, Valerie beat me to it! But seriously. Trans women of colour get killed on an appallingly regular basis. This past week we’ve had yet another (Paige Clay). If ANYONE had a damn good reason to feel her life was genuinely being threatened, it was CeCe. 4. says CeCe isn’t in a state with a stand your ground law, but if she had been, she would definitely not have been granted any immunity under it. That much is quite clear from how she’s been treated. 5. F says If you’re the “wrong” sort of human, it doesn’t matter whether there is an SYG law or not, or whether you were in mortal danger or not. If you’re the “right” flavor of human, it doesn’t much seem to matter if you approached another with murder in your heart and killed them. You may not need to even claim a defense if the system does it for you. 6. says I don’t think stand your ground even comes into play in these cases. Neither John McNeil nor Marissa Alexander reasonably had the option to flee. 7. Moe331 says @Ace of Sevens\-This are typical examples of what the stand your ground law is for. Why don’t you research the law for yourself than you will know what you are talking about! 8. says oops, didn’t notice the e-mail, but I think I’ve fairly well versed in the issue. Normally, you have a duty to try to disengage from the situation and can use force if this is impossible. SYG removes this requirement. I don’t think a duty to flee would have kicked in here. Leave a Reply
Advertisement Upgrade to remove ads saturated fatty acid a fatty acid with carbon chains that cannot absorb any more hydrogen atoms, found mainly in animal fats unsaturated fatty acid a fatty acid with carbon chains that can absorb additional hydrogen atoms a molecule that transports cholesterol from the liver to cells in the body (low density lipoprotein, also known as "bad cholesterol") a molecule that transports triacylglycerol from the liver to adipose tissue (very low density lipoprotein) a molecule that transports cholesterol from the body's cells to the liver (high density lipoprotein, also called "good cholesterol") subcutaneous adipose the fat located beneath the skin visceral adipose the fat located in the abdominal cavity around the internal organs high levels of fat in the blood the disease characterized by a loss of bone mass and density the disease that causes the softening and weakening of bones in children Please allow access to your computer’s microphone to use Voice Recording. Having trouble? Click here for help. We can’t access your microphone! Reload the page to try again! Press Cmd-0 to reset your zoom Press Ctrl-0 to reset your zoom Please upgrade Flash or install Chrome to use Voice Recording. For more help, see our troubleshooting page. Your microphone is muted For help fixing this issue, see this FAQ. Star this term You can study starred terms together NEW! Voice Recording Create Set
Wednesday, March 24, 2010 Zomia -- James Scott on highland peoples Scott makes use of the concept of "Zomia" to capture the highland peoples of Southeast Asia. One of the largest remaining nonstate space in the world ... is the vast expanse of uplands, variously termed the Southeast Asian ma s-si f and more recently, Zomia. This great mountain realm on the marches of mainland Southeast Asia, China, India, and Bangladesh sprawls across roughly 2.5 million square kilometers -- an area roughly the size of Europe. As one of the first scholars to identify the massif and its peoples as a single object of study, Jean Michaud has traced its extent: "From north to south, it includes southern and western Sichuan, all of Guizhou and Yunnan, western and northern Guangxi, western Guangdong, most of northern Burma with an adjacent segment of extreme [north]eastern India, the north and west of Thailand, practically all of Laos above the Mekong Valley, northern and central Vietnam along the Annam Cordillera, and the north and eastern fringes of Cambodia." (chapter 1) What is intriguing about this definition of space and social reality is that it is not defined by nation-state boundaries and jurisdiction, by linguistic groupings, or by ethnic and national identities. Scott emphasizes the enormous linguistic and ethnic variation that occurs across this expanse of space. "In the space of a hundred kilometers in the hills one can find more cultural variation--in language, dress, settlement pattern, ethnic identification, economic activity, and religious practices--than one would ever find in the lowland river valleys" (chapter 1; Kindle location 343). Virtually everything about these people's livelihoods, social organization, ideologies, and (more controverially) even their largely oral cultures, can be read as strategic positionings designed to keep the state at arm's length. (Kindle loc 26) The central plain of what would become Siam was, in the thirteenth century, a complex mix of Mon, Khmer, and Tai populations who were an "ethnicity-in-the-process-of-becoming" Siamese. (Kindle loc 1172) As I've suggested in treating Scott's other contributions to "peasant studies", Scott's work almost always takes the form of an imaginative re-framing of problems that we thought we had understood. But once looking at the facts from Scott's point of view, we find that the social phenomena are both more complex and perhaps more obscure than they initially appear to be.
Home > Aquarium Blog > Some Things You ‘Otter’ Know! Some Things You ‘Otter’ Know! Staci's avatar Conservation \| Education \| Mammals Tuesday, March 11, 2008 They’re undeniably entertaining, extremely resourceful, and have the densest fur of any animal on the planet! What animal am I talking about? Why, the sea otter (Enhydra lutris), of course! Back in December, Hugh introduced our readers to our family of three Southern sea otters that call the Aquarium home: Brook, Charlie, and Summer. I’d like to share a little more with you about sea otters, as well as how you can help these endangered animals make their way down the long road to recovery! A Brief History Back before they were hunted almost to extinction, sea otters could be found in many areas of the Northern Pacific from Japan all the way over to Alaska and down through Baja California. Man discovered the luxurious fur coat of the sea otter and almost wiped them out completely during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Fortunately, in 1911 the United States, Japan, Great Britain, and Russia signed the International Fur Seal Treaty, which made the sale of otter fur illegal. It is estimated that there were only about 1,000 – 2,000 animals left out of the original populations of several hundred thousand to more than a million! In California, the surviving Southern sea otter population consisted of only 20–30 animals. In 1972, sea otters were protected under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, and then in 1977 Southern sea otters were listed as a threatened species under the federal Endangered Species Act. Fur and Food Sea otters don’t have a thick layer of blubber like most marine mammals, so they have to rely on other adaptations to stay warm. The first of these we’ll talk about (again) is that beautiful fur coat! Amazingly, sea otters can have up to one million hairs per square inch. That’s the equivalent of ten human heads of hair! They will blow air into their fur, which creates a warm, insulating layer that helps them maintain their body temperature. The otter’s skin will stay almost completely dry underneath. It is imperative the animal keeps it’s coat immaculately clean in order to be able to thermoregulate properly. That’s why a large part of a sea otter’s day is spent grooming and cleaning their coat. Sea otters have an extremely fast metabolism, which is another way they maintain their body temperature. To fuel this metabolism, sea otters need to eat around 25% of their body weight every single day! For instance, a 100-pound sea otter would need to consume at least 25 pounds of food per day. These animals spend a large part of their day foraging for food, with their diet usually consisting of sea stars, sea urchins, clams, crabs, mussels, and whatever else they can get their paws on! They are extremely resourceful, even using rocks and shells as tools to aid them in breaking open the shells of their catch. The Bad News: Sea Otters Are Still Threatened Though sea otter populations are in the process of a very slow recovery, these animals still face numerous threats besides their natural predators. Sadly, humans pose the greatest threat to sea otters. Fertilizers and other contaminants are washed into the water from the land, containing chemicals and other things that can cause disease or death. Oil spills are extremely detrimental to otter populations because the oil coats the otter’s fur, making it impossible for the animal to stay warm. The otter ends up freezing to death or being poisoned from ingesting the oil while trying to clean its fur. Even animal waste (including flushed cat litter/feces) can contain parasites or bacteria that can cause illness and eventually death. The Good News: We Can Help Sea Otters! I hope you will join me in doing all we can to help sea otters. Even though their numbers are up slightly more than a few years ago, they’re still very vulnerable. Here are a few suggestions if you’d like to help: • Don’t over-fertilize or over-water your lawn, and limit or eliminate the use of pesticides. • Don’t flush cat feces or kitty litter! Domestic cats can carry the eggs of a parasite in their feces that can be fatal to sea otters. Even though the sewage may be treated, the eggs can still survive. • Clean up after your animals. Animal waste can cause disease, especially once it is washed into coastal waters. • Make sure you dispose of household chemicals and motor oil properly. Don’t pour chemicals down the sink or allow motor oil to be disposed of in a storm drain. • Support legislation protecting sea otter habitats, kelp forests, and marine preserves. • As always, reduce, re-use, and recycle! • Attention California residents! You can help sea otters when you file your state taxes. Just look for line 60, the CA Sea Otter Fund, and donate what you can. This fund supports the research and rehabilitation of California sea otters. Thank you for reading, and for all you do for the oceans! << Back Your Comments Have Something to Say? Leave a Comment! << Back
Vincennes, George Rogers Clark Memorial, Vincennes, Ind.Indiana Tourismcity, seat (1790) of Knox county, southwestern Indiana, U.S., on the Wabash River, 51 miles (82 km) north of Evansville. Indiana’s oldest city, Vincennes figured prominently in early American history from the time of its settlement (1702, or possibly earlier) by French traders on the site of an Indian village. A fort, one of a chain from Quebec to New Orleans, was erected by the French in 1732, and in 1736 the settlement around it was named for François-Marie Bissot, sieur de Vincennes, its commanding officer. Ceded to the British at the end of the French and Indian War (1763), the settlement was virtually self-governing until the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War and remained predominantly French in population and tradition for almost 100 years after that. A British force occupied the fort (renaming it Fort Sackville) for a brief period, but briefly in 1778 and finally in 1779 it was taken by American forces under George Rogers Clark. Clark’s victory at Vincennes, followed by the passage of the Northwest Ordinance (1787), brought an influx of settlers from Kentucky, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. From 1800 to 1813 Vincennes was the capital of Indiana Territory (commemorated by a state historic site). The Indiana Gazette, the first territorial newspaper, was published there in 1804 by Elihu Stout. At Vincennes, Governor (later President) William Henry Harrison negotiated several treaties with the Native Americans and launched the campaign that culminated in the Battle of Tippecanoe (November 1811). George Rogers Clark National Historical Park (1936, on the former site of the fort), Grouseland (1802–04; the Harrison mansion), and Vincennes University, a junior college founded in 1806, are among the many historic sites in the city. The Basilica of St. Francis Xavier (Old Cathedral), begun in 1826, is still in use. Fort Knox II, from which Harrison and his troops began the military excursion that ended at the Battle of Tippecanoe, is 3 miles (5 km) north of the city. The city is a commercial centre for an agricultural region (grains, soybeans, melons) and has some light industries, including the manufacture of wire, wood and paper products, and glass. Inc. 1856. Pop. (2000) 18,701; (2010) 18,423.
Friends of Malawi Welcome About Friends of MalawiMembershipGet InvolvedGrantsLearn About MalawiDiscussNewsLinksGift Shop Friends of Malawi > Learn About Malawi > About Malawian Culture > Food The staple food in Malawi is nsima (nsee -ma), which is a thick maize (corn) porridge. The porridge is molded into patties and served with either beans, meat, or vegetables in a tomoto-and-onion sauce, collectively called ndiwo (ndee 3 -wo). Malawians also eat rice, cassava, and potatoes, though rice is considered a luxury and potatoes are often used as ndiwo. Basically put, the keystone of any Malawian meal is starch in generous quantity, and the “relish” is sparse and only intended to add flavor. In fact, a Malawian fed only meat or vegetables is bound to leave the table feeling that he hasn’t eaten, regardless of how many times you fill his plate! Malawians consider food essential to hospitality and go out of their way to feed a guest, even if they have very little to offer. If it isn’t a regular meal time, they’ll get some nsima and ndiwo from the fire for the guest to have an early (or late) meal. If it’s dinner time, the guest is shown an extra courtesy by being served first, followed by the man of the house, then the women and finally the children. As nsima is eaten with the hands, everyone washes in a communal bowl before and after the meal. Once again, the guest washes first and so on. There is no shame in eating until you are full. In fact, guests will often be encouraged to eat more and then more again. Custom dictates that a guest be served so much food that he can’t finish everything on his plate! Malawi is an agricultural society. This means that in villages and cities alike fresh fruits, vegetables, meat, and eggs are plentiful. Processed foods (from cereal to cheese) are in more limited supply and are often more expensive than the same products in US grocery stores. Because foods are not widely imported, the availability of items depends on the growing season. Tomatoes, onions, bananas and a few varieties of greens are available year round. Other fruits and vegetables, such as pineapples, guavas, mangoes, papayas, tangerines, lemons, cucumbers, eggplants, carrots, green peppers, and cabbage are available dependant on the season and region. Foods that can be stored easily, such as peanuts, maize, and beans, can be purchased cheaply at harvest time, but increase in price as the year progresses. And some produce is imported— South Africa and Zimbabwe export grapes, strawberries, garlic, broccoli and cauliflower are sold outside import shops in the city, though at a considerable cost. Most villages have some form of restaurant. The most common commercial food is the “chippie” stand—a metal stand used to fry potatoes over a fire. Customers either purchase a small bag to go or eat directly off of the stand. Some villages even have a simple mud hut establishment that serves nsima and ndiwo (usually beans or roasted chicken) at very cheap prices. In the major cities ( Lilongwe , Blantyre and Mzuzu) one can find restaurants serving Lebanese, Korean, Italian and Indian food. Return to the top of the page \| News \| Links \| Gift Shop
The United States of Appalachia How Southern Mountaineers Brought Independence, Culture and Enlightenment to America “Jeff Biggers’s inspiring book should be a best seller immediately. It is a ‘how-to’ book—how to assert your fundamental rights and how to speak out in the manner of the American Revolution footsloggers, whose descendants they are. Read it and your faltering hopes will rise.” --Studs Terkel "A masterpiece of popular history...revelations abound.”—Citizens-Times, North Carolina "A rich narrative...a respectful ode.”—St. Louis Post-Dispatch "Biggers' book educates us as to just how biased and ignorant we really are about this region and its rich legacy of cultural, political, and intellectual pioneers...full of historical insights.”—San Antonio Express-News “Jeff Biggers opens a new window on the complex history of the region called Appalachia. He takes a hard but affectionate look at both the myths and the facts, and what he finds is by turns sobering and thrilling. Drawing on the contradictions, layers, and range of what is known as mountain culture, he shows that nothing is quite what it seems, and that to understand American history it is essential to know Appalachian history. Biggers tells his story with verve and vivid detail, a story that will at once provoke and inspire.”—Robert Morgan, author of Boone, Gap Creek
Who Invented Modern Ceramic Charcoal Cookers? Ceramic cookers as we know them today are descendants of a number of ancient cookers including the Indian tandoor and the Japanese mushikamado. Although they are loosely called "ceramic" cookers, different brands are made from a variety of materials. Big Green Egg cookers are made from ceramics. Komodo Kamado cookers are made from refractory materials. Imperial Kamado cookers are made from clay earthenware. Kamado cookers, until very recently, were made from portland cement and crushed lava rock. And much the same as modern ceramic charcoal cookers are loosely called "ceramic cookers", they are all also loosely called "kamado-style cookers." There is a misconception in some quarters that Richard Johnson, owner/founder of Kamado, invented the word "kamado". You can read about the actual history of this word at the Imperial Kamado website and at our webpage, The Word "Kamado". In actuality, the word "kamado" has been in use since perhaps 300 A.D. We doubt anyone alive today was around then to invent the word! But how did the modern ceramic cooker come to America? There is another common misconception that today's ceramic charcoal cookers were also invented by Richard Johnson. Kamado makes this claim in their advertising and in postings on their company's online forum. People often point to a patent he obtained, Des. 201,937 (or D201937) issued in 1965, as proof that he invented the modern ceramic charcoal cooker. So it is not hard to understand why many think he is indeed the original inventor. In fact, however, the patent that everyone refers to is actually nothing more than a design patent, not a utility patent. Note Design vs. Utility: An Example We asked our resident patent expert for an example of this difference between utility and design patents, and he provided the following: Someone at some point in history figured out that they can make a bottle out of glass by heating the glass and forming it into a bottle shape. They then applied for and were granted a utility patent on the glass bottle. They have invented the glass bottle. Later, someone named Coca Cola came along and came up with a distinctive shape for a glass bottle they wanted to use to sell a product. Coca Cola applied for and was granted a design patent to protect the shape of their bottle. It has nothing to do with the invention of the glass bottle; it just protects the appearance of their bottles so someone else, say Pepsi Cola, can't sell soda in a bottle just like theirs. (In fact, Coca Cola did apply for and was granted Design Patent No. 48,160 for the original design of their bottles. You can view it by clicking here.) the "Des." or "D" that precedes the patent number indicating that it is a design patent. (You can view a copy of Richard Johnson's design patent by clicking here). So what exactly is the difference between a utility patent and a design patent? It is a very important distinction, so let's take the time to explain: A utility patent is what everyone thinks of when they think of an inventor getting a patent for a new idea. It protects the basic idea behind an invention. The holder of a utility patent on a device is generally considered to be the inventor of that device. A design patent, on the other hand, merely protects the appearance of an item, not the function it performs. According to Wikipedia, The design patent issued to Richard Johnson only protected what his cookers looked like, but it did not grant him any rights to the design of the actual function of a ceramic charcoal cooker. Richard Johnson may have invented the appearance of his specific cooker, but Richard Johnson did not invent the ceramic charcoal cooker. So, who was awarded the utility patent for the first ceramic charcoal cooker? It turns out that two years before Richard Johnson was awarded his design patent, a man named Farhad Sazegar applied for a utility patent on the ceramic charcoal cooker. This patent, 3,276,440 (note that there is no "Des." or "D" preceeding the number), was issued in 1966. (You can view a copy of the actual utility patent issued to Farhad Sazegar by clicking here.) It is also interesting to note that Farhad Sazegar obtained a design patent on his cooker which also predates Richard Johnson's design patent by almost two months. (View Farhad Sazegar's design patent by clicking here.) So who is Farhad Sazegar? Well, he was a flight engineer for Flying Tigers back in the 1960's. His main route back then was to Japan where he first saw the ceramic cookers. He started importing the clay from Japan and designed and developed the cooker that he named the "Casa-Q". (You can see an example of a Casa-Q cooker in the photo at left.) He was awarded the actual utility patent for his cooker and soon after he started a manufacturing company called SAZCO. Farhad Sazegar also went on to design and patent many other products after the Casa-Q including a landing gear for Cessna, The American Pedicab, bicycle racks (Bike Rack Corporation), a ski rack and skateboard wheels (True Glide). So it turns out that we have a man named Farhad to thank for our present day ceramic charcoal cookers! All Contents ©2001, 2014 The Naked Whiz International Association of Fire Safety Science member #1604 The Original Big Green Egg Forum You can make donations to The Naked Whiz Website using Bitcoin! Scan the QR code at left or copy and paste our wallet ID:
Search OCA: Get Local! OCA News Sections Organic Consumers Association What If All US Dairies Were to Go Organic? • By Alexis Baden-Mayer Organic Consumers Association, January 25, 2010 The use of recombinant bovine growth hormone would come to an end and we would finally see a reduction in the cancer rates that rBGH is correlated with -- and a reduction in Eli Lilly’s bottom line. Routine, non-therapeutic antibiotic use would be cut drastically, damaging the profits of the pharmaceutical companies that manufacture antibiotics for the factory farm industry, and there would be fewer antibiotic-resistant infections. 500 billion pounds of manure that would otherwise be collected at factory farms, spread thickly on agricultural lands, runoff into our sewage system, and contaminate our land and water with pathogens and chemical residues, would instead be absorbed naturally into lush pastures that sequester carbon and filter ground water. Less non-organic feed would be grown, and cows would primarily forage on pasture. This would drastically reduce the acreage of field crops, most of which are fed to animals, that are genetically modified crops, drenched in herbicides and fertilized with synthetic chemicals or toxic sewage sludge. Instead, the land could be used to grow organic food for humans or be converted to pasture. (This would hurt Cargill, the largest feed company, and the other suppliers of grain to the dairy industry.) Dairies would likely get smaller, creating more ownership opportunities for small farmers and entrepreneurial opportunities in local processing and distribution. (This would reduce the market share and profits of massive agribusinesses like Dean Foods, the nation's largest milk company.) According to data compiled by the Organic Center, if each of the nation's 8.5 million milking dairy cows were fed organically they would require 6.3 acres each of land managed organically in producing the forages, feed grains, and protein supplements, for a total of 53.55 million acres of organic land. Assuming all of that land would otherwise be managed conventionally, this would save 2.7 billion pounds of synthetic nitrogen and 52.3 million pounds of pesticides. Obviously, this isn't what the manufacturers of genetically modified organisms, pesticides, fertilizers, antibiotics and genetically-engineered growth hormones have in mind. One way agribusiness is trying to minimize the impact of the organic revolution is by weakening organic standards. Right out of the gate, agribusiness, working with the Clinton administration's Islam Siddiqui (recently tapped by the Obama administration to leave his post at the pesticide lobby CropLife and return to government), tried to destroy organic by opening the standards up to toxic sludge, irradiation and genetic engineering. Once we beat them back, they adopted subtler methods. Most recently, the effort has been to weaken the dairy pasture requirement. This issue is coming to a head, as we go to press, and we urge you to CLICK HERE to learn more and take action: If organic dairy standards didn't require pasture, it would be very easy for the factory farm dairies to dabble in organic production. They could keep the cows in the feedlots, switch them to organically-grown feed and refrain from shooting them up with hormones and antibiotics. That's progress, certainly, but it's a far cry from the revolutionary change that organic could bring. Unfortunately, because of costs and convenience, the organic mega-dairies that have so far skirted full compliance with the pasture requirement would love to see their feedlot dairy practices enshrined in USDA regulations. The Cornucopia Institute is tracking their efforts to weaken organic dairy standards. They've got the latest in today's press release, "Organic Family Dairies Being Crushed by Rogue Factory Farms."
Making waste work Recycling in T&T... By Brian Allum Despite all the talk of the new "green economy" and the hype surrounding anything eco-friendly, the man on the street may still find it difficult to define recycling. Recycling is simply the repurposing of any waste material into a new product. On a very basic level, even when you turn an empty plastic bottle into a storage container at home you have recycled because you have given a waste product new life. A more sophisticated example is the use of old paper to manufacture new paper products. The benefits of recycling are numerous. When waste products are converted into new and useful forms it reduces our use of raw materials and therefore slows the destruction of our natural resources. Recycling can also be very cost-effective as it can be cheaper to manufacture a product from a waste input in certain instances. Are We There Yet? Recycling in Trinidad and Tobago Our perennial flooding problem and the vast number of plastic containers and other forms of refuse that surface at even the hint of rain should be enough to convince even the most removed observer that Trinidad and Tobago is nowhere near where it should be in terms of recycling. Successive governments have all sought to explain why this is so. It is true that Trinidad and Tobago has been blessed with an abundance of oil and the offshoot of this has had a major impact on our environmental footprint. The business of extracting this natural resource and turning it into revenue-producing streams is in itself a messy undertaking. Add to this the increased standard of living and access to consumer goods made possible by these same revenue flows and it is easy to see why Trinidad and Tobago has an excess of waste products to handle. In recognition of these challenges, the Government of Trinidad and Tobago established SWMCOL in 1980 to deal with the management of solid waste. Attempts to regulate and implement a system for recycling began as far back as the early eighties but never took off because of a general lack of interest and a lack of government incentives to stimulate this interest. In the early nineties a programme for the export of waste paper for the purpose of recycling was introduced by SWMCOL and marketed to commercial institutions such as banks, government ministries and schools. This initiative resulted in capturing a substantial amount of waste paper for recycling over time. Successive governments have also taken on the role of spreading public awareness on the evils of pollution. The "Charlie Campaign" of the 1980s was sustained for some time and sought to make citizens aware that littering was not acceptable. The most recent government campaign "Clean Up and Beautify" was undertaken by the current Prime Minister, Kamla Persad-Bissessar. However, these initiatives still appear to be sporadic when what is needed is a comprehensive and sustainable approach to recycling and its related issues. A series of patchwork recycling programmes stand testament to the inconsistent nature of T&T's approach to recycling. In the absence of a national stance on environmental policy our future looks grim. Recycling must be recognised as the fulcrum upon which a sound waste management system is built. It cannot be treated as an add-on project, which seems to be the prevailing approach. A Vision for Environmental Policy in T&T The trend in first world countries is to move towards an approach called Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) or Product Stewardship. This is based on the concept that the "polluter pays" by forcing manufacturers to think about what happens to their product after it is used. The manufacturer is mandated to include the cost of disposal into the cost of production. This creates an incentive to develop packaging that can be reused or recycled or initiatives to take back useless end products from consumers. The intention was to generate environmentally sound solutions as far as possible ahead of the waste stage, by thinking about how products will be disposed of when they are being manufactured and not just after they become useless. In pure EPR the customer pays nothing extra for recycling, although presumably those costs may be folded into the price of new products. Forcing manufacturers to take responsibility of used products is crucial, as that's where the incentive to reduce overall materials and toxins in their products becomes relevant. One of the most critical aspects of developing a robust recycling infrastructure in Trinidad and Tobago is around the regulation of companies that offer recycling services. It is imperative that government steps in to prevent individuals and companies from profiteering within the industry. All companies who offer recycling services must be properly certified and audited to ensure they are capable of handling the jobs they tender to do. To help the public recognise those who are certified from those who are not the government should develop and maintain a public database on all waste management/recycling companies. The database must detail all relevant certification, audit details and material handling capability of each individual company at a minimum. There is currently no comprehensive resource that details such information and the public is forced to rely on contacting companies themselves and are at the mercy of such companies for information and guidance which may not be entirely accurate or unbiased. A good example of this is the recycling of electronic waste or e-waste. Improper disposal of e-waste is detrimental to our national health through leeching of a number of toxins into our environment. Our nation's ratification status to the Basel Convention, with the Environmental Management Authority as the designated regulatory body, mandates that there should at least be some standard criteria or permit system for companies performing such operations. Yet any company can claim certification without a demonstrable and transparent process. There have been start and stop attempts of creating a comprehensive policy on the environment and recycling from as far back as the 1980s. The curse of oil and wealth has been used to explain every social ill from escalating crime to pollution, but how long can we sit back and accept this as our fate? Isn't it time our government delivers? Express Poll • Yes • No Featured News Headlines More Weather
WIC Glossary (click here to return to Educational Documents) Information source: University.Smartmoney.com Accounts payable - The money that a firm owes to others. Considered a current liability on a firms balance sheet. Accounts receivable - The money owed to a firm. Considered a current asset on a firm's balance sheet. Agency bonds - Bonds that are issued by a federal government agency or institution. They carry the highest credit rating (next to Treasuries) because if the federal government defaults on its debt, then we are in a whole other kind of trouble. They offer a slightly higher rate of interest than Treasuries since they have slightly higher risk, but they are still considered a safe, low return investment. Amortization - The accounting procedure used to write off so-called intangible assets (assets which do not have a real value, like brand names or patents) over the period of their existence. Its partner in crime is depreciation which allows firms to write off capital (property, plant and equipment) expenses. Arbitrage - The simultaneous buying and selling of a security at two different prices in two different markets. The arbitrageur makes money when there is a price discrepancy between the two prices. The differences are usually small, so large volumes are required for this to be profitable. These discrepancies do not stick around long because of efficient market theory, but there are gains to be made by the quick and the brave. Ask price - The price at which someone is willing to sell an asset. In the stock market, the ask price is the lowest price at which someone will sell their security. The counterpart is the bid price, which is the price that someone is willing to buy. The difference between them is known as the spread. Asset allocation - An investment technique which spreads one's money around to different types of investments in order to diversify, or spread out risk. The idea being that if one sector of the market tanks, your retirement fund is still sitting pretty. Balance sheet - A financial statement that lists a funds assets and liabilities as of a certain date. It shows a firm's financial position by stating what a firms owns (assets) and what it owes (liabilities). The difference between the two is shareholders' equity or book value. Remember on a balance sheet that: Assets = Liabilities + Shareholders' Equity In other words, someone always owns every asset that a firm has . . . be it a lender or a shareholder. Bankruptcy - A state of insolvency for a business or individual. In other words, make way for the repo man because you can't pay the bills. The United States Bankruptcy code is divided into different chapters that provide different kinds of relief. Some of them include forgiveness of debt in exchange for liquidation of assets, while others allow for a restructuring to repay the debts at a later date. Sometimes companies get so far into debt that the only way out is bankruptcy. Basis point - One one hundredth of one percent (0.01%). This is a handy way to say these small amounts. For example, you may hear on the news every six weeks that they Fed has raised or lowered interest rates by 50 basis points, that would be 0.5%. Total jargon, but it makes you sound like an economist. Bear market (Bearish) - A period where stock prices are declining for a prolonged period of time. Just think . . . a bear is scary, and so is a bear market. You are said to bearish if you are less than optimistic about the way that things are headed. Beta - A measure of volatility against a benchmark. If a security tracks its benchmark exactly, then it will have a beta of 1. If a stock has a beta of 1.25, then it should outperform the benchmark by 25% during growth and under-perform the benchmark during a decline. Generally speaking, the higher the beta, the more volatile the security. Without an R-squared, beta is meaningless because R-squared determines how much a investment's return is correlated to its benchmark. This is a tricky concept, but if you understand some basic regression analysis will take you a long way. Just think of it this way . . . you get a beta by regressing a security against the benchmark. BOOM! Bid price - The price that someone is willing to pay for a security or asset. In the stock market, the bid price is the highest price that someone will pay for that asset. The counterpart is the ask price which is the lowest price that someone is willing to sell a security. The difference between the two is the spread. Blue chips - Stocks which have a long-established record of profitability and paying dividends (most of them pay dividends, but not all). Blue chips are usually large, stable and well known like IBM, Phillip Morris and General Electric. Bonds - A debt instrument that pays a set amount of interest at regular intervals for a given period of time. If you buy a bond, you are essentially giving the issuer a loan that they repay with interest. There are numerous different kinds of bonds from a variety of issuers, each with its merits and setbacks. Bond brokers - Like a stock broker, except they deal you bonds. They call around and find the bond you want and then execute the transaction. They will usually charge a commission for their services or mark up the price. Bond dealers - Dealers are like clearinghouses, they maintain a stock of bonds that they sell to the general public or brokers. By dealing with a dealer, you may eliminate the commission because the dealer makes money by taking the difference between the bid and ask price for himself. Bond fund - A mutual fund that has a portfolio of diversified bonds. They run the gamut just like mutual funds in their focus, risk and return. The difference between a bond fund and holding your own portfolio of bonds is that funds are not obligated to make fixed interest payments, nor are they obligated to give you the principle back at a later date. Bond rating/Credit rating- An assessment of the likelihood of the issuer to pay the interest on its debt on time. There are numerous agencies that give ratings, such as Standard and Poors and Moody's. Ratings are from AAA to D (default). Bonds rated below B are called "junk." Because there is more risk, issuers with low credit ratings pay higher interest to attract investors. Bond ratings are also useful to tell how a company is doing. From time to time, you will read in the news that a credit ratter has reduced a firms debt to junk status. This can signal trouble at the firm since it means that they are most likely in a cash crunch. Bond yield - The interest that you actually ear on your investment. If you buy a new issue, then the yield is the coupon rate (the rate on the certificate) but if you buy and sell on the secondary markets, the yield will fluctuate. If yield increases, then the price of the bond has fallen. If yield falls, then market value has risen. Book value - The difference between a company's assets and liabilities. Book value is what would be left over for shareholders if the company was sold and its debts were all paid off. It is calculated by taking total assets and subtracting total liabilities and then dividing by the number of outstanding shares. Bottom fishing - Buying when (you believe) a stock price has bottomed out or is at extremely low levels. Bottom line - An accounting term for net profit or loss. It is the "bottom line" on a company's earnings report. Broker/Brokerage firm - A person or organization who gives advice about investments and then executes the trades for you. There are both full-service brokerages and discount brokerages. The differences are that full-service brokerages generally give you more advice and look at your overall strategy, while discount brokers generally just execute the trades. Both charge commission, but discount brokers are cheaper than full service. Online trading companies are a type of discount brokerage. Bull market (Bullish) - A period where stock prices are rising for a prolonged period of time. Bulls go charging forward, just like stock prices in a bull market. If you are optimistic about the market, you are generally said to be bullish. It's a good word to use on the golf course or at dinner parties . . . "Well, I'm rather bullish on Cisco." Call - A bond issuer may include a clause in the bond that gives him or her the option to redeem the bond before its maturity date. This happens when interest rates have fallen significantly since the bond was issued and it would make more sense to issue new bonds at a lower rate rather than continue to pay interest on the original issue. Call option - A financial instrument that gives an investor the right, but NOT the obligation to buy at a specified price during a specified time period. A call option is what is known as a future. The person writing the call is betting that the price of the asset will be less than the option so that the holder will allow the option to lapse without purchasing the shares. In that case, he or she keeps the shares and the money they received for selling the option. However, if the price of the option is lower than the trading price of the asset at the time when the option is due, then they are obligated to sell the shares at the lower price. Capital asset - An asset that is held by a firm for more than a year and is not bought or sold normally. Capital assets usually include property, plant, and major equipment. These items are depreciated on the firm's balance sheet. Capital gain/loss - Profit or loss realized from the sale of securities or an asset. Capital gains are subject to taxes from Old Uncle Sam. If the asset was held for less than 12 months, it will be taxed at your income tax rate. However, assets held longer than a year are taxed a maximum rate of 20%. See your neighborhood accountant for more details. Certificate of Deposit (CD) - No, this is not something that contains Brittney Spears' latest single . . . it's that thing that Granny gave you when you were a wee tike to pay for College (yeah right). Anyway, a Certificate of Deposit is an instrument similar to a savings account, except there are limits to when you can withdraw the money. They pay better interest rates than a savings account because the money is locked for a set period of time. These are really guaranteed return . . . you get back the principle, plus interest at the agreed date. However, don't be fooled into thinking that these are the next best thing. The returns are still low, and if they are left no deposit for too long, any gains may be wiped out by inflation. Closed-end fund - A type of mutual fund that issues a set number of shares that are traded on a stock exchange. Unlike the more traditional open-ended funds, where the share price is directly determined by the value of the assets that fund holds, closed end funds are priced based on supply and demand. So, for the non-Econ among us, that means that if people perceive this fund to have strong assets, it will be more desirable and the price will rise. The opposite is true if they think it is crap. Closing price - Watch a financial network at the end of the trading day (4:00 PM Eastern) and you will see the day coming to a close. Well, the price of a stock when the market closes . . . you guessed it . . . is the closing price. Commodities - Sell porkbellies, buy gold. Buy wheat, sell corn. These are some examples of commodities, which are sold in bulk. They are either sold on the spot market for immediate delivery (I want my hogs now dammit) or on the exchanges for future delivery. Commodities futures are a big business. A future (you'll see this again under "F") is when two parties sign a contract where one party will deliver certain items (like cotton) in the future for a price agreed upon now. One of the more famous commodities exchanges is the Mercantile Exchange in the Windy City of Chicago. Common stock - Another name for the lower class in Victorian England. Ha! No really it's a certificate representing part ownership in a company. Common stock holders have voting rights in the company, but have no guarantee of dividend payments. Also, if the company goes bust, they are last in line to get their money back. Don't feel bad though, most people have common stock. And hopefully you will have sense to unload your stock before the company goes belly-up. Consumer price index (CPI) - The most looked-at gauge of inflation. The CPI is calculated by finding out the value of a set basket of goods (set by the Commerce Department) and then tracking changes in the overall price of the basket over time. The Bureau of Labor Statistics adjusts the basket as needed, but only occasionally adjusts the base year. The current base period is from 1993-1995. Corporate bonds - A debt instrument issued by a public or private corporation. Companies that issue bonds are rated by a credit rating agency. This rating is an assessment that tells you how likely the issuer is to repay their bonds. Corporate bonds are generally viewed as safer investments than stock because they pay fixed interest and the principle should be returned. However, a company with a lot of debt may receive a lower credit rating, which will make it difficult to sell the bond if you want to. Corporation - A business entity that is treated as a person in the eyes of the law. A corporation can own assets and have liabilities. More importantly they pay taxes. A corporate organization for a business means that there are a shareholders with a stake depending on how much they invested. Depending on the size of your stake, you have more of a say in the matters of the company. Companies have annual meetings where shareholders get to vote on various matters. Because corporations can be SO large, the shareholders will appoint directors to the Board to handle the operations of the company. The Board will then in turn hire managers to run the day to day operations. There are many various on this theme, so ask an accountant if you are interested. Coupon rate - The interest rate on a bond when it is issued. It's called the coupon rate because it is printed on the coupon. When bonds are bought and sold on the secondary markets, the actual yield of a bond can vary. Current assets - Assets that are relatively liquid and can be converted to cash in 12 months. Some current assets that a company might have are cash, marketable securities (stocks), accounts receivable, and inventory. Current liabilities - Obligations owed within 12 months. Some examples are accounts payable, short-term debt, and interest payment due on long-term debt. Current ratio - Current assets divided by current liabilities. What does that tell you? Well, that gives an idea of a company's liquidity. If every one of their current obligations (vendors, creditors, etc.) showed up and said, "where's our money?" could they cut a check? If the current ratio is greater than one, then yes, they could. Debenture - A common type of corporate bond, these are not backed with any asset, simply the credit quality of the issuer. Since there is no collateral, these bonds are higher risk, but that means higher returns. If a company of high quality issues a debenture, they may still be highly rated. Debt - Securities that indicate a firm's intention to repay at a later date. This can be bonds, notes, loans, etc. There is much debate about the right amount of debt for a firm to take on . . . too much debt can unnecessarily burden the firm in tough financial times, but too little debt can limit growth. Debt-to-equity ratio - This is a measure of a firm's financial "leverage." It is calculated by dividing long-term debt by shareholders' equity. The higher the ratio, the greater the chance the firm will be unable to repay all that debt in the future. But, the right amount of leverage, can boost growth. Default (on debt) - Failure to pay the principle or interest on a debt security. Owners of a bond that is in default can usually make claims against the the issuers assets to get back their investment. A default generally does not mean that an investor loses his or her entire investment. There are a number of things that can happen if an issuer defaults on debt, but generally the investor will get a percentage of the face value of the bond. An interesting side note: several years ago the state of Washington decided to default on bonds that it had issued. The Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional for a government entity to default on its debt and ordered that the State resume payment to the bond holders. Depreciation - A non-cash charge on a firms financial statements that represents the reduction in value of assets due to wear, age, or obsolescence. Hard assets (property, plant, and equipment) depreciate in value over time and must eventually be replaced. Accountants will write off these assets over the estimated useful life of the asset. Because depreciation appears on the income statement, some analysts prefer to use cash flows as it backs depreciation out of net income. Derivative - A security whose value is "derived" from the performance or movement of another financial security, index, or other investment. Some examples are futures and options. Discount bond - A bond that sells at a current market price that is less than its face value. Bonds sell at a discount when the coupon rate is lower than the prevailing rates. Discount rate - The interest rate that the Federal Reserve charges its member banks for loans. This rate influences the rates that those financial institutions then charge their customers. This is one tool that the Fed uses to influence monetary policy. This rate affects the stock market as it provides a clue as to interest rate trends. Diversification - Spreading your money around to different securities in order to protect yourself from market volatility. This does not mean simply buying different stocks in different sectors (although that is a part of it) it also means having different financial instruments in your portfolio in case one type goes sour. Dividends - A portion of a company's net income that is paid to shareholders as a return on their investment. Dividends are declared or suspended at the discretion of the company's board of directors. The decision of a board to suspend dividends may signal tough times ahead for a company, while the decision to increase the dividend means that happy days are here. Dividends are nice because they give you cash-money in your hands for your investment. The downside is that they are taxed as income. Dividend yield - A company's annual dividend expressed as a percentage of its current stock price. As stock price declines, dividend yield goes up. Some investors see high yield as a sign that a stock is cheaply priced. Dollar-cost averaging - A strategy to invest fixed amounts of money in securities at regular intervals regardless of the markets' movements. The purpose of this strategy is to diversify your investment over time. You get an average cost of a security that drives the overall cost down rather than simply plunking down all your money at once. Dow Jones - There are four averages calculated by Dow Jones that that track price changes in various sectors. The one most commonly referred to is the Dow Jones Industrial Average. This tracks the price changes of the 30 largest companies. While it used to be only industrials, it now includes a wide range including software giant Microsoft, chip manufacturer Intel, and McDonalds. Earnings - The amount of profit that a company realizes after all costs, non-cash expenses, and taxes have been paid. Earnings are the measure of value. The market rewards both fast and stable growth of earnings. Sometimes you will hear earnings referred to as profit or net income as well. Earnings growth - The percentage change in a firm's quarterly earnings per share versus the same period from the previous year. To gauge how successful a company is, compare its earnings growth to other firms in the same industry. Earnings per share (EPS) - The portion of a company's earnings allocated to each outstanding share of stock. This can be useful to compare companies within an industry if one firm is massive compared to its competition. EBITDA - Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization. This is also known as operating cash flow. This gives you a raw idea of a company's expenses related to its revenues. It can be useful for comparison. Equity - Ownership interest possessed by shareholders in a corporation. This is what a stock is. It is the portion of a company's net worth that belongs to shareholders. Extraordinary items - A non-recurring event that must be explained to shareholders in annual or quarterly reports. A company may cite extraordinary items if its earnings are off for a particular quarter or year due to something out of the ordinary, like a merger, lawsuit, or unanticipated tax charges or benefits. These items can make earnings look better or worse than they really are, so be careful. Face value - The value a bond has printed on its face, usually $1,000. It represents the amount of principle due at maturity. Due to changing interest rates, the actual market value of the bond may fluctuate. Federal Funds Rate - The interest rate that banks charge each other for the use of federal funds. If banks need an overnight loan to meet the Federal Reserve's reserve requirements, they will get a loan from another bank at the Federal Funds Rate. This rate changes daily and is the most sensitive indicator of general interest rate trends. The rate is not set directly by the Fed, but fluctuates in response to supply and demand for funds. Federal Reserve - The central bank of the United States that sets monetary policy. The Federal Reserve oversees the money supply, interest rates, and credit with the goal of keeping the United States economy and currency stable. Fiscal year - The twelve-month period that a firm or government uses for its bookkeeping purposes. A company's fiscal year can be the same as the calendar year, but it does not have to be. The abbreviation that you will often see is FY. Fixed assets - Tangible property used in the operation of a business but not expected to be consumed or converted into cash in the ordinary course of events. This is generally a firms property, plant, and equipment. Foreign exchange - Market in which foreign currencies are bought and sold and exchange rates between currencies are determined. The exchange rate is the price at which one country's currency can be converted into another. Fundamental analysis - Fundamental analysis asserts that a stock's price is determined by the future course of its earnings and dividends. If you are using this, you will look at a firm's financial statements and its competitive position within the industry to determine the intrinsic value of a stock's underlying business. If this intrinsic value is greater than the price of the stock, the stock is said to be undervalued and has greater earnings potential than the price indicates and it should be bought. Futures - An agreement to buy or sell a set amount of a commodity or security at a designated price at a designated time in the future. This differs from an option as an option is the right to buy or sell, where as a future requires that the commodity (like wheat or corn) is actually delivered. A future is a kind of derivative. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) - Guidelines that determine what should be done in particular accounting situations. It is supposed to make firms easier to analyze and to make their books more transparent for investors. Goodwill - An accounting term. Any advantage (like a brand name or symbol) than enables a business to earn better profits than its competitors. During acquisition, goodwill is the amount that the buyer is willing to pay for the firm over the liquidation value of its assets for this advantage. The purchaser then writes off this goodwill over a period of time (up to 40 years) through amortization. The biggest example of goodwill in recent history was Ford's purchase of Jaguar. They paid an incredible sum for the brand name, as the Jaguar factory in England was worth very little (mostly antique equipment). Gross Domestic Product (GDP) - The total value of all goods and services produced by a nation. GDP is made up of consumer and government purchases, private domestic investments, and net exports of goods and services. It is a measure of national output and is used to determine whether the economy is in a state of expansion or recession. Hard asset - Known also as a tangible asset. This is an assets which has an intrinsic value such as a factory, a mine, or even a work of art. The opposite is an intangible asset which has a value that cannot be measure by physical properties, such as a copyright. Hedging - A strategy designed to reduce investment risk using call options, put options, short selling, or futures contracts. A hedge can help lock in existing profits. Illiquid - An asset not readily convertible to cash. Incentive stock option - A compensation plan that gives executives the right to purchase stock at a specified price during a specific period of time. The options are free of tax when they are granted and when they are exercised. Index - A composite of securities (stocks, bonds, etc.) selected to represent a specific market, industry or asset class. Investors use these composites to measure the overall health of specific markets and as benchmarks of comparison. Index fund - An index fund that seeks to produce the same return that investors would get if they owned all the securities in a particular index. Individual retirement account (IRA) - A tax-deffered retirement plan that can help build a "nest egg." Individuals can contribute $2,000 and married couples up to $4,000 annually. The contributions grow tax deferred until withdrawal (at age 59 and 1/2) when they are subject to income taxes. The theory is that when you are that old you will be at a lower marginal tax rate and pay less. There are variations on this theme such as the Roth IRA discussed later. Inflation - The rate at which the general level of prices for goods and services is rising. Inflation is measured by the Consumer Price index. You need to keep the rate of inflation in mind when investing because it has the ability to erode your gains. If your investment (savings account for example) is growing at 2%, but inflation is 3%, then your net investment is -1%. Initial public offering (IPO) - The first time that a company issues its stock to the public. In the lingo, this is "going public." A company may decide to go public in order to raise capital for a large project. Insider trading - On one hand, it refers to legal trading of company securities by corporate officers based on information available to the public. On the other hand, it refers to the illegal trading of securities based on information not available to the public, such as a tip from from a friend inside the company to buy or sell based on upcoming news. Intangible assets - Assets that have no physical substance, such as a patent. They are, thus, subject to some accounting manipulation. Generally accepted accounting principles require that these assets be amortized over 40 years. Interest rate - The rate of interest charged for the use of money, usually expressed as an annual rate. Interest rates are quoted on bills, bonds, notes, credit cards, and all kinds of loans. Rates in general reflect the Federal Funds Rate targeted by the Federal Reserve. A rise in interest rates has a negative effect on the stock market because investors can get more competitive returns from buying newly issued bonds instead of stocks, and vice-versa for interest rate cuts. Internal rate of return - An accounting term for the rate of return on an asset. It is the discount rate on an investment that equates the present value of its cash outflows to the present value of its cash inflows. Intrinsic value - The underlying value of a business separate from its market value or stock price. In fundamental analysis, the analyst will take into account both quantitative and qualitative aspects of a company's performance. The quantitative aspect is the use of financial ratios such as earnings, revenue, etc., while the qualitative perspective involves consideration of the company's market strength. This information is used to make a prediction about the future earnings and prospects for growth for the company to arrive at the intrinsic value of the shares. This is then compared to the market value of the stock to determine if it is undervalued or overvalued. Inventory - The monetary value of a company's raw materials, work in progress, supplies used in operations, and finished goods. Excess inventory on a company's balance sheet could indicate a slowdown in sales and lack of pricing power. Inventory turnover - For a company, the ratio of annual sales to inventory; or, the fraction of that year that an item remains in inventory. Both give the same result. Low turnover is a sign of inefficiency, since inventory usually has a zero rate of return. Investment bank - A firm that helps take companies public or helps them to issue new shares of stock. An investment bank purchases the new shares from the issuer and then distributes them to dealers an investors, profiting on the spread between the purchase price and the offering price. Most investment banks also have brokerage houses attached to them, and offer other financial services. As a result of banking deregulation, commercial banks (your local bank where you have your checking account) and investment banks were permitted to merge. This has led to a number of problems where banks would offer perks to companies and executive (like loans with favorable rates) to try to win investment banking business. Leading economic indicators - A composite of eleven economic indicators that forecast likely changes in the economy, compiled by the Conference Board. The components are: Leverage - The degree to which a company is using borrowed money. It is measured by the debt to equity ratio, calculated by dividing long-term debt by stockholders equity from the company's balance sheet. The more long-term debt, the greater the leverage and the greater the risk that a company will have to default. However, leverage also helps boost profits for a company, so it is really about finding the right mix between the two. Liabilities - The financial claims against a company. They include accounts payable, wages and salaries, dividends, taxes, and debt obligations. Limit order - The order to buy or sell a stock at a specified price or better. The broker is instructed only to execute the trade within the price restriction given by the investor. Using a limit order provides the investor more control than a market order, which will tells the broker to buy or sell at any price. Liquidation - The process of converting stock or other assets into cash. When a company goes bankrupt (one bankruptcy option, or chapter of the bankruptcy code requires liquidation of a company's assets to meet obligations) and has to be liquidated the cash obtained from selling the assets is used first to pay bondholders and holders of preferred stock. Whatever is left, if any, is distributed to holders of common stock. Liquidity - The ease with which an asset can be converted to cash without creating a substantial change in price or value. Load fund - A mutual fund that charges a sales commission, as opposed to a no-load fund, which does not levy a fee when you buy or sell. To compensate brokers, load funds usually charge either a front-end sales commission when you buy the fund, or a back-end sales commission when you sell. Long-term debt - Debt that must be paid in one year or more. There are a number of types of long term debt, such as bonds, bank loans, and debentures. Margin - To buy on margin means to borrow money to do so from the broker. The margin is the amount that you must deposit in order to borrow. Buying on margin is risky as you run the risk of losing the money you deposited, but also the money you borrowed. People buying on margin was in part responsible for the stock market crash in 1929. Market capitalization - The total market value of a company or stock. It is calculated by multiplying the number of outstanding shares by their current price. Investors generally divide the U.S. market into three basic categories: large cap, mid cap, and small cap, based on a firm's market capitalization. Market order - A market order is an order to buy or sell a stock at the going price at the time of the transaction. You have no control over the price that you will pay, but you do at least know that you will get the shares if they are available. Maturity date - The date that a bond comes due and the principle is paid back in full. The further away the maturity date, the greater the risk that the issuer will default, so the interest rates are higher. Additionally, interest rates are higher due to uncertainty about interest rates in the future (you might be exposed to inflation). Merger - When two or more existing companies come together to form one company. This is usually done through pooling of common stock, a direct cash payment, or some combination of both. Monetary policy - The regulation of the money supply and interest rates by a control bank (in the United States that is the Federal Reserve) in order to control price levels and stabilize the currency. The Fed in the United States will remove money from the banking system when the economy is growing too quickly, and can add money to the system when it wants to stimulate growth. This is the most common tool of monetary policy, and what is most widely discussed in the papers after the Fed meets every six weeks. Money-market account - A federally insured account available at many banks that is liquid, because you can write checks on them, but earns interest through investment in short term securities. Still, the accounts have a low rate of interest, so you have to be careful of inflation. Municipal bond - Bonds issued by local authorities, including states, cities, and local government agencies. Mutual fund - An investment company pools money from a number of different investors in order to buy large quantities of securities. The main benefits of purchasing a mutual fund are that it is professionally managed, and because your money is pooled with that of other investors, it can be diversified very effectively. The managers, however, collect a fee for their services. There are two types of funds, open ended and closed ended. An open-end fund will issue new shares when investors put in money and redeem shares when investors withdraw money. The price of a share is determined by dividing the total net assets of the fund by the number of shares outstanding. Closed-end funds issue a fixed number of shares in an initial public offering, trading thereafter in the open market. Open-end funds are the most common type of mutual fund. NASDAQ - An electronic stock market, meaning that brokers get price quotes through a computer network, and trade via that network rather than in person like the New York Stock Exchange where the traders directly interact on the trading floor. This system is often referred to as an over-the-counter market. The NASDAQ has risen to prominence as many of the stocks listed on that exchange are technology-related. NASDAQ Composite Index - An index that covers the price movements of all stocks traded on NASDAQ. Net asset value - Net asset value is also known as the price per share, or the value of a fund's assets divided by the number of its outstanding shares. Net income - The so-called "bottom line," the profit that a company has after paying all expenses, dividends, and taxes. Net income is not the end all be all of evaluating a company, as it can be manipulated by company management, as we saw with Enron. Net income is also referred to as profit or earnings. Net margin - Calculated by dividing net income by revenue and multiplying by 100, to express the number as a percentage. This number is usually used to comparing operating efficiency between companies. New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) - The building that gave Wall Street its fame, this is the oldest stock exchange in the United States. This is where many of the largest companies in America are listed. When people talk about the Big Board, this is what they are referring to. Open-end mutual fund - A type of mutual fund that issues as many shares as investors demand. The share price is determined by dividing the total assets of the fund by the number of shares outstanding. Most mutual funds follow this model. Operating income - A measure of a company's earning power from ongoing operations. This is found by subtracting cost from revenue, but not interest paid, dividends, or taxes. For companies that have high levels of debt payments, this figure may be cited to show how the company is performing. Operating margin - Profitability after all operating costs have been paid, found by dividing cash flow by revenue and then multiplying by 100. This is a good indication of a company's profitability, because it is calculated before the accountants can use depreciation and amortization accounting procedures to distort a company's financial position. Option - An agreement that gives an investor the right, but not the obligation, to buy or sell securities at some specific point in the future for a price that is determined now. A call option is an option to buy, and a put is an option to sell. Options have an expiration date, and if not exercised by that time, they are void, and the holder loses the amount that (s)he paid to purchase the option. Par value - The face value of a bond. This is the amount that is due to the holder at the date of maturity. The actual market value of the bond may differ, depending on prevailing interest rates. Payout ratio - The percentage of a company's earnings paid to shareholders as dividends. To calculate, divide the quarterly dividend by the quarterly earnings-per-share and multiply by 100. Penny stocks - While many penny stocks have a share price lower than $1, the term is used loosely for stocks with a share price less than $5. These companies are generally highly speculative, but an investor can win big. Portfolio - A collection of securities owned by an investor. The thinking is that a portfolio includes a variety of financial instruments (stocks, bonds, cash to name a few) in order to diversify risk. Preferred stock - A share of stock that pays dividends at a special rate, and that have preference in the payment of dividends over common stock. If the company is forced into liquidation, preferred stock holders are higher than common stockholders, and thus are slightly more likely to get some of the proceeds of the liquidation (this is still, however, highly unlikely). Premium bond - A bond that sells at a higher price than its face value. Bonds will sell at a premium when the prevailing interest rate is lower than the rate on the bond. Price-to-book ratio - Stock price divided by it's per share book value. Price-to-earnings-growth ratio (PEG) - The PEG ratio (price-to-earnings-growth) is calculated by dividing a stock's forward P/E by its projected three to five year annual earnings-per-share growth rate. Generally speaking, the higher the PEG, the pricier the stock. Price-to-earnings ratio (P/E) - A ratio to evaluate a stock's worth. It is calculated by dividing the stock's price by an earnings-per-share figure. If calculated with the past year's earnings, it is called the trailing P/E. If calculated with an analyst's forecast for next year's earnings, it is called a forward P/E. Price-to-sales ration (P/S) - The ratio of a stock's latest closing price divided by revenue per share. (Sales are the same thing as revenues.) Revenue per share is determined by dividing revenue for the past 12 months by the number of shares outstanding. This ratio is particularly useful for companies that have little or no earnings. Prime rate - The interest rate banks charge their most creditworthy commercial customers. Banks use the prime as a base to set rates for credit cards, home-equity loans and other loans, including loans to small and medium-size businesses. The rate is determined by general trends in interest rates. Normally, the prime rate will move in steps and then remain constant until a major rate change has been made. This usually happens when the Federal Reserve makes major changes in monetary policy. Principle - The face value or par value of a bond. It represents the amount of money you are owed when a bond reaches its maturity. Profit - The earnings a company realizes after all costs, expenses and taxes have been paid. It is calculated by subtracting business, depreciation, interest and tax costs from revenues. Profit is the supreme measure of value as far as the market is concerned. Profit is also called earnings or net income. Profit margin - A measure of a company's profitability, cost structure and efficiency, calculated by dividing earnings or cash flow by revenue. There are four basic types of profit margin: gross, operating, pre-tax and net. Net margin is the one investors pay the most attention to. It shows a company's profitability after all costs, expenses and taxes have been paid. The net margin is calculated by dividing earnings by revenue and then multiplying by 100. Margins are particularly helpful since they can be used to compare profitability among many companies. Pro-forma results - A projection of a financial statement that shows how the actual statement would look under certain conditions. Many companies that rose and fell in the dot com bubble reported pro-forma results, rather than their actual results. Prospectus - A formal, written offer to sell securities that sets forth the plan for a proposed or existing business. The prospectus must be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission and given to prospective buyers. A prospectus includes information on a company's finances, risks, products, services and management. Prospectuses are also used by mutual funds to describe the fund objectives, risks, fees and other essential information. Proxy - A proxy is the authorization or power of attorney, signed by a stockholder assigning the right to vote their shares to another party. A company's management mails proxy statements to registered stockholders prior to the annual shareholder meetings. The statement contains a brief explanation of proposed management-sponsored voting items, along with the opportunity to vote for or against each individual issue or transfer the right to vote to company management or another party. Proxy statement - Information that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) requires must be provided to shareholders before they vote by proxy on company matters. The statement contains proposed members of the board of directors, inside directors’ salaries and any resolutions of minority stockholders or management. Put option - An agreement that gives an investor the right, but not the obligation, to sell a stock, bond, commodity or other instrument at a specified price within a specific time period. Qualitative analysis - Qualitative analysis is security analysis that uses subjective judgment in evaluating securities based on non-financial information such as management expertise, cyclicality of industry, strength of research and development, and labor relations. Quantitative analysis - A research technique that deals with measurable values as distinguished from such qualitative factors as the character of management or labor relations. Quantitative analysis uses financial information derived from company balance sheets and income statements to make investment decisions. Examples of quantitative analysis include a review of company financial ratios, the cost of capital, asset valuation, and sales and earnings trends. Although quantitative and qualitative analysis are distinct, they must be used together to arrive at sound financial judgments. Recession - A downturn in economic activity, broadly defined by many economists as at least two consecutive quarters of decline in a nation's gross domestic product (GDP). Return on assets (ROA) - The rate of investment return a company earns on its assets. An indicator of profitability, ROA is determined by dividing net income from the past 12 months by total assets and then multiplying by 100. Within a specific industry, ROA can be used to compare how efficient a company is relative to its competitors. Return on equity (ROE) - The rate of investment return a company earns on shareholders’ equity. An indicator of profitability, ROE is determined by dividing net income from the past 12 months by net worth (or book value). This statistic shows how effectively a company is using its investors' money. Within a specific industry, it can be used to compare how efficient a company is relative to its competitors. Return on investment (ROI) - A measure of how much the company earns on the money the company itself has invested. It is calculated by dividing the company's net income by its net assets. Revenue - Revenue is the earnings of a company before any costs or expenses are deducted. It includes all net sales of the company plus any other revenue associated with the main operations of the business (or those labeled as operating revenues). It does not include dividends, interest income or non-operating income. Also called net sales. Roth IRA - A type of IRA established in the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 that allows taxpayers, subject to certain income limits, to save for retirement while allowing the savings to grow tax-free. Taxes are paid on contributions, but withdrawals, subject to certain rules, aren't taxed at all. A single person can contribute up to $2,000 and a married couple up to $4,000 annually to this type of individual retirement account. R-squared - A measure of a fund's correlation to the market calculated by comparing monthly returns over the past three years to those of a benchmark. The benchmark for equity funds is the S&P 500. For fixed-income funds, it is the T-bill. The R-squared number ranges from zero to 100. A score of 100 means a perfect correlation with the benchmark. A score of 85 means an 85% correlation. Generally, a higher R-squared will indicate a more useful beta figure. For instance, if a fund is earning a return near its most closely related index (indicated by an R-squared near 100), yet has a beta below one, it is probably offering higher risk-adjusted returns than the benchmark. If the R-squared is lower, then the beta is less relevant to the fund's performance. Sales - Money a company receives from the goods and services it sells. In some cases, the amount includes receipts from rents and royalties. Also called revenue. Sales growth - The annualized growth rate of sales or revenue expressed as a percentage. Sales growth can be useful for measuring the growth rate of young companies with no earnings. It is also harder for accountants to manipulate sales figures than earnings. Savings bond - Similar to zero-coupon bonds, savings bonds are sold at a discount to their face value, which is fully paid at maturity. They are exempt from state and local taxes and you can defer paying federal taxes until maturity. Secondary market - The market where previously issued securities are traded. Most trading is done in the secondary market. The New York Stock Exchange, Amex, NASDAQ, the bond markets, etc., are secondary markets. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) - The federal agency that enforces securities laws and sets standards for disclosure about publicly traded securities, including mutual funds. It was created in 1934 and consists of five commissioners appointed by the U.S. President and confirmed by the Senate to staggered five-year terms. To ensure its independence, no more than three members of the commission may be of the same political party. Security - Generally, a stock or a bond. Specifically, a piece of paper that indicates the holder owns a share or shares of a company (stock) or has loaned money to a company or government organization (bond). Share - A unit of ownership in an equity or mutual fund. This ownership is represented by a certificate, which names the shareowner and the company or fund. Shareholders' equity - The amount by which total assets exceed total liabilities. Also known as net worth or book value, shareholders’ equity is what would be left over for shareholders if the company were sold and its debt retired. It takes into account all money invested in the company since its founding, as well as retained earnings. Short selling - A trading strategy that anticipates a drop in a share's price. Stock or another financial instrument is borrowed from a broker and then sold, creating a short position. That position is reversed, or covered, when the stock is repurchased to repay the loan. If the stock price falls, the short seller will profit by replacing the borrowed shares at a lower cost. Spinoff - A form of corporate divestiture that results in a subsidiary or division becoming an independent company. In a traditional spinoff, shares of the new company are distributed to the parent corporation’s shareholders. Spot market - A market for buying or selling commodities or foreign exchange for immediate delivery and for cash payment. Trades that take place in futures contracts expiring in the current month are also called spot market trades. Spot price - The price of a commodity or currency available for immediate sale and delivery. Spread - In stocks, the difference between the bid price and ask price. In bonds, the difference between the yields on securities of the same credit rating but different maturity or the difference between the yields on securities of the same maturity but of different rating. Standard & Poor's 500 Index (S&P 500) - An index of 500 stocks chosen for their market size, liquidity and industry group representation. Experts use the S&P 500 as a benchmark for the overall market performance. It is a broader, more comprehensive index than the Dow Jones Industrial Average, representing the largest U.S. companies in 11 diversified sectors of the market. It is also a capitalization weighted benchmark, with each stock's weight in the index proportionate to its market value. So price fluctuations in big companies in the index count proportionately more than little ones. Stock - An investment that represents part ownership of a company’s assets and earnings. Stock option - An option in which the underlying security is the common stock of a corporation, giving the holder the right to buy or sell its stock at a specified price by a specific date. Stock split - A change in a company's number of shares outstanding that doesn't change a company's total market value, or each shareholder's percentage stake in the company. Additional shares are issued to existing shareholders, at a rate expressed as a ratio. Typically, management will split a stock to make the shares more affordable to a greater number of investors. Stop order - An order to buy or sell a security when a definite price is reached, either above (on a buy) or below (on a sell) the price that prevailed when the order was given. This type of trade provides more investment control than a market order, which will buy or sell the security at any price. Strike price - A specified price at which an investor can buy or sell an option's underlying security. Subsidiary - A company of which more than 50% of its voting shares are owned by another corporation, called the parent company. Tax liability - A debt to be paid in taxes. A capital gains tax liability is created every time you sell a security or mutual fund that has increased in price. Technical analysis - The study of all factors related to the supply and demand of stocks. Unlike fundamental analysis, technical analysis doesn't look at underlying earnings potential of a company when evaluating a stock. Rather, the technical analyst uses charts and computer programs to study the stock’s trading volume and price movements in hopes of identifying a trend. Technical analysts don't care about a business’s intrinsic value, only the movements of its stock. Most technical analysis is used for short-term investing. Ticker symbol - Letters that identify a security for trading purposes. Trades are reported on the consolidated tape and on quote machines by the company's symbol. Total assets - A company’s total current assets plus total noncurrent assets. Noncurrent assets include property, plant and equipment, and other noncurrent receivables and investments. Total assets can be found on a company’s balance sheet. Total invested capital - Total invested capital is a tally of all the outside investments a company’s management has used to finance its business -- everything from equity (the amount of stock sold) to long-term debt. It is calculated by taking the sum of common and preferred stock equity, long-term debt, deferred income taxes, investment credits and minority interest. Total invested capital is the denominator of the debt-to-total-capital ratio, a ratio that measures how leveraged a company is. Total liabilities - A company’s total current liabilities plus long-term debt and deferred income taxes. Total liabilities can be found on a company’s balance sheet. Total assets minus total liabilities equals book value or net worth. Total return - The full amount an investment earns over a specific period of time. When dealing with mutual funds or securities, total return takes into consideration three factors: changes in the NAV or price; the accumulation/reinvestment of dividends; the compounding factor over time. The return is presented as a percentage and is usually associated with a specific time period such as six months, one year or five years. Total Return can be cumulative for the specific period or annualized. If it is cumulative, it describes how much your investment grew in total for the entire period. If it is annualized, it describes the average annual return over the period of years described. Treasuries - Debt securities issued by the U.S. Department of the Treasury. Treasurys are widely regarded as the safest bond investments, because they are backed by the "full faith and credit" of the U.S. government. Treasury Bills (T-Bills) - Debt obligations of the U.S. Treasury that have maturities of one year or less. Maturities for T-bills are usually 91 days, 182 days or 52 weeks. Unlike Treasury bonds and notes, which pay interest semiannually, Treasury bills are issued at a discount from their face value. Interest income from Treasury bills is the difference between the purchase price and the Treasury bill's face value. Bills are issued in denominations of $10,000 with increments of $5,000 for amounts above $10,000. Treasury Bonds (T-Bonds) - Debt obligations of the U.S. Treasury that have maturities of 10 to 30 years. Treasury bonds pay interest semiannually and can be purchased in minimum denominations of $1,000 or multiples thereof. Until recently, the 30-year Treasury bond was considered the benchmark bond in determining trends in interest rates. (It was replaced by the 10-year Treasury note.) It typically has a higher interest rate than other Treasurys, but more inflation and credit risk. Treasury Notes (T-Notes) - Debt obligations of the U.S. Treasury that have maturities of two to 10 years. Treasury notes pay interest semiannually and can be purchased in minimum denominations of $1,000 or multiples thereof. Treasury note yields typically are lower than Treasury bonds, which have longer maturities, but notes typically are about half as volatile as long bonds. The 10-year note now is considered the benchmark for determining interest rates. Turnover - In accounting terms, the number of times an asset is replaced during a set period. In trading, the volume of shares traded on the exchange on a given day. In employment matters, turnover refers to the total number of employees divided by the number of employees replaced during a certain period. Turnover ratio - A measure of a fund's trading history that is expressed as a percentage. A fund with a 100% turnover generally changes the composition of its entire portfolio each year. A low turnover figure (20% to 30%) would indicate a buy-and-hold strategy. High turnover (more than 100%) would indicate an investment strategy involving considerable buying and selling of securities. Venture capital - Financing for new businesses. Start-up companies that receive venture capital are perceived to have excellent growth prospects but don't have access to capital markets because they are private companies. In return for venture capital, investors may receive a say in the company's management, as well as some combination of profits, preferred shares or royalties. Sources of venture capital include wealthy individual investors, investment banks, and other financial institutions that pool investments in venture-capital funds or limited partnerships. The risks and rewards of venture-capital investing can be extreme. Volatility - The characteristic of a security or market to fall or rise sharply in price in a short-term period. A measure of the relative volatility of a security or mutual fund to the overall market is beta. Volume - Number of shares traded in a company or an entire market during a given period. Unusually high volume days typically correspond with the announcement of company news, either positive or negative. In the absence of news, high volume can indicate institutional (or professional) buying and selling. Technical analysis places a great emphasis on the amount of volume that occurs in the trading of a security. A sharp rise in volume is believed to signify future sharp rises or falls in price because it reflects increased investor interest in a security or a market. Working capital - The excess of current assets over current liabilities. This statistic shows a company's level of solvency. A company with a lot of working capital has cash to reinvest and make its business grow. Yield - The annual rate of return on an investment, as paid in dividends or interest. It is expressed as a percentage, generally obtained by dividing the current market price for a stock or bond into the annual dividend or interest payment. Yield curve - This is a graph showing the yields for different bond maturities. It can be used, not only to show where the best values in bonds are, but also as an economic indicator. A normal yield curve is upward sloping, with short-term rates lower than long-term rates. An inverted yield curve is downward sloping, with short-term rates higher than long-term rates. A steep upward sloping yield curve indicates the bond market anticipates an economic expansion. An inverted yield curve anticipates an economic decline. 401(k) plan - An employer-sponsored retirement-savings plan funded by employees with contributions that are deducted from pretax pay. Employers frequently add matching contributions up to a set limit. Employees are responsible for managing the money themselves, allocating the funds among a selection of stock, bond and cash investment funds. Investment gains aren't taxed until the money is withdrawn.
1. Religion & Spirituality Send to a Friend via Email <Back to Last Page > <Glossary Index> Related Terms • salat Definition: In Islam, tahara is a state of ritual purity. Tahara is required for participating in daily prayers (salat) or other ritual acts. Two types of purification are possible: major and minor. Major purification is required after things like menstration and coitus, whereas minor purification is required before prayers. Traditionally the use of water is recommended, but the use of sand is permitted if no water is available. Also Known As: none Alternate Spellings: none Common Misspellings: none Related Resources: What is Islam? What is Islam? What do Muslims believe? Where did Islam come from? What is jihad? Find the answers to these questions and more in our Islam FAQ. <Back to Last Page> <Glossary Index> Discuss in my forum ©2014 About.com. All rights reserved.
About \| For Scientists \| Publications \| Illustrative Spectra Radial Velocities The Adopted Radial Velocities Used by the SSPP The spZbest fits file, which is generated from the SDSS spectroscopic reduction pipeline, provides two estimated radial velocities. One is an absorption-line redshift derived from a cross-correlation procedure using templates that were obtained from SDSS commissioning spectra (Stoughton et al. 2002). Another estimate comes from performing a "best-match" procedure that compares the observed spectra with externally measured templates (in this case, the ELODIE library high-resolution spectra, as described by Prugniel & Soubiran 2001 and Moultaka et al. 2004), degraded to the resolving power of SDSS spectra. Previous experience with the analysis of SDSS stellar spectra suggested that the radial velocity estimated from the ELODIE template matches is often the best available estimate, in the sense that it is the most repeatable based on spectra of "quality assurance'' stars with multiple determinations. However, there are some cases where the quoted error of an ELODIE spectral match velocity is larger than expected, so we also make use of the cross-correlation radial velocity, in the following manner: 1. If the velocity determined by comparison with the ELODIE templates has a reported error of 20 km s-1 or less, then this velocity is adopted and the radial velocity flag is set to `RVOK(20)'. 2. If the error from the ELODIE template comparison is larger than 20 km s-1 and the relative difference between the two reported radial velocities is less than 40 km s-1, then we take an average of the two techniques, and the radial velocity flag is set to `RVOK(40) '. 3. If the error in the reported ELODIE velocity is larger than 20 km s-1, and the difference of between the two estimates is between 40 and 100 km s-1, we take an average of the two and the radial velocity flag is set to `RVOK(100)'. 4. If none of the above conditions are satisfied (which happens only rarely, and mainly for quite low S/N spectra, or for hot/cool stars without adequate templates), then we obtain an independent estimate of the radial velocity based on our own IDL routines. The calculation of the radial velocity is carried out by determining wavelength shifts for several strong absorption line features (Ca II K, Ca II H, Hδ, Ca I, Hγ, Hβ, Na I, Hα, the Ca~II triplet). After ignoring the calculated velocity above +500 km s-1 or below -500 km s-1 from the individual lines (which are very often spurious), we obtain a 3σ clipped average of the remaining radial velocities. If this computed average falls between -500 km s-1 and +500 km s-1, we take the calculated radial velocity as the adopted radial velocity and set the radial velocity flag to `RVCALOK'. It should be noted that many of the techniques used for atmospheric parameter estimation in the SSPP work well even when the velocity determination for a given star has errors of up to 100 km s-1 or more. Hence, we choose not to ignore spectra with high velocity errors, but rather simply indicate caution with the appropriate radial velocity flag. If none of the above methods yield an acceptable estimate of radial velocity, or if the reported velocity is apparently spurious (greater than 1000 km s-1 or less than -1,000 km s-1), we simply ignored the spectrum of the star in our subsequent analysis, and set the radial velocity flag to `RVNOTOK'. Checks on Radial Velocities − Zero Points and Scatter To check on the accuracy of the SSPP radial velocities, we compared with the sample of over 150 high-resolution spectra of SDSS-I/SEGUE stars that have been obtained in order to calibrate and validate the stellar atmospheric parameters obtained by the SSPP. After rejecting problematic spectra (e.g., low S/N high-resolution spectra, or stars that appear to be spectroscopic binaries at high spectral resolution), 137 stars remain to compare with the radial velocity results obtained for the medium-resolution SDSS spectra with the SSPP. A consistent offset of about -6.6 km s-1 (with a standard deviation of 5.2 km s-1) is obtained from a Gaussian fit to the residuals; this offset appears constant over the color range 0.1 &le: g-r ≤ 0.9. An additional comparison with the radial velocity distribution of likely member stars in the Galactic globular clusters M~15 and M~13 reveals similar offsets (-6.8 km s-1 and -8.6 km s-1, respectively; see Lee et al. 2007 for a more detailed analysis). The origin of this velocity offset has not yet been identified, but we expect that it may be tied to the wavelength solutions obtained for the individual fibers. However, in order to account for its presence, we apply an empirical +7.3 km s-1 shift (the mean of the offsets from analysis of the high-resolution and the globular-cluster data), to each radial velocity obtained by the SSPP. For the time being, we conclude that the zero-point uncertainties in the corrected radial velocities determined by the SSPP (and the SDSS spectroscopic reduction pipeline it depends on) should be close to zero, with scatter on the order of 5 km s-1. Note that the scatter in the determination of radial velocities, based on the average displacements of the `quality assurance' stars with multiple measurements, varies from 3.5 km s-1 (for brighter stars) to 20 km s-1 (for fainter stars). Submit comments and questions to the SDSS Helpdesk. Last updated 04/01/14
Teaching Your Child to Swallow a Pill Patricia Quinn, MD posted: Many children (and adults) have difficulty swallowing pills. This often becomes critical as many long-acting medications can not be chewed or crushed because this will release all of the medication at once, both increasing the chance of side effects and decreasing the extended release of the medication. Over the years, I have taught many children to swallow a pill. Here is the method I have found works best. Try teaching your child to swallow a pill using something much smaller. I usually have kids practice without a pill at first. Start by having him take a large amount of water and hold it in his cheeks puffing them out. Most kids already know how to do this! Next, have him take a big gulp and swallow all of the water in one swallow. Be sure he keeps his chin tucked and head forward (not throwing his head back is important as when he adds a the pill it may touch the back of the throat). Do this several times. Next, I have him put a small piece of a pill (something he usually takes such as an anthistamine, tylenol, etc.), cracker, or piece of candy on his tongue, Now add lots of water as before (hold in cheeks, head forward) and gulp and swallow. Usually, to his amazement, the pill or cracker will go down with the water! Practice this several times to build up confidence before trying with a larger pill or the real medication. I invite you to please respond and share your tips or success with this method. Pat Quinn, MD Was this Helpful? 8 of 8 found this helpful NaNaLynnsMom responded: My son has trouble swallowing pills, so I tried a very small amount of peanut butter and stuck the pill in it and followed with his drink of choice...it worked great for him and he loves taking his meds now
Diet and DNA How a mother's diet during early development can affect offspring decades later February 6, 2009 Scientists know that human development is a combination of genes and environment. Some traits like blood type are completely determined by genes. Other traits such as finger length are due to both genes and environment. In this last case, hormones in utero affect fingers without changing any genes. But sometimes environment can actually affect genes in a specific way. It's something that scientists have shown in animals before (see below), but a recent study is the first to show that it's true in humans too! What they found was that a mother's diet can affect one of her children's genes -- the IGF2 gene. This change affects how this gene works even when the children have grown up. Famine Affects the IGF2 Gene What this mom eats can affect herchild's DNA. Scientists have wanted to investigate the effects of mom's diet on her children's DNA for a long time. But it obviously wouldn't be right to do tests with pregnant women. So scientists needed another way to test their ideas. What they used were people who were born during a famine. Famine means time where people didn't have enough food. In 1944-1945 there was a famine in the Netherlands. Scientists decided to look at the DNA of people who were conceived and/or born during the famine. They compared these people's DNA to their brothers and sisters born during normal times. In this study scientists decided to look at a gene in these people's DNA called IGF2. This gene is involved in human growth and development. So if the famine affected this gene, then it could have long-term effects on the health of the baby as it grew into an adult. The scientists studied the following two groups of people 60 years after they were born: 1. People whose moms were exposed to the famine during the very early part of pregnancy. 2. People whose moms were exposed to the famine during the late part of pregnancy. The scientists found the IGF2 gene of people whose moms were exposed to famine during early pregnancy were different than their siblings. But those exposed to famine during late pregnancy had no changes to their DNA. This means that mom's diet while pregnant can affect her children's DNA. But only if the famine is during the early days of pregnancy. And those DNA changes can stay around for at least 60 years. Genes and DNA structure So what exactly are these changes? And why did it only happen in those whose mothers were exposed to famine early in pregnancy? To answer these questions we first have to understand the basics of genes and DNA structure. A gene is a piece of DNA. DNA is made up of four bases called A, T, G and C. Cells read this DNA and, following its instructions, make a protein. Proteins are molecules that are involved in almost everything a cell does. The IGF2 gene has the instructions for the Insulin-like Growth Factor 2 protein. This protein promotes growth and division of cells. And it is most active during fetal development. The changes the scientists studied in the IGF2 gene are not in its bases. Instead they looked at DNA changes that affect how often a gene gets read. And so, how much protein gets made. A gene doesn't only have the instructions for making a certain protein. It also includes information about when and how much protein to make. This is because every cell doesn't make the same amount of every protein. That's why our cells are so different even though they have the same DNA. Cells control which and how much protein gets made by turning genes on and off. The human body has over 6 feet of DNA packed into each cell. So in order for genes to get turned on the compact DNA needs to be loosened up so the cell can read the DNA sequence. DNA Methylation Turns Genes On or Off One way in which cells can loosen or tighten DNA to turn genes on or off is by something called epigenetics. It sounds complicated but breaking the word apart shows it's actually very simple. DNA methylation turns genes on and off. "Epi" comes from Greek and means "on" or "over". And genetics refers to a gene. So "epigenetic" literally means "on a gene. Methylation is an epigenetic way to affect a gene (see picture at right). Methylation refers to a methyl group placed on or taken off a gene. A methyl is a very small chemical group made up of one carbon atom and three hydrogen atoms. Usually more methylation means a gene is turned off and less methylation means a gene is turned on. Methylation is one example of how genes can be directly affected by the environment. The environment can actually change how many methyl groups are placed on the DNA. This then leads to genes being turned on or off. For example, previous studies with animals have shown that a mother's diet during pregnancy can affect how methylated her children's DNA is. One study altered the diet of pregnant mice. Depending on what the mom ate the baby pups came out either yellow or brown. This was because of differences in methylation on certain genes. What's more interesting is that the yellow pups grew up to have yellow babies. And the brown mice grew up to have brown babies. That means the differences in DNA methylation stayed with the pups their whole lives. And even into their babies lives! So the scientists in this famine study set out to find out if something similar was happening in people. They indeed found that famine affected the methylation of the IGF2 gene. But only if the famine happened early in pregnancy. More Information Genes are written in the DNA letters A, G, T, and C. Famine in Early Pregnancy Reduces IGF2 Methylation The scientists found the IGF2 gene of people whose moms were exposed to famine during early pregnancy had less methylation. That means the gene was probably turned on more than their siblings' gene. But the scientists did not see the same thing with people whose moms were exposed to famine in late pregnancy. Those babies weighed less when they were born because the moms didn't have enough food. But the methylation on their IGF2 gene was no different from their brothers' and sisters'. What this means is that there's a critical time for methylation. This actually supports something scientists have known a long time about methylation. Most of the methyl groups are removed from the DNA of early embryos when they are made up of only about 8 cells. Then new methyl groups are placed on the DNA. It's the embryo's way of starting from a clean slate. So a mother's diet only during early pregnancy affects the way in which her embryo's DNA is methylated. And this methylation can last a lifetime. But why does it matter if the DNA is methylated after 60 years? Does this have any effects on child and adult development? The scientists in this study didn't look at anything else other than the DNA methylation. They didn't study the health of these people. But other studies in animals have shown that changes in DNA methylation can be a very permanent and serious thing. Famine and Later Health Sibling mice look different because of mom's diet. Remember those yellow and brown mice? Turns out that the color of their fur wasn't the only thing that was affected from their mother's diet. The mice whose moms didn't have enough nutrition were yellow. These mice also had higher rates of obesity and diabetes. And just like the yellow color of their fur this risk was passed down to their pups too. Other studies in animals have also shown that famine and decreased methylation can have long-term health effects. One study showed that sheep without enough vitamins gave birth to babies that had less methylation on their DNA. Even though these babies were normal at birth they had many health problems as they got older. This included being fatter, decreased ability to fight infections and increased blood pressure. And these connections between famine and health are seen in humans too. Some scientists have shown that famine during the early parts of pregnancy can lead to schizophrenia and heart disease in humans. They haven't done any studies to prove this is because of DNA methylation. But famine does change DNA methylation so changes in methylation could be related to these problems. Its clear that what a mom eats during pregnancy is important. Especially during the very early parts of pregnancy. It can affect the DNA and health of her baby even into adulthood. So that old saying "you are what you eat" should really be "you are what your MOM eats!" Jackie Benjamin
Friday, 19 April 2013 user segment The user segment is composed of hundreds of thousands of U.S. and allied military users of the secure GPS Precise Positioning Service, and tens of millions of civil, commercial and scientific users of the Standard Positioning Service. In general, GPS receivers are composed of an antenna, tuned to the frequencies transmitted by the satellites, receiver-processors, and a highly stable clock (often a crystal oscillator). They may also include a display for providing location and speed information to the user. A receiver is often described by its number of channels: this signifies how many satellites it can monitor simultaneously. Originally limited to four or five, this has progressively increased over the years so that, as of 2007, receivers typically have between 12 and 20 channels. Many GPS receivers can relay position data to a PC or other device using the NMEA 0183 protocol. Although this protocol is officially defined by the National Marine Electronics Association (NMEA) references to this protocol have been compiled from public records, allowing open source tools like gpsd to read the protocol without violating intellectual property laws.[clarification needed] Other proprietary protocols exist as well, such as the SiRF and MTK protocols. Receivers can interface with other devices using methods including a serial connection, USB, or Bluetooth. control segment * The control segment is composed of 1. a master control station (MCS), 2. an alternate master control station, 3. four dedicated ground antennas and 4. six dedicated monitor stations The MCS can also access U.S. Air Force Satellite Control Network (AFSCN) ground antennas (for additional command and control capability) and NGA (National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency) monitor stations. The flight paths of the satellites are tracked by dedicated U.S. Air Force monitoring stations in Hawaii, Kwajalein, Ascension Island, Diego Garcia, Colorado Springs, Colorado and Cape Canaveral, along with shared NGA monitor stations operated in England, Argentina, Ecuador, Bahrain, Australia and Washington DC. The tracking information is sent to the Air Force Space Command MCS at Schriever Air Force Base 25 km (16 mi) ESE of Colorado Springs, which is operated by the 2nd Space Operations Squadron(2 SOPS) of the U.S. Air Force. Then 2 SOPS contacts each GPS satellite regularly with a navigational update using dedicated or shared (AFSCN) ground antennas (GPS dedicated ground antennas are located at Kwajalein, Ascension Island, Diego Garcia, and Cape Canaveral). These updates synchronize the atomic clocks on board the satellites to within a few nanoseconds of each other, and adjust the ephemeris of each satellite's internal orbital model. The updates are created by a Kalman filter that uses inputs from the ground monitoring stations, space weather information, and various other inputs. Satellite maneuvers are not precise by GPS standards. So to change the orbit of a satellite, the satellite must be marked unhealthy, so receivers will not use it in their calculation. Then the maneuver can be carried out, and the resulting orbit tracked from the ground. Then the new ephemeris is uploaded and the satellite marked healthy again. space segment The space segment (SS) is composed of the orbiting GPS satellites, or Space Vehicles (SV) in GPS parlance. The GPS design originally called for 24 SVs, eight each in three approximately circular orbits, but this was modified to six orbital planes with four satellites each. The orbits are centered on the Earth, not rotating with the Earth, but instead fixed with respect to the distant stars. The six orbit planes have approximately 55°inclination (tilt relative to Earth's equator) and are separated by 60° right ascension of the ascending node (angle along the equator from a reference point to the orbit's intersection). The orbital period is one-half a sidereal day, i.e., 11 hours and 58 minutes. The orbits are arranged so that at least six satellites are always within line of sight from almost everywhere on Earth's surface. The result of this objective is that the four satellites are not evenly spaced (90 degrees) apart within each orbit. In general terms, the angular difference between satellites in each orbit is 30, 105, 120, and 105 degrees apart which sum to 360 degrees. Orbiting at an altitude of approximately 20,200 km (12,600 mi); orbital radius of approximately 26,600 km (16,500 mi), each SV makes two complete orbits each sidereal day, repeating the same ground track each day. This was very helpful during development because even with only four satellites, correct alignment means all four are visible from one spot for a few hours each day. For military operations, the ground track repeat can be used to ensure good coverage in combat zones. The current GPS consists of three major segments. These are the space segment (SS), a control segment (CS), and a user segment (US). The U.S. Air Force develops, maintains, and operates the space and control segments. GPS satellites broadcast signals from space, and each GPS receiver uses these signals to calculate its three-dimensional location (latitude, longitude, and altitude) and the current time. The space segment is composed of 24 to 32 satellites in medium Earth orbit and also includes the payload adapters to the boosters required to launch them into orbit. The control segment is composed of a master control station, an alternate master control station, and a host of dedicated and shared ground antennas and monitor stations. The user segment is composed of hundreds of thousands of U.S. and allied military users of the secure GPS Precise Positioning Service, and tens of millions of civil, commercial, and scientific users of the Standard Positioning Service. basic concept of gps • the time the message was transmitted • satellite position at time of message transmission The receiver uses the messages it receives to determine the transit time of each message and computes the distance to each satellite using the speed of light. Each of these distances and satellites' locations define a sphere. The receiver is on the surface of each of these spheres when the distances and the satellites' locations are correct. These distances and satellites' locations are used to compute the location of the receiver using the navigation equations. This location is then displayed, perhaps with a moving map display or latitude and longitude; elevation information may be included. Many GPS units show derived information such as direction and speed, calculated from position changes. In typical GPS operation, four or more satellites must be visible to obtain an accurate result. Four sphere surfaces typically do not intersect. Because of this, it can be said with confidence that when the navigation equations are solved to find an intersection, this solution gives the position of the receiver along with the difference between the time kept by the receiver's on-board clock and the true time-of-day, thereby eliminating the need for a very large, expensive, and power hungry clock. The very accurately computed time is used only for display or not at all in many GPS applications, which use only the location. A number of applications for GPS do make use of this cheap and highly accurate timing. These include time transfer, traffic signal timing, and synchronization of cell phone base stations. On February 10, 1993, the National Aeronautic Association selected the GPS Team as winners of the 1992 Robert J. Collier Trophy, the nation's most prestigious aviation award. This team combines researchers from the Naval Research Laboratory, the USAF, the Aerospace Corporation, Rockwell International Corporation, and IBM Federal Systems Company. The citation honors them "for the most significant development for safe and efficient navigation and surveillance of air and spacecraft since the introduction of radio navigation 50 years ago." Two GPS developers received the National Academy of Engineering Charles Stark Draper Prize for 2003: • Ivan Getting, emeritus president of The Aerospace Corporation and an engineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, established the basis for GPS, improving on the World War IIland-based radio system called LORAN (Long-range Radio Aid to Navigation). • Bradford Parkinson, professor of aeronautics and astronautics at Stanford University, conceived the present satellite-based system in the early 1960s and developed it in conjunction with the U.S. Air Force. Parkinson served twenty-one years in the Air Force, from 1957 to 1978, and retired with the rank of colonel. • GPS developer Roger L. Easton received the National Medal of Technology on February 13, 2006. Timeline and modernization • In 1972, the USAF Central Inertial Guidance Test Facility (Holloman AFB), conducted developmental flight tests of two prototype GPS receivers over White Sands Missile Range, using ground-based pseudo-satellites. • In 1978, the first experimental Block-I GPS satellite was launched. • In 1983, after Soviet interceptor aircraft shot down the civilian airliner KAL 007 that strayed into prohibited airspacebecause of navigational errors, killing all 269 people on board, U.S. President Ronald Reagan announced that GPS would be made available for civilian uses once it was completed, although it had been previously published [in Navigation magazine] that the CA code (Coarse Acquisition code) would be available to civilian users. • By 1985, ten more experimental Block-I satellites had been launched to validate the concept. Command & Control of these satellites had moved from Onizuka AFS, CA and turned over to the 2nd Satellite Control Squadron (2SCS) located at Falcon Air Force Station in Colorado Springs, Colorado. • The Gulf War from 1990 to 1991, was the first conflict where GPS was widely used. • In 1996, recognizing the importance of GPS to civilian users as well as military users, U.S. President Bill Clinton issued a policy directive[28] declaring GPS to be a dual-use system and establishing an Interagency GPS Executive Board to manage it as a national asset. • In 1998, United States Vice President Al Gore announced plans to upgrade GPS with two new civilian signals for enhanced user accuracy and reliability, particularly with respect to aviation safety and in 2000 the United States Congress authorized the effort, referring to it as GPS III. ..
You are here: Home History African American History II Lecture Notes Reconstruction Act of 1867 Reconstruction Act of 1867 Document Actions • Content View • Bookmarks • LTI Export Author: United States Congress Reconstruction Act of 1867. Source: First Reconstruction Act March 2, 1867 WHEREAS no legal State governments or adequate protection for life or property now exists in the rebel States of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Florida, Texas, and Arkansas; and whereas it is necessary that peace and good order should be enforced in said States until loyal and republican State governments can be legally established: Therefore, Be it enacted . . ., That said rebel States shall be divided into military districts and made subject to the military authority of the United States as hereinafter prescribed, and for that purpose Virginia shall constitute the first district; North Carolina and South Carolina the second district; Georgia, Alabama, and Florida the third district; Mississippi and Arkansas the fourth district; and Louisiana and Texas the fifth district. SECTION 2. And be it further enacted, That it shall be the duty of the President to assign to the command of each of said districts an officer of the army, not below the rank of brigadier-general, and to detail a sufficient military force to enable such officer to perform his duties and enforce his authority within the district to which he is assigned. SECTION 3. And be it further enacted, That it shall be the duty of each officer assigned as aforesaid, to protect all persons in their rights of person and property, to suppress insurrection, disorder, and violence, and to punish, or cause to be punished, all disturbers of the public peace and criminals; and to this end he may allow local civil tribunals to take jurisdiction of and to try offenders, or, when in his judgment it may be necessary for the trial of offenders, he shall have power to organize military commissions or tribunals for that purpose, and all interference under color of State authority with the exercise of military authority under this act, shall be null and void. SECTION 4. And be it further enacted, That all persons put under military arrest by virtue of this act shall be tried without unnecessary delay, and no cruel or unusual punishment shall be inflicted, and no sentence of any military commission or tribunal hereby authorized, affecting the life or liberty of any person, shall be executed until it is approved by the officer in command of the district, and the laws and regulations for the government of the army shall not be affected by this act, except in so far as they conflict with its provisions: Provided, That no sentence of death under the provisions of this act shall be carried into effect without the approval of the President. SECTION 5. And be it further enacted, That when the people of any one of said rebel States shall have formed a constitution of government in conformity with the Constitution of the United States in all respects, framed by a convention of delegates elected by the male citizens of said State, twenty-one years old and upward, of whatever race, color, or previous condition, who have been resident in said State for one year previous to the day of such election, except such as may be disfranchised for participation in the rebellion or for felony at common law, and when such constitution shall provide that the elective franchise shall be enjoyed by all persons as have the qualifications herein stated for electors of delegates, and when such constitution shall be ratified by a majority of the persons voting on the question of ratification who are qualified as electors for delegates, and when such constitution shall have been submitted to Congress for examination and approval, and Congress shall have approved the same, and when said State, by a vote of its legislature elected under said constitution, shall have adopted the amendment to the Constitution of the United States, proposed by the Thirty-ninth Congress, and known as article fourteen and when said article shall have become a part of the Constitution of the United States said State shall be declared entitled to representation in Congress, and senators and representatives shall be admitted therefrom on their taking the oath prescribed by law, and then and thereafter the preceding sections of this act shall be inoperative in said State: Provided, That no person excluded from the privilege of holding office by said proposed amendment to the Constitution of the United States, shall be eligible to election as a member of the convention to frame a constitution for any of said rebel States, nor shall any person vote for members of such convention. SECTION 6. And be it further enacted, That, until the people of said rebel States shall be by law admitted to representation in the Congress of the United States, any civil governments which may exist there in shall be deemed provisional only, and in all respects subject to the paramount authority of the United States at any time to abolish, modify, control, or supersede the same; and in all elections to any office under such provisional governments all persons shall be entitled to vote, and none others, who are entitled to vote, under the provisions of the fifth section of this act; and no persons shall be eligible to any office under any such provisional government who would be disqualified from holding office under the provisions of the third article of said constitutional amendment. Source: United States Statutes at Large, XIV, 428-29; XV, 2-4, 14-16, 41, reprinted in Robert W. Johannsen, Reconstruction, 1865-1877 (New York: Free Press, 1970), pages 89-92. 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Mushrooms in the Garden Beds Slime moldYou may have seen some mushrooms popping up in your garden beds. Usually, you see them most in beds that are mulched with bark or shredded wood; essentially a recycled wood product. The Texas Plant Disease Diagnostic Lab gets a lot of questions with regards to these sightings, everything from “Is it dangerous?”, “ Is it poisonous?”, “Will it kill my plants?”, to “How do I get rid of it?” Let’s break it down. It is dangerous? The short answer is PROBABLY NOT. Many times, the mushrooms you see are fruiting bodies of fungi that are present in the soil or on the wood. The role of these fungi is to help breakdown the wood material. They are an integral part of the ecosystem cycle. Is it poisonous? This is a tougher question, because it depends on the fungus. A good field identification guide will help with figuring out what the fungus is. The usual practice is to NOT eat a wild fungus unless you are 100% sure of its identity. The spores produced by these mushroom can be an allergen to a small percentage of folks. What about pets? Please consult a veterinarian if the situation occurs: if possible, take a photo of the mushroom. A physical sample is helpful but remember that the mushroom may breakdown rapidly. Will it kill my plants? Unlikely! In some cases, these mushroom may be beneficial to the plants. By breaking down the woody “waste” material, they are returning nutrients to the soil which then can be used by plants. Then again, something like SLIME MOLD can smother and overwhelm small plants. Slime mold smothering rose Slime mold on a rose plant How do I get rid of it? Most mushrooms are delicate and will break down relatively quickly. Many mushrooms associated with the mulch may be present only a few days. The breakdown can be hastened with disturbance (ie. chopped up, broken, crushed). You can use a jet of water to break up the mushroom (works well on delicate mushrooms and slime molds) or use an instrument such as a rake to break it up. But for these types of mushrooms, there are no approved fungicides. Why are these mushroom popping up when we are so dry? While general conditions may be dry, landscape beds are usually irrigated. When conditions are right – where water is available to the fungi and environment is at the right humidity and temperature, mushroom will make itself known. The key is availability of water to the fungus. In a garden bed, irrigation to ensure that plants are watered also provide water to the fungus. Some easy reading on the topic and also helpful hints from the following websites: Print Friendly Comments are closed.
Forgot your password? + - How British satellite company Inmarsat tracked down MH370-> Submitted by mdsolar mdsolar (1045926) writes "Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak has announced that, based on satellite data analysis from UK company Inmarsat, Malayian Airlines flight MH370 ended in the southern Indian Ocean, and no one on board survived.... "Effectually we looked at the doppler effect, which is the change in frequency, due to the movement of a satellite in its orbit. What that then gave us was a predicted path for the northerly route and a predicted path the southerly route," explained Chris McLaughlin, senior vice president of external affairs at Inmarsat. "What we discovered was a correlation with the southerly route and not with the northern route after the final turn that the aircraft made, so we could be as close to certain as anybody could be in that situation that it went south." "Where we then went was to work out where the last ping was, knowing that the aircraft still had some fuel, but that it would have run out before the next automated ping. We don't know what speed the aircraft was flying at, but we assumed about 450 knots." Inmarsat passed the relevant analysis to the UK Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) yesterday. The cause of the crash remains a mystery." Link to Original Source How British satellite company Inmarsat tracked down MH370 Comments Filter:
Then, because I’m me, instead of saying “oh, milliseconds would do nicely as a ‘point’ in time”, I went straight to planck times. The question then of course, is: How much space do you need to store the number of planck times that have elapsed since the start of the universe?1 So, a planck time consists of 5.39106e-44 ± .00032e-44 seconds, and inversely a second contains 1.85492e43 ± .00011e43 planck times.2 Additionally, we know the age of the universe as being 4.354e17 ± .012e17 seconds, or .4354 ± .0012 Es. So, to store the number of elapsed Planck times, we need enough bits to store 4.354e17 ± .012e17 s × 1.85492e43 ± .00011e43 tp s-1 = 8.07632168e60 ± .00047894e60 tp . With plenty of room to grow needed, of course. So, that’s our goal, roughly 8e60 planck times. Let’s begin with some sizes you’ll get on most systems, programming in C or something like it: No. Bits Maximum number of planck times tp Number of seconds s 10 * log10(s) 8 0xFF = 255 1.3747203e-41 ± .0000816e-41 -409 16 0xFFFF = 65535 3.533031171e-39 ± .000209712e-39 -385 32 0xFFFF_FFFF = 4294967295 2.31544263853827e-34 ± .00013743895344e-34 -336 64 0xFFFF_FFFF_FFFF_FFFF = 18446744073709551615 9.94475041060126e-25 ± .000590295810358706e-25 -240 None of those integers come close to talking about a lot of time. Only that 64-bit number doesn’t look (too) small written in yoctoseconds, specifically ≈.99 ys. The last column (which is rounded to nearest integer, as you might’ve suspected) exists for this handy graphical chart of the beginning of the universe. For eight bits, we’re almost halfway through the Grand Unification Epoch3, while 16 bits is farther into it. 32 bits we finally get to experience the next phase, the beginning portion of the Electroweak Epoch (as well as mostly through the inflationary epoch). At 64 bits, we’re half-way through that electroweak epoch. OK, what if we used two 64-bit numbers to represent a 128-bit integer? 128 ≈3.4e38 (it’s a 39 digit number, or in the duodecillions) 1.83448265701279e-05 ± .0001088903574147e-05 -47 All of a sudden, we jump from being just under 1 ys to being just under 20 µs. On the handy graphical chart, we finish up in the electroweak, skip quarks, and land right towards the start of the Hadron Epoch. That’s nice and all, but still not even one second. How about a 256-bit integer? 256 ≈1.1e77 (78 digits!) 6.24242100603726e33 ± .000370534685559412e33 338 That graphical chart will not help us now. We could write 6.24242100603726e33 s as 6242421006.03726 Ys, but it still manages to look like a huge number. It’s decillions of seconds, or hundreds of quattuorvigintillions of planck times. That’s 14.3 quadrillion times the estimated age of the universe. I could keep going, but I think you get the picture. The reason why I created this post was because exponential growth. You’ve probably heard of that old story with the rice and the chessboard, or something like it. It does a good job of demonstrating how exponential growth works. Until I had come across this question, and tried to solve it, I had no deep understanding of exponential growth, despite that story and all the rest. It surprised me that doubling the number of bits from 128 to 256 would bring me sufficient bits to talk about events here and now, billions of years after the universe started. I went from a couple dozen microseconds to the age of the universe 14 quadrillion times over, and only knowing I could blame exponential growth kept me from distrusting my results longer. So I thought I should share this. Put out there another example of how quickly exponential growth takes things out of hand. Maybe it’s just because I discovered this on my own, but I think there’s nothing quite like this question to help you understand that kind of growth. And if I ever do write a note-keeping program, you’d rest assured knowing your timing will only ever be limited by general relativity. Because it only takes 32 bytes for me to give that :) . Maybe in a follow-up post I can post a table of numbers of bits that aren’t just powers of two, and a graph as well. Sounds like something fun to look at, at least. (By the way, you only need 203 bits at minimum, as that’ll get you 1.6 times the age of the universe. Since bit-level control in programming is a great bother, a minimum of 26 bytes will get you 50 times the age. Though by this point 4 64-bit numbers (or 8 32-bit ones) would be easier to manage, I should think :) .) 1While choosing some sort of epoch would make the numbers smaller for things relevant to us, if you’re dealing in planck times, chances are you’ll want to talk about the beginning of the universe no matter what epoch we count from. This way lets us avoid throwing a bit away on indicating the number’s sign. 2You’ll forgive me if I got the error calculations wrong in this post, I don’t usually mess with them. I in fact only did it here for completeness’ sake. I used the simpler formulas that assume we’re playing with standard deviations, for those who know these things better. 3Just to point this out: it takes just 255 planck times to get roughly halfway through the point in the universe where the electronuclear force was a thing. Only 255. Buffers Aren’t Strings my $buffer =, 66, 67); my $string = "ABC"; say $buffer eq $string; infinitely recurses in Rakudo. Why? It’s because both Buf and Str do Stringy, and when eq is given disparate types, it calls .Stringy on both of them. Which returns a Buf for Buf, and a Str for Str. Str.Stringy being a Str is normal and expected, but Buf.Stringy is the problem. If Buf didn’t do Stringy, it would be converted into a Stringy object that isn’t itself (like 4.Stringy, which is why "4" eq 4 works). This is indicative of what I think is a huge problem in Perl 6: Bufs should not be considered Stringy at all. Since the last time this discussion came up didn’t go so well, I thought I’d put up a blog post on my thoughts, to avert the problems with trying to convey the same information on IRC. So, Perl 6 regards strings as a high-level sequence of characters. Unlike other programming languages, you’re not required to pay attention to how strings are actually stored, or encoded, to manipulate them as you would expect. Strings in Perl 6 don’t know their storage at all, so if you do in fact need to manipulate the bytes making up its storage, you have to .encode the string to a buffer, and .decode that buffer when you want a string again. Now, I can’t say for sure why Buf does Stringy in the first place; it’s the only thing in Perl 6 I know of where the implicit definition of the word “string” is much more general than the text-based definition we’re familiar with. What I can say though, is what I find wrong with this: Textual data is only a subset of what buffers can handle. Buffers in Perl 6 are used to handle binary data, for example reading a binary file. This is the kind of thing buffers are designed to handle. Some of that data could be text, but that’s not all it could be. So why inherit a role that handles only some of the data you receive? Rats don’t inherit Int to handle numbers whose denominators are 1, after all. Important to note here is that while text data is a proper subset of binary data, the Stringy role that deals with text data isn’t similarly related to the Buf role that deals with binary data. There may be some overlap, but neither fits inside the other. This brings us to the larger issue… Strings and buffers aren’t the same. The match method for strings doesn’t make too much sense for buffers. Going the other direction, the bitwise AND operator for buffers makes no sense for strings, which don’t know their bit patterns in the first place. However, because buffers and strings are currently linked as they are, both buffers and strings need to support (in some fashion) operations that are truly only meant for the other. This is I think the biggest and most substantive problem. Buffers and strings aren’t similar. There is no good way to relate strings and buffers without getting a clunky mess. The best evidence for this is S03’s coverage of the buffer bitwise operators. Except for the shift operators1, every single one mentions coercion of string types to some buffer type, and then says coercion probably indicates a design error. The design error is trying to say that buffers are string-like. These issues can be fixed by simply not saying Buf does Stringy. The Stringy role is the basis for all high-level string types, the Buf role is the basis for all low-level buffer types. They do separate things, and have separate purposes. Creating this link between them serves no purpose than to cause possible design errors and issues with infinite recursion. This leads to a particular problem though: those bitwise ops. The ~ character signifies string-like stuff in Perl 6, which (as I’ve established) buffers aren’t. Which necessitates a new symbol. Problem is, looking at my ordinary keyboard, the only ASCII symbol that doesn’t mean something somewhere in Perl 6 yet is the backtick. Sadly, I don’t think many people will enjoy `+ and `> for their bitwise ops :) , so we’ll need to go past ASCII, and come up with a Texas variant too. Some possible ideas I’ve come across so far: €& €\| €^ €> €< (E&) (E\|) (E^) (E>) (E<) Flimsily based on the theme set by $ and ¢ --- $calar, ¢apture, and €xposed binary data, of course. (parens in the Texas version like set ops', to avoid thinking E is a metaop) ⅋& ⅋\| ⅋^ ⅋> ⅋< (&&) (&\|) (&^) (&>) (&<) Flimsily based on the fact that ⅋ looks cool. (parens in Texas version to prevent conflict with &&) ⋈& ⋈\| ⋈^ ⋈> ⋈< ><& ><\| ><^ ><> ><< Bowties are cool. Additionally, there’s the question of what kinds of methods and operators on Buf we should see, to which the answer is simple: array-like things, rather than string-like things. Bufs should be seen as a kind of list, really. (This means postcircumfix:<[]> instead of .subbuf, .push instead of infix:<~>, etc.) Finally, just to clear up this potential point: utf8, utf16, and all the other Unicode encoding scheme2 Blobs shouldn’t do Unicodey. This is because the point of those blob types, to enforce an encoding scheme, isn’t handled by Unicodey (a high-level string-like role), and the only other stuff Unicodey offers is for string-based stuff, not buffer-based stuff.3 I realize that this isn’t the end of the discussion (we’ve got a buffer symbol to decide, after all :P). However, I don’t think I’ll ever be convinced that Buf does Stringy is right; they are just too distinct for this association to be useful, and they are distinct enough for this association to be harmful.4 I think separating the two would lead to better things, for Buf especially. For instance, I have my suspicions that Perl 6’s version of pack and unpack will be heavily centered on Buf.5 :) Perl 6 roles are usually adjectives, not nouns. Shouldn’t Buf be Buffy then? 1The buffer bitwise shift operators have no descriptions in S03 in the first place, and in any case are implied to handle strings much like the other buffer bitwise ops. 2Yes, scheme, not form. I’d like to see utf16le, utf16be, utf32le, and utf32be be added as types. My experience writing S15 tells me that specifying endianness with :be and :le adverbs is a poor reimplementation of the type system :) . utf16 and utf32 would be kept as BOM-using (but not -requiring) variants, as they are encoding schemes too. 3The fact that the utf buffers are guaranteed to be holding textual data would suggest it’s ok for them to do Unicodey, and thus also Stringy. However, if you need to be doing string-like operations on your data, might I suggest our lovely collection of Unicode string types :D ! 4If you think otherwise, shouldn’t Array does Stringy too? Practically the same thing :) . 5Especially when you consider that the only functionality of pack/unpack Perl 6 is lacking is the ability to easily interchange complex data with low-level APIs, and thus it’s the only thing pack/unpack in Perl 6 needs to do. I Just Love (♥!) C++ std::vector<uint8_t> foo; Anyone who knows their C++ knows that won’t work, I’m merely demonstrating what I want to do at this point: put three bytes at the end of the vector, which happen to make up a magic string in the final file. So, how about that insert? It puts multiple values in a vector, right? foo.insert(foo.end(), std::vector((uint8_t)"foo")); Nah, insert only takes iterators. Since I don’t want to define roughly 15–20 variables to insert all the values I need, I’ll let a lambda take care of it for me. auto pushmany = [&](uint8_t bytes) { foo.insert(foo.end(), std::begin(bytes), std::end(bytes)); But of course not: foo.cpp:42:42: error: no matching function for call to ‘begin(uint8_t&)’ Ooooook then, how about I just loop through the array? auto pushmany = [&](uint8_t bytes) { for (auto & i : bytes) { Since so far I’m stuck on a string, how’s about I just use a char* array here? auto pushmany = [&](char * bytes) { for (auto & i : bytes) { Survey says… foo.cpp:42:42: error: invalid range expression of type 'char '; no viable 'begin' function available (I’ve switched from g++ to clang++ at this point to have more readable walls of errors.) How about a std::vector to the lambda? Let me know how you manage to transform a string literal into a std::vector<uint8_t>; I’d love to know. So, new approach: foo = {(uint8_t)"foo", (uint8_t)"bar", ...} The answer: note: candidate function not viable: no known conversion from 'uint8_t ' (aka 'unsigned char ') to 'const value_type' (aka 'const unsigned char') for 1st argument; dereference the argument with foo = {(uint8_t)"foo", ...} And it compiles! It works! Or… I think. Maybe. Y’see, this finally, finally compiles, but the output file from all this was far shorter than it should’ve been1, so at this point my patience ran out and I git reset --hard. This was me trying to make some code of mine more C++ (in addition to factoring it out into its own function), avoiding the use of char arrays when possible (frustratingly, fstream binary reads make this unavoidable to a point). Here’s the kicker: beforehand, I didn’t bother collecting it all into a container, because it was all inlined, so the equivalent line I was trying to duplicate there was this: std::ofstream thefile(...); thefile.write("foo", 3); So you see, at least parts of the standard library have the capability of storing multiple units of something into a class at once. But pity be to he who dares desire the same thing of his std::vector. I realize I could’ve just declared a char * variable and then do an insert using std::begin and std::end (even though I’m sure those weren’t working, somehow). I could’ve looked up the numbers of each character in the string and typed out a bunch of push_back statements. I realize I probably made a stupid error in this (somewhat abridged) journey just now that made me think something that would’ve worked didn’t. The point is I shouldn’t have to do any of this. This has always been a sticking point with C++ for me; oftentimes things are frustratingly absent from the standard library, or are incomprehensibly difficult to accomplish. I used to feel like this all the time when I started using C++, and recently I thought I had grown past that. That I was comfortable with the fact that C++ makes some things more verbose, it wasn’t too much of a bother. Then something like this happens. Dear C++, adding more than one element to a list (be it a vector or deque or …) is a simple thing. It should be easy to accomplish. Why can’t push_back accept a same-typed vector? At least then my frustration would be focused on how I couldn’t convert "foo" into a std::vector<uint8_t> (which wasn’t my primary issue during this, so I’m sure the solution is simple, and that I simply didn’t spend enough time on the problem to find it). C++, here’s how Perl 6 does this2: my @a; 1And I just now realized why this probably occurred. I was really frustrated by this point, I had no interest in solving the problem further. So small wonder I didn’t see it sooner. 2The .encode.list instead of .ords is just to replicate C++’s not-handling-Unicode default. Posted in Think Tank \| Tagged , , , \| 2 Comments About Those Slangs… I like the idea of slangs. They let you modify the grammar of Perl 6 (or maybe you’d prefer Q, or perhaps Regex?). This means you could easily switch into a more pythonesque style of programming just by importing a module, such as use Slang::Python. However, not only are there issues with how slangs currently work (or are at least spec’d to), but they, at least I think, are unnecessary. The current problems: • They augment by default : the intended use of the ‘slang’ keyword makes it so that you have augment-like behavior without actually using the augment keyword, which means you globally affect the meaning of, say, Perl6::Grammar as soon as the slang statement is interpreted. • No explicit way of including actions : the slang keyword is essentially another way of writing a bunch of grammar rules. What the mechanism doesn’t come with is any way to include actions, which those of you writing Perl 6 grammars are very used to by this point. To be fair, inline code blocks can do the exact same thing, but this lack of an explicit mechanism is indicative of a general forgetfulness on the importance of actions to a grammar :) . Those things are fixable, but there’s a larger issue at play: modifying any grammar after the fact is hard, for something like Perl 6 it’s daunting. There is no standard set of rule names for an implementation of the grammar, and how to implement the actions of those rules are much harder to standardize (because not everyone will use QAST blocks in their implementation). So this would a implementation-dependent endeavor, both in terms of supporting multiple implementations, and in hoping said implementations don’t break their grammar/action definitions on you. So, because of how hard it is in general to modify a grammar, I feel that the primary purpose of slangs should be to introduce a new sublanguage, since a new grammar is easy to do :) . I’ve said as much before. However, I’ve recently realized something: the slang keyword offers no benefits over grammars and actions, at least not in its current form. With everything at my disposal but slangs, including being able to interact with things like Perl6::Grammar directly, how would I implement a new sublang? Here’s an idea: grammar Skylang::Grammar { regex TOP { ... } class Skylang::Actions { method TOP($/) { ... } augment grammar Perl6::Grammar { rule statement_control:sym<SKYLANG> { <sym> '☃' ~ '☄' $<srctext>=(<-[☄]>+) augment class Perl6::Actions { method statement_control:sym<SKYLANG> { make Skylang::Grammar.parse(~$<srctext>, :actions(Skylang::Actions)).ast; (Yes, this would be implementation-dependent too (e.g., on rakudo the ast from Skylang would need to have a bunch of QAST blocks); I never said that was a problem unique to slangs :P) Plain ol’ modifying the language would involve just the augments. Additionally, depending on what macros end up doing, the above augmentations could be replaced with a single macro declaration. My point here is that I think Perl 6 already has what you need to modifying the very grammar of the language itself. If we can work out what slangs (and those $~ variables) could be that isn’t just a synonym for grammar, then I’d be all for it. However I can’t presently think of what slang would do differently. The only thing that comes to mind for me is a way of better linking a grammar and its actions together (though that would benefit grammar too, and you can already do it by redefining the parse method (and maybe its friends) in a grammar anyway). The more interesting question is how to modify the parsing of Perl 6 in an implementation-independent fashion. The grammar side can be helped by standardizing the rules of the grammar, essentially Perl 6’s readable version of a BNF grammar definition in other language specifications. Whether or not the grammar should be standardized at all is another matter though :) . The actions side, an independent AST specifier, might be far more tricky. But if I understand things correctly, quasi does that for us already. So I don’t know if we can fashion slang into a far more distinct (and hence useful) keyword than its friend grammar, or if we don’t need it after all, but it’s certainly an interesting thought. Of course, this is all complicated by the fact that “we must be fairly certain what we want, and we aren’t yet :)”. There’s so little specification of slangs that the point of this post (“slang is useless”) is in all likelihood just plain wrong. Allowing the user to rewrite the language they’re using with the language they’re using is a hard thing to do, and it’s no wonder that all efforts have been placed on everything else so far. But it has led to at least me thinking slang is unnecessary, and if I’m to be proven wrong, it needs to be done soon :P . Maybe we need a “metalanguage”, like the “metamodel”… would that just be NQP?… Perl 6 and CPAN? Well… Why not just put the modules on CPAN and be done with it? Sure! Let’s go ahead and right now upload some of the more well-known Perl 6 modules, like File::Find, Shell::Command, and JSON::Tiny. Yeah, that’s not happening. Perl 6 and Perl 5 are incompatible languages, at least enough so that sharing one universe of module names is absurd. Why not just prefix Perl 6 modules with Perl6:: ? You mean Perl 6 module-writers do this for each and every one of their modules? No. You mean CPAN puts a fake Perl6:: in front of modules for organizational purposes? Alright. Sure hope no existing CPAN modules use Perl6:: as an actual namespace. We could implement all the workarounds we want, but really it would be best for everyone’s sanity if we just maintained separate Perl 5 and Perl 6 worlds. Other issues OK, so why not just separate the two worlds on the CPAN servers? Fine, but there are other issues that then come up in the process. PAUSE needs new scanning tools Namely, PAUSE currently check a tarball’s .pm files for packages given, which clearly won’t work with Perl 6. A script that analyzes an S11-compliant would suffice here. CPAN needs more metadata, and be more like typical package managers Have your own, non-CPAN bug tracker? Have a repo that contributors can, uh, contribute to? CPAN’s current solution is to “check the documentation of the module”. I believe this is unacceptable, especially considering how atypical (wrt CPAN) Perl 6 does module distribution. CPAN needs to have “source code” and “bug tracker” links that point to the right place. In fact, I’d prefer it if CPAN were more like various package manager sites for various Linux distros. That is, more than a place designed to give free tarball hosting space to Perl developers. It should at the very least provide a standardized, metadata-based external link to some sort of homepage. This brings up a more general issue: S11 and related are designed to specify a full package management system, something much closer to those OS package managers. Granted, I am not at all familiar with Perl 5, much less CPAN, but it just feels like a bare-bones “only what’s needed to install modules easily” kind of thing, which Perl 6 goes beyond. CPAN was built around how Perl 5 does packages; how Perl6 does packages is designed around what package managers typically do. The most prominent difference between how Perl 5 works with packages and how Perl 6 works with packages is in authority and versions. CPAN and PAUSE are responsible for handling versions, Perl 5 does not handle this. Additionally, module names are owned by one (or more) people, specified by the same infrastructure. In Perl 6, the version and authority are a part of the package itself. It makes little sense to place restrictions on what names you can use, or have a “upload tarballs only once” policy that requires versioned tarballs. The versioning shouldn’t be too hard to fix; most tarballs tend to be versioned anyway, but with version info in the module, instead of near it, PAUSE can’t rely on versioning of tarballs anymore, at least not for Perl 6. The author part is harder; since anyone can create a module with an existing name, so long as they aren’t the same author, this destroys the idea of various people “owning” a particular module name. Where in CPAN I have to explicitly request the ability to update Shell::Command from the right sources, in Perl 6 I can just make a module with that name, that holds the updates (a.k.a. “forking”). I imagine this isn’t easily fixed unless CPAN/PAUSE6 are effectively totally separate from the 5 versions. So, with the need to maintain separate worlds for Perl 5 and Perl 6, and to significantly alter CPAN itself (esp. the interfaces) for the kinds of things Perl 6 is designed for, the question arises: why doesn’t panda and the ecosystem work well enough already? Sure, CPAN offers a nice place to host tarballs, but aside from that, I think the existing infrastructure that Perl 6 has works. From my view, this would be nothing more than a name change, one that’s of questionable value. Just to be clear, I’m not totally opposed to a move to CPAN (in fact it would likely give the Perl 6 crowd some much-needed structure in their module distributions). I just have some serious misgivings about what this move would entail, and on some level why putting it all under the CPAN name is better than just putting it under a different name, especially if the two languages would be so separate. However, I would love to be convinced otherwise, that CPAN would be awesome for Perl 6. This is simply the opinion of someone who’s used cpan all of once or twice for the odd Perl 5 script that needs to be run, and has been able to get along in Perl 6 just fine without CPAN so far. Additionally, because I believe in lighting candles when it’s dark, I’ll do my best over the next few days to design a mockup of my idea of a Perl 6 package manager, to better illustrate why I’m not sold on CPAN as it is. (Yes, this will most likely revive one certain idea, if maybe not quite in name :P) Also, mostly as a matter of principle, I refuse to use PAUSE until I’m not forced to give out my full real name. I just don’t see the point of that, and I’m not very liberal with any of my personal information unless it’s absolutely necessary :) . A Brand New Spec, S15 So, for the past few days I’ve been working on a provisional S15 mostly for fun. I was considering TimToady’s long-ago suggestion of developing a libicu replacement tuned to Perl 6’s needs, and after learning some interesting things about NFG, I finally got around to writing an S15. After those few days, S15 has become “good enough” for inclusion into the specs repository, where it will benefit from many people being able to edit the spec. Now anyone with commit access to the specs repository will be able to improve it, as well as anyone who forks the repo :) . See it here. The contents of S15 are far from finished. There’s a lot of stuff that still needs working out, such as the functions of the Stringy and Unicodey roles, whether Uni is a rope of multiple Normalization Forms or just a simple string containing that mixture, and the function of string operators now. For instance, Str ~ Str Concatenates two strings and results in a Str. But what happens when you try Uni ~ NFC or any of the other multitude of combinations of string types? What’s Next? There are three things I see that I could do at this time: 1. Write and fudge a bunch of S15 tests. This seems to me to be the most important thing, as it allows us to see how coding with these new things feels before they ever begin to work. 2. Copy a bunch of S15 information to the rest of the spec. This involves at least, off the top of my head, S05, S32::Str(ing), and S02. Undoubtedly more. 3. Start migrating the other specs to Pod6. The S15 I placed in the repository makes it the second Pod6-written document in the specs repository. I should think that now’s a good time to migrate the rest of the specs, and modify/replace the relevant scripts in the mu repository to handle Pod6. All this work would of course happen in branches. The list is in about the order I plan on doing these things, assuming others don’t work on these things first :) . So please, read our not-yet-stellar provisional draft S15, and get ready for the Unicode Future™. Some Thoughts on Unicode in Perl 6 Except that actually cannot happen, what with 8 unwritten synopses: • S15 — Unicode • S18 — Compiling • S20 — Introspection* • S23 — Security • S25 — Portable Perl • S27 — Perl Culture* • S30 — Standard Perl Library • S33 — Diagnostic Messages Consider this humble Devanagari syllable: नि (U+0928 U+093F) UTF-8 E0 A4 A8 E0 A4 BF UTF-16BE 0928 093F UTF-32BE 00000928 0000093F bytes 6 4 8 code units 6 2 2 codepoints 2 2 2 graphemes 1 1 1 Pragmas — Changing Defaults Perl 6 handles Unicode in a couple of default ways: • Encodes Unicode strings in UTF-8 • Views strings in terms of graphemes unless another view is requested use utf8; # use UTF-8 encoding use graphemes; # count by graphemes use codepoints; # count by code points use codeunits; # count by code units use bytes; # count by bytes use normalization :NFC/:NFD/:any # compose/decompose/leave be all characters # in strings at time of creation. Methods for Str .graphs # count by graphemes .codes # count by code points .units # count by code units .bytes # count by bytes .compose # convert string to NFC form .decompose # convert string to NFD form .convert # change the encoding of the Str Closing Thoughts Posted in Think Tank \| Tagged , , , \| 5 Comments
Like what you saw? Start your free trial and get immediate access to: Watch 1-minute preview of this video Get immediate access to: Your video will begin after this quick intro to Brightstorm. Converting from Rectangular Coordinates to Polar - Problem 1 4,549 views Teacher/Instructor Norm Prokup Norm Prokup Cornell University PhD. in Mathematics We're converting from rectangular coordinates to polar coordinates. This time I want to try to extend this approach to equations. So I've got three rectangular equations. I want to convert them to polar form, to see what they look like in polar. Now these are pretty simple ones like y equals 5 is a horizontal line. Remember how we convert back and forth between polar and rectangular. We use these conversion equations. For example, for y equals 5, I could use this equation; y is the same as r sine theta. So r sine theta equals 5, is actually a pretty good equation for this. Well usually, if it's possible we like to write r as a function of theta, so we solve this for r. We write 5 over sine theta, which is the same as r equals 5 cosecant theta. This would be your equation in polar coordinates for the horizontal line y equals 5. Part b; x² plus y² equals 25. This is a circle of radius 5 centered at the origin. There is a really easy conversion for x² plus y², that's actually r². So I just make that replacement r² equals 25. Now we want to simplify this if we can. Normally, we'd write r equals plus or minus 5, but it turns out that the entire circle can be described just with the equation r equals 5. So that's our final equation. You don't need the r equals -5. It gives you exactly the same circle. Then for y equal x, we use our equation for the tangent of theta. If you take a look, tangent theta equals y over x. How do we use that? Well let me pull the x over to the left side. I get y over x equals 1. So that's the tangent of theta. Tangent theta equals 1. You have to think about what angle has a tangent equal to one? Well theta equals pi over 4. So this is interesting. The line y equals x, the line that makes 45 degree angle with the x axis, and passes through the origin, its equation in polar is theta equals pi over 4. Stuck on a Math Problem? Ask Genie for a step-by-step solution
Jane Eyre Analysis Form and Content (Masterpieces of Women's Literature) Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre traces the personal development of a young woman who must struggle to maintain a separate identity and independence in the suffocating pressures of her culture. She grapples with the societal expectations of her gender, which frequently conflict with her intuitive sense of self. Each setting and situation that Jane encounters denotes a phase in her personal progress, teaching her and preparing her for the next experience. The linear organization of Jane’s maturation process is attributable to the viewpoint of the narrator. The narrator is not the child, teenager, or young woman that Jane is during the course of the narrative, but the adult wife and mother who is recounting her story. With hindsight and from a mature perspective, Jane can recognize the pivotal, shaping events of her life. She takes account of her life, selecting events so that a pattern of personal development becomes apparent, what all people do in making sense of their past. The reader also senses Brontë’s voice. Although the novel is not an autobiography, it contains autobiographical elements—Brontë’s experience at the Clergy Daughter’s School is similar to Jane’s years at Lowood, for example. Certainly Brontë draws from her own experience as a maturing young woman in describing the life of Jane Eyre. Each setting indicates a stage of growth for Jane. Under the cruel treatment of her aunt, Sarah Reed, at Gateshead Hall, Jane learns as a child to rely on her own inner strength. The strong self-reliance that she develops as a protective mechanism in this brutal environment sustains her throughout her life. At Lowood, Jane finds sincere friendship in Helen Burns and a compassionate mother-figure in Maria Temple. Jane learns from Helen’s religious stoicism, but realizes that she is too much in need of human companionship to accept such a solitary existence completely. When Miss Temple leaves to get married, Jane believes that she also must leave, having matured enough to break free from this surrogate mother. As governess in Thornfield Hall, Jane finds in Edward Fairfax Rochester a kindred spirit equal to her in passion and strong individualism, but also suffering from a faltering sense of identity in regard to what he is and what is expected of him. Bertha, Rochester’s insane wife, who lives in the attic, haunts them both as a symbol of their still-unresolved identities. They cannot truly be united until each has worked out these inner problems. Jane finally finds real family support with her three cousins at Moor House. She attains self-confidence from her success with the school and financial independence from her uncle’s inheritance. From her unemotional relationship with her cousin St. John Rivers, a zealous minister, she realizes that she needs a passionate love, and her inner standard of religious morals is further solidified in contrast to his frigid piety. Jane Eyre contains gothic, Romantic, and Victorian elements. Elements of these styles do not simply exist for their own sake, but underscore the major theme of Jane’s personal progress. The gothic and Romantic elements—Bertha’s ghostlike haunting, Thornfield’s dark and castlelike image, the spiritual connection between Rochester and Jane, nature’s sympathetic response to Jane’s emotions with storms and sunshine—are symbolic of Jane’s dark struggles with her identity and her romantic tendency to follow her intuition. The Victorian emphasis on realism, on domestic concerns of marriage and family, and the reconciliation of feeling with reason also pervade the novel. Jane Eyre Places Discussed (Critical Guide to Settings and Places in Literature) Gateshead Hall Gateshead Hall. Upper-middle class home of the Reed family. Gateshead Hall, identified only as located in “—shire,” England, is the home in which Jane spends the first ten years of her life with her aunt, Mrs. Reed, and her three cousins. It is here that Jane learns to take care of herself—training that prepares her for the hardships that are to follow during her years at an orphan asylum. Two places in particular within Gateshead Hall play prominent roles in Jane’s life there. The window seat in which the reader first encounters Jane as she reads a book on the history of British birds is surrounded by thick red curtains and shelters her from both the cold, raw weather on the outside of the window and the cold, loveless environment of the Reed household on the other side of the curtain. Shortly after Jane leaves the womblike safety of the window seat, she is banished to the red room, her late uncle’s old bedroom, after being unjustly accused of fighting with her cousin John. It is from the unhappy atmosphere of Gateshead Hall that Jane acquires the strength of character to help her with the difficulties she must face in the future. Lowton. Fictional town near which the Lowood Orphan Asylum is located, some fifty miles from Gateshead Hall. This school is believed to be based in part on the Cowan Bridge School that Charlotte Brontë and her sisters attended as girls. Lowood Orphan Asylum Lowood Orphan Asylum. After the incident of the red room, Mrs. Reed contacts Mr. Brocklehurst, treasurer of the Lowood Orphan Asylum, to arrange for Jane to live at the school permanently. Jane’s first year at Lowood, especially, is difficult because Mr. Brocklehurst forces the teachers and students to survive on inadequate nourishment and in harsh living conditions. By the spring of her first year at Lowood, typhoid fever ravages the school, resulting in an investigation of Brocklehurst’s methods and leading to vastly improved conditions for the inhabitants of Lowood. Jane spends the next eight years at Lowood—six years as a student and two years as a teacher. Though her remaining years at Lowood are less difficult than the first, Jane still yearns for more from life. During her years at Lowood, Jane learns from her close friend, Helen Burns, and the superintendent of Lowood, Miss Temple, what it means to live life as a true Christian. Millcote. Fictional English village that is the location of Thornfield Hall, the home of Edward Fairfax Rochester. The village affords Jane the first glimpse of her new home after she leaves Lowood School and is also the scene of her near-marriage to Rochester. Thornfield Hall Thornfield Hall. Home of Rochester, his ward Adela, and the housekeeper Mrs. Fairfax. It is there that Jane begins to enjoy life for the first time. However, as the house’s name implies, the house is also a field of thorns, in which Jane learns the joys and pain of true love as well. Thornfield is a large upper-class estate with many rooms and an equal number of secrets. One secret that is kept from Jane and visitors to the estate is that on the upper floor of the mansion, Rochester is hiding Bertha, his legal wife, who has gone mad. After Jane’s arrival, the house transforms from a place nearly abandoned by its master to the scene of family tranquillity, parties, and Jane and Rochester’s growing love for each other. Later, however, it becomes a place of pain and regret that Jane must leave in secret in order to escape the prospect of love without the sanctity of marriage. Whitcross. Fictional crossroads on the moors of northern England to which Jane flees from Rochester and the memories of their lost love. Left with no food, money, or clothes, Jane must beg for scraps of food and spends several nights sleeping outside. Moor House Moor House. Home of St. John, Diana, and Mary Rivers. Left with no other options, Jane finds herself outside Moor House, hoping to find food, lodging, and possible employment. The cottage is warm and inviting, and the Rivers family takes in an ailing Jane and nurses her back to health. Finding Jane to be well bred and educated, St. John immediately employs Jane to run a school for village girls. In her small home and school Jane finds the contentment of employment to be both fulfilling and enjoyable. However, Jane soon discovers that she is both an heiress to a considerable fortune and the cousin of the Rivers family. She is also faced with a marriage proposal from St. John. Realizing that she loves only Rochester, she leaves Moor House to go to him. Upon arriving in Millcote, Jane learns that Thornfield Hall has burned down, Rochester’s wife has died, and Rochester has moved to his other home, Ferndean Manor. Ferndean Manor Ferndean Manor. One of Rochester’s homes, located two miles from Millcote. After Jane learns of the change in Rochester’s circumstances, she rushes to Ferndean Manor and finds that he is both blind and maimed as a result of the fire that destroyed Thornfield Hall and killed Bertha. Jane and Rochester decide on a quiet wedding with only the two of them present. It is at Ferndean Manor that Jane is rewarded for her years of suffering and longing for love and where the Rochesters finally begin a long and happy marriage. Jane Eyre Context (Masterpieces of Women's Literature) Published in 1847, Jane Eyre was a popular success. Although many women writers were read by the Victorian public, true literary respectability required a masculine name; hence Brontë used the pseudonym “Currer Bell.” The popularity of this intelligent novel should force one to reconsider the often belittled and maligned tastes of the largely female reading public of the period. One can imagine that the novel appealed to women then, and today, because it reflects the frustratingly limiting condition of women in the nineteenth century. Although the novel’s end suggests a happy, typically Victorian domestic solution to Jane’s problems—the reconciliation of Jane and Rochester—this conclusion does not assuage the more pervasive difficulties that Jane encounters in defining her identity as a woman within nineteenth century constraints. Modern readers appreciate Jane’s strength and independence and her admirable struggle to live with integrity within a culture stifling for women. For example, Jane’s job as a governess exemplifies only one confusing female role in the 1800’s. Women had very few alternatives for survival. If not supported by a father or a husband, an educated, middle-class woman likely was forced to become a governess, a position of lifelong servitude and repression of personal desires. As a woman who possesses the education, tastes, and behaviors of upper-class decorum so that she can teach them to her charges, the governess was frustrated to be treated as simply another household servant. Much of Jane’s confusion about her identity at Thornfield stems from her contradictory role as governess. Marriage, however, was no saving grace. Jane expresses the very modern fear, practically unheard of in the nineteenth century, of losing her identity in marriage. She resists compromising her identity and denigrating herself in conforming to Rochester’s idea of a wife. In her wedding dress, she does not recognize herself before the mirror, nor can she write “Mrs. Rochester” on her luggage. As St. John’s wife, she fears she would be “always restrained, and always checked—forced to keep the fire of my nature continually low.” When Rochester is maimed and socially ruined, essentially bringing his physical strength and social position equal to that of Jane, the threat of domination no longer exists. Jane announces her decision in the powerful, self-asserting words of the final chapter: “Reader, I married him.” Jane Eyre Historical Context Haworth Village, home of the Brontë sisters, in the West Riding of Yorkshire (now West Yorkshire), England. Published by Gale Cengage Bronte's England: The Social Context Jane Eyre is set in the north of England sometime in the first half of the... (The entire section is 725 words.) Jane Eyre Setting Set in early nineteenth-century England, Jane Eyre moves through various locations, all informed by autobiographical detail from... (The entire section is 370 words.) Jane Eyre Literary Style Jane Eyre is written in the first person, and told from the viewpoint of its main character, Jane Eyre.... (The entire section is 2444 words.) Jane Eyre Literary Qualities Critics agree that Jane Eyre offers a fine example of the author-as-narrator; narrative credibility follows from an intimate knowledge... (The entire section is 148 words.) Jane Eyre Social Sensitivity Jane Eyre explores the predicaments of those bound by law, conventions, and social status to lives not of their own choosing. Like... (The entire section is 153 words.) Jane Eyre Compare and Contrast • 1840s: Like other creative and intellectual pursuits, novel writing is considered a male preserve. Women such as the... (The entire section is 340 words.) Jane Eyre Topics for Discussion 1. Examine the behavior of Georgiana Reed, Blanche Ingram, and Rosamond Oliver to determine their ultimate goals. What are they? Do you think... (The entire section is 183 words.) Jane Eyre Ideas for Reports and Papers 1. How are Jane, Edward, and Bertha all imprisoned in different ways by different circumstances? What liberates them? How do these different... (The entire section is 166 words.) Jane Eyre Topics for Further Study • In her preface to the second edition of Jane Eyre Charlotte Bronte wrote: "Conventionality... (The entire section is 225 words.) Jane Eyre Related Titles / Adaptations Bronte's novel The Professor recalls her experiences at the Pensionnat Heger and explores the effects of ambition and authoritarianism... (The entire section is 74 words.) Jane Eyre Media Adaptations • Jane Eyre has been the subject of numerous adaptations for other media. During the silent film era, there were at least three... (The entire section is 295 words.) Jane Eyre What Do I Read Next? • Anne Bronte is the least well known of the three Bronte sister novelists. Written at the same time as Jane Eyre, her first novel,... (The entire section is 398 words.) Jane Eyre For Further Reference Alexander, Christina. The Early Writing of Charlotte Bronte. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1983. Analysis of Bronte's childhood... (The entire section is 299 words.) Jane Eyre Bibliography and Further Reading Bentley, Phyllis. The Brontës. London: Thames and Hudson Ltd., 1969. Blom, Margaret... (The entire section is 783 words.) Jane Eyre Bibliography (Great Characters in Literature) Blom, Margaret Howard. Charlotte Brontë. Boston: Twayne, 1977. This introductory work asserts that Jane Eyre reflects Brontë’s own contradictory struggle to be both independent and controlled by a man. Using biographical information as a springboard for analysis, the work examines Brontë’s novels in separate chapters, including notes, an index, and a bibliography. Gilbert, Sandra M., and Susan Gubar. The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1979. This feminist work examines recurrent themes in the works of major nineteenth century female writers. Interprets Jane Eyre as a progress novel tracing Jane’s maturation, emphasizing the complex meaning of Bertha. Although 700 pages long, the book’s extensive index and chapters divided by writer and work make it convenient for research. Imlay, Elizabeth. Charlotte Brontë and the Mysteries of Love: Myth and Allegory in “Jane Eyre.” New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1989. Discusses the relationships in the novel, focusing particularly on that between Jane and Rochester. Looks at uses of myth and symbol in Brontë’s depiction of relationships. Kadish, Doris Y. The Literature of Images: The Narrative Landscape from “Julie” to “Jane Eyre.” New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1987. Discusses the web of image and metaphor that governs Jane Eyre and transforms this realist novel. King, Jeannette. “Jane Eyre.” Philadelphia: Open University Press, 1986. An effective introduction to Jane Eyre, the book is arranged by literary elements with chapter headings such as “Characterization,” “Language,” and “Structure and Theme.” Based on a tutorial approach in which readers are asked to reread certain chapters before reading discussion portions carefully examining the passages. London, Bette. “The Pleasures of Submission: Jane Eyre and the Production of the Text.” English Literary History 58, no. 1 (Spring, 1991): 195-214. A look at the historical period when the novel was written. Specifically addresses the portrayals of women in nineteenth century fiction by women writers. Macpherson, Pat. Reflecting on “Jane Eyre.” London: Routledge, 1989. The author’s conversational style and humor make this an entertaining work of criticism. Offers extensive character examinations of Jane, Bertha, and St. John and suggests that Brontë is practicing biting social criticism behind the disarming disguise of feminine confession. Nestor, Pauline. Charlotte Brontë’s “Jane Eyre.” New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992. Arguing that Jane does not control her own actions, this work of new feminist criticism rejects previous estimations of Jane as a feminist hero. Offers interesting analyses of the themes of motherhood, sexuality, and identity and surveys the work’s historical background and criticism. Includes an index, notes, and a bibliography. Peters, Joan D. “Finding a Voice: Toward a Woman’s Discourse of Dialogue in the Narration of Jane Eyre.” Studies in the Novel 23, no. 2 (Summer, 1991): 217-236. Discusses the instabilities, difficulties, and resistances of the narrative voice in the novel. Pinion, F. B. A Brontë Companion. New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1975. A good reference work on all the Brontës, including biographical material, chapter-length analyses of their novels, a section on characters and places, an index, an annotated bibliography, and illustrations.
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Fountain Kinetics water features and fountain art electronic water features and fountains fountain kinetics art and design art and design home page water art On Water Feature and Fountain Design A well designed fountain should integrate physical structure, water behavior and sound into a unified and coherent whole. The fountain should "make sense" with each element having a reason for being a part of the work. Sound should be actively considered as a part of fountain design. Fountain sound should not be perceived as "noise" nor should it fight the dynamic movement of water in the fountain. Water movement should be purposeful. If the fountain is thematic, the water movement should relate to the theme. As with all good art, a good fountain should evoke an emotional mood and connection in receptive viewers and should express "intent". The water feature or fountain must "read" as a unified statement and "stand alone" on its own merit when integrated with its surrounds. A well-designed fountain should remain fresh to the eye and ear. Ideally, every time one looks at a fountain, one should see and hear something new, sometimes centering, sometimes provocative, sometimes even surprising. Metaphorically, viewing a fountain should be like searching for enlightenment by perceiving the world uniquely at every moment, the viewer flowing with time while remaining in the present. Like the Japanese Tea Ceremony, fountain design can be a subtle dance between making a statement that many can simply enjoy while stimulating a few to relate to the work on a number of deeper levels. Water in Architectural Settings When you look at a fountain, what are you aware of? Are you aware of the physical design of the fountain, what the water does, how the fountain sounds, or how the fountain relates to its architectural setting? Or are you simply aware of the overall statement of the fountain, buildings and setting as a unified whole? Or - because it all works - are just unaware and simply experiencing mindlessly? Many of the fountains in our environment are "just there". Many splash onto circulation spaces, employ materials that discolor and stain due to exposure and water impurities, and cry out for maintenance. Many are simply banal; many more are incongruous and just don't make any sense either in terms of location, context, or execution. A vast majority of the fountains we encounter around the world have themes that have been used for so many hundreds of years that the absurdity of much of the imagery doesn't even register. What mental imagery is water flowing from the mouths of lions, cherubs, putti, dolphins, birds, and the like supposed to evoke? Kitsch themes abound in fountain design and quite apparently have abundant historical precedents. So many fountains are poorly designed and built, improperly filtered and non-maintained that many end up as non-functional eye-sores until they either magically transform themselves into planters or are demolished and carted to the landfill. One of the givens in the real world is that if something is not easy to maintain it generally won't be maintained. Is there a rational approach to incorporating water in our environments? One overarching principal is that in an ideal world the fountain or water feature design should be an integral part of the architectural and landscape design process. This is not always possible and in many cases water elements are considered only after the project is completed or when renovation is considered. What follows are just a few ways of thinking about incorporating water in an architectural setting. There is no one right way. What seems to be the case is that when it's right, you know it, your viewers know it, and it simply "works". Water as a Unifying Element Especially in large projects consisting of several buildings to be built in a uniform style, water can be used to visually tie the separate structures together. In this context one can design water elements to be visual "threads" that are metaphorically woven through the planned space. In this context the water "threads" can be used to delineate circulation space and to define branching points between different structures. Water as a Complement to Architectural Design In this paradigm the water feature or fountain would architecturally mirror the building architecture. For instance if the architectural style is minimalist, the fountain would be minimalist and stylistically integrate with the building architecture. As another example, if the building design were traditional Spanish/Moorish, the fountain could carry out the Spanish/Moorish theme in style, shape, texture, and materials. Complementary design is the simplest approach to merging water and architecture. The only pitfall is that a slight deviation from a one-to-one design correspondence might be visually jarring. Many examples of this exist where ersatz "Moorish" fountains are placed in quasi-Spanish style residences only to look like they don't quite belong. Water as a Contrast to Architectural Design Contrasting water with architecture can be tricky but examples exist where such a mix works. A notable example is the Getty Center in Los Angeles, designed by Richard Meier. Artist Robert Irwin's Central Garden at the Getty contrasts wildly with Meier's architectural and landscape aesthetic but is a spectacular success. The garden incorporates a meandering abstracted stream bed, a waterfall, a pond and plantings that are changed with the seasons. The garden and water treatments become a foil to soften and contrast with Meier's architectural style. Whereas Meier chose to emphasize the expansive views from the Getty's mountain-top site, Erwin's design visually brings the viewer inward. Erwin's water treatment unifies the garden and auditorially softens the architecture. Somewhat surprisingly, Erwin's garden and Meier's architecture do not fight each other but instead give us two separate experiences in the same space. Contrast become complement. Water as an Integral Element in Building Design There are many examples of inside-outside residential design where water unifies the transition of inside to outside - either explicitly or by reference. Frank Lloyd Wright's Falling Water in Pennsylvania strategically placed the residence over a natural waterfall. At the 1939 New York World Fair the Italian Pavilion had a formal cascading waterfall integrated into the front facade of the building. The front of the Electrical Utilities Building had a walk-through waterfall as the building's entrance. In fact, water features were an integral part of many of the corporate buildings and public spaces of that most visionary World Fair. One can consider a garden room with water walls defining the room's perimeter; or a room with clear walls of cascading sheets of water. In these later examples, water defines space and in essence becomes a part of the architectural statement. Do other examples come to mind? Water as a Focal Point in Architectural and Landscape Design A water feature can act as a focal point in a residential, commercial, or industrial development. It can anchor a street and even be integrated into roadway design. One example to control traffic flow is the linear water feature in Los Angeles' Century City used functionally and aesthetically to separate northbound and southbound traffic. Do other examples come to mind? Environmental Considerations Fountain design is a natural arena for exploiting green technology. Given cost constraints, novel power technologies coupled with feature effects that maximize performance while tending to minimize water use and power requirements, are becoming increasingly feasible. In some cases solar driven-pumps can be considered for intermittent small-scale water effects such as pump-driven spray nozzles to aerate a pond. It goes without saying that because water resources are diminishing in many parts of the world, environmentally conscious water use is becoming a practical necessity. It thus becomes imperative for the fountain designer to consider minimizing water loss by at the very least considering evaporative losses as part of the design process. It may be that in the near future outdoor water features and even swimming pools in new home construction will be banned or severely limited in many regions of the United States and abroad. In this case indoor water fountains can become a way to still connect with water in our home environment. Indoor water fountains can be designed to evaporatively cool and increase humidity in the living space. Scotty's Castle in Death Valley, California did that very thing in the 1920's - so this concept is nothing new. Also indoor fountains need not be small, tabletop statements. Several of our indoor art fountains in our gallery make the point. Especially with our patented control technologies, the indoor fountain can become a dynamic design element whether placed in an entry or in a living space. The same but never the same - it's only for the viewer to watch and realize the transitions. text copyright © 2008-2013 Gary Fisher copyright © 2006-2013 Fountain Kinetics Fountain Kinetics home page gallery art and design philosophy Fountain Kinetics technology licencing our technology about Fountain Kinetics Contacting Fountain Kinetics
Jump to content • Log In with Google Sign In • Create Account Path Finding for innovative games: Navigation By Giovanni Guarino \| Published Jul 04 2014 07:36 AM in Artificial Intelligence Peer Reviewed by (Buckeye, Dave Hunt, jbadams) pathfinding ai artificial intelligence navigation meshes navigation grid mental navigation intelligent agent dynamic avoidance biological pathfinding psychology This is the first of three articles that treat a new approach for the Path Finding. It's a part of the studies and experience I made in the last years, in the fields of the Artificial Intelligence for Games, Philosophy and Evolutionary Psychology. The current panorama of the Path Finding All the Artificial Intelligence modules for Videogames are made by using models thought several years ago. Some of those models are rather old, taking into consideration the fast growing of the other software modules of videogames. For example, even I didn’t found any source that specifies when the Navigation Mesh (or Navmesh) has been implemented for the first time, I can state that this model is used at least from the 2004 (and then 10 years ago). It is, together with the Navigation Grid, the most used and, practically, the most advanced approach to obtain the graph for making paths for videogames. Nonetheless, the Waypoint Navigation is still used in a multitude of simple games, and is even older than the Navmesh. If we compare the improvements in the AI modules with the ones of Graphic modules (I mean the ones that render the game), we could see that, referring to when the waypoint navigation has been used for the first times, the graphics were at level of the CGA technology. The evolution made by the Graphic module, in these years, is enormous. Ok, you could say that computer graphics has been largely helped by the evolution of the hardware. The problem, though, remains: in the last 10 years, if we avoid to mention the OCC model (relative to the psychological approach to the intelligent agents) and some other agent-based approach that, by the way, are still practically unused in videogames, we can’t say to have witnessed something that could be defined as really new, or a strong, sharable improvement. The reason? Mainly because, despite the advent of the cognitive science, the approach to the artificial intelligence topic by the insiders is never changed in decades. How the path finding of the videogames of the future will be? Is it possible that it will have modules made on models that we have from decades? Personally, I reckon that the videogames of the future will be far different from the currents. The problem for developers is not how they will be, but how to build AI models able to support new features. I had a different approach, respect to the classic one, about the “intelligence” topic. I started from the consciousness that we humans are not a species fallen from the sky, completely different from all the other species of Nature on Earth. This brought me to know the Evolutionary Psychology, from which I profitably tapped several theories that, I’m sure, will help AI to develop the first, real, virtual living being. A topic question: what is intelligence? What is Intelligence, speaking about what is important for videogames? Intelligence is not more than a tool to improve the human ability to manage the environment. It’s the more powerful tool ever made by natural selection on Earth, but still a tool like the elephant tusks, or the opposable thumbs we share with the other primates. The Evolutionary Psychology calls them Evolutionary Adaptations. There are a lot of studies and findings, in Neurosciences and Psychology that state the fact that emotions take part of the human (and animal) intelligence, and without them the sole logic is useless. This way to think at intelligence changes dramatically the approach to any problem you find in videogames, and with any other human or animal simulation. For instance, my approach to the path finding issue takes into consideration the fact that humans (and animals) have their own way to memorize maps in mind. The result of this memorization often doesn’t correspond to the actual map, more often than we would admit. Even the approach to the navigation for building the graph is completely different. In my opinion, it should take into consideration how we move toward a physical target. This approach carries several new features and performance improvements, in respect to the ones currently adopted. I try in few words to explain some of the main thoughts that are at the base of this new approach. First of all, I need to title the parts in which I divide the news. 1. Navigation 2. Graph Population 3. Best Path Identification 4. Dynamic Objects Avoiding 5. Smoothing Movements 6. Mental Map First Topic - Navigation for innovative games Please think about a game like “I am alive”, "Spiderman", “Tomb Rider”, “Prince of Persia”, “Assassin’s creed” or one of a lot of others where the player’s character is able to climb, jump and make other unusual actions. In almost all the titles of this genre, there are some unnatural behaviours done by NPCs. One of the most evident is when NPCs want to catch/kill the player and, in order to do that, “decide” not to climb and follow the PC. They only expect the player to finish his climbing actions in order to attack him, or try to shoot him from the walkable area when it’s climbing. This is not a logical and biological behaviour, because unless all the NPCs know the buildings around them like their shoes, they can’t be sure that the PC could flee from their hands. In order to reproduce a correct human behaviour, NPCs, for example, should use the simple tactic of the pincer: some of them follows the thief/enemy/PC by climbing behind him, while the others try to run and block his way out. How to do that, though, if the Path Finding Navigation system can’t use walls as “usable areas”? Videogame programmers rarely make their NPCs able to climb and follow the climbing player. This is because, in order to do that, they should customize the path finding module, making it more complex and often not usable for other videogames in which the player only has to walk and run. A new approach, that I baptized “Biological Path Finding” (BPF), resolve the problem at its root. There should be focal points (automatically generated) only in the places where two micro-environments meet. This brings to have a focal point even where the way to proceed changes because the different micro-environment is vertical, that is a wall or some other “climbable” surface. Each line that comes from a node will acquire a weight (talking with an A* approach) that will be calculated in base of the ability of each “kind of NPC” to traverse it, by climbing, swimming, walking etc. This solution involves a more general management of NPCs, whom should be categorized in Species. The good news is that, with this approach, you can have a different best path for each Species of NPC, while each NPC is able to move along the level based on its own ability. The better performance in elaborating the paths thanks to a lower amount of nodes, respect to the current approaches, mitigate the fact that the path elaboration, with this approach, will be done for each species. Unless the game uses dozens of different species (I never found a game like that!), the total amount of time for elaborating the paths off-line should be not higher than the ones of the current approaches, but giving us more features and wider solutions to adopt in videogames. Yes, it’s something more complicated than a mere, simple path navigation system (do and use), like most of the current videogames have. Nonetheless, videogames are already evolved from the first ones like Invaders or Pacman, and we can surely say that all the main titles in genres like RPG, MMORPG, Shooters and Strategy are very complex per se, so that the cost for having new features for NPCs could be paid without too much regret. The need to ease the run-time elaboration In the last years, more and more videogames contain larger levels. It’s obvious that the larger the level, the harder is remaining into acceptable performance when NPCs calculate their paths to catch the target and the number of NPCs is higher. I know that several videogame developers recognize that problem as one of the most time-consuming during the development. The fact is that we continue to think too logically to the issues that involve human simulations. If we think, instead, to have a person in place of each NPC, we should then linger on to the way with which humans think about the path finding, speaking from the point of view of the Psychology. I don’t want to write down here a book again (I already made it, and in the next month will be published), so I need to condensate some thoughts in a shorter version. When a human tries to think about a larger zone and how to reach his destination, he usually has some mental images about the most important, for him, parts of the environment (blocks of a city, for example), and then think about each zone as a black box. This approach helps a lot, even with our path finding issue, because it avoids calculating the path at the highest detail. One of the studies in Psychology that better analyse the issues related to paths traveled by humans has been done by Lynch (1960). The double dimension for path finding has been already used in some games. The fact is that in the Biological Path Finding it fits the overall approach, being one of the tools that derive directly from a psychological study of the human behaviour. What this approach brings is the fact that you save time in making only the calculation that you really need. In fact, are you sure that the NPC will travel all the path? How high is the possibility that the NPC will be killed along the path, or will find a good reason to find a new path again or, in any case, do something different? In these cases, the calculation of the overall path in a large level has been made in vain. The approach of breaking large calculations into several, smaller ones made “along the road” by NPCs should be used widely, because it’s a good way to enhance the performance. In any case, this lets the NPC be more “human” without making heavy the overall performance. Then, the BPF takes use of two dimensions of Path Finding: the District and the Zone Path Finding. The District Path Finding is the one I explained in the previous paragraphs, the other is the one that resolve the need to walk along a short path, in order to catch a closer target or exit from the district (if necessary) from the side required by the selection of the “correct” (not the best!) macro-path found by the District Path Finding. Even at that level, the approach is completely different from the usual. It tries to minimize the amount of micro-paths that has to be kept into consideration. Humans, in fact, take a decision about the path to use, in order to move toward a closer target, by looking at the target (or in direction of it) and check only the paths that have their first focal point not distant, in terms of angular degrees, respect to the direct direction toward the target. This way to select the path has been already addressed by other researchers, for example by Douglas Jon Demyen (2007) in his thesis. In my next articles, I’ll continue to talk about a Biological Path Finding approach, and more precisely talking about the other five topics already named in this article. Path Finding for Innovative Games: Graph Creation and Best Path Selection. Path Finding for Innovative Games: Object Avoidance and Smoothing Movement. Article Update Log 14 Mar 2014: Title changed 10 Mar 2014: changed the number of articles, whom becomes three 1 Mar 2014: Initial release About the Author(s) GDOL (Gamedev.net Open License) Already very interesting! Very excited for the next updates! Would be nice put some technical references. But anyway, good read. Good read, awaiting for next chapter, thank you so much. This came at the perfect time for me, great read! :) At the start of the article I paused and tried to imagine how I would implement an innovative path-finding algorithm in my non-existent (but nevertheless awesome) game project. I was gratified to discover that the simple model I envisioned lines up exactly with what the author describes. I'm going to take encouragement from that. Maybe I'll start that game project sooner than later. I'm very much looking forward to the rest of this series. Excellent article! Very interesting approach. It appears English is not your first language, and, in a few places in the article, it's not very clear what you are trying to say. However, your message gets through, nonetheless. I'm not seeing anything novel here. The so-called "BPF" is just hierarchical path-finding combined with predicated/filtered path-finding, and neither of those techniques nor their combination are new. Or am I missing some key element of this article (totally likely) ? I think that's probably it's useful that you take a look along the whole article, because in the other parts you can see a lot of differences with the other types of path finding. Anyway, you're right when you say that it's not totally new. As I already wrote in the second part of the article, some parts of the model have already been used in other contexts, but here are for the first time part of a whole, organic model, and for the first time are confirmed by some psychologic theories.
Dirty Airline Secrets: Where Germs Live in Planes Studies confirm what you already suspected: An airplane is a dirty place. But you might be surprised at just how unhygienic they can really be. By Beth Levine Ready for some airline confidential? Plane travel today is stressful enough what with rigorous security screenings, long waits, and cancelled, crowded or delayed flights. You might want to get a plane barf bag ready, however, for this exposé on the microscopic indignities: questionable airplane hygiene. Germs on a Plane A recent study from Auburn University confirmed that certain surfaces inside planes are more "bacteria sticky" than others. Researchers collected old airplane parts and tested how long Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (the dreaded MRSA) and E. Coli can survive on common plane surfaces such as the armrest, plastic tray table, metal toilet button, window shade, seat pocket cloth, and leather. They found that MRSA, a potentially deadly infection, can last for an entire week on material from the seat-back pocket. And E. coli, which can lead to severe anemia and kidney failure, is able to survive for four days on the material from the armrest. Porous surfaces, such as cloth material, are an especially hospitable environment for germs, they found. “The problem in the cabin is you have such a restricted, densely populated place,” says lead author Kiril Vaglenov, PhD, Auburn University Department of Biological Sciences, Alabama. But before you decide to never fly again, airlines claim that they have rigorous and regular cleaning schedules. For example, My-Linh Bui, a spokesperson for American Airlines, reports “Our staff works diligently to keep its aircraft as clean as possible with significant multi-stage cleaning processes:” Daily: Crews clean each plane thoroughly during its overnight stay at an airport, including removing and replacing all used blankets and pillows. Deep cleaning: Each aircraft is given a deep cleaning every 30 days, on average, using FAA- and EPA-approved cleaning agents. Ultra-cleaning: Every 18 months to two years, an airplane goes into a heavy maintenance check, based on hours of flight time. Your defense plan: Dr. Vaglenov reassures, “We are not trying to scare the public about airplanes. We are exposed to this kind of bacterial challenge everywhere such as in hospitals, movie theaters and daycare facilities. Be conscious about hand hygiene and don’t travel when you are contagious or immuno-compromised.” Also: • Use alcohol wipes to clean off tray tables and lavatory surfaces. (The super-duper toilet flushes spray contaminants everywhere, so surfaces quickly become dirty even if they started out clean.) • Don’t put your hands in the seat pockets. Air Quality Approximately 50 percent of the cabin air is outside air and 50 percent is HEPA-filtered recirculation air. So why does it so often seem that you get sick a few days after a plane flight? According to Douglas Walkinshaw, Ph.D., Indoor Air Technologies Inc., Ottawa, ON, Canada, airborne disease is transmitted more easily on a plane than in most other environments because: • The ventilation rate (the amount of air individuals are getting) in planes is low. The amount of times that cabin air changes per hour is high, not because each person is getting a lot of fresh or HEPA-filtered air, but because the aircraft cabin volume is so small and there are many people in it. • Many people from different locales, breathing out different pathogens, are crowded together in a relatively small space. • The exposure period is relatively long. • Flu viruses can be more potent at low humidity, and aircraft cabin humidity is much lower than most environments. Ironically, the smoking bans have made cabin air quality worse. “When smoking was allowed, passenger airlines brought in twice the amount of outdoor air per person that they do today," which means, nowadays, there is twice the amount of carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide (both are naturally produced by the human body) in airplane cabins, says Dr. Walkinshaw. "This could exacerbate the onset of certain illnesses." Also, HEPA-filtered air is ‘cleaned’ with respect to germs, but not with respect to gases. Your defense plan: The best way to protect yourself is by wearing a tight-fitting filter mask. Not much for masks? Use your seat's personal comfort features to keep you safer: Blow pathogens away by directing the personal air vent above your head, if there is one, between you and one of your neighbors. “This airflow will carry germs towards the floor where the air is exhausted in most aircrafts. Do not direct this flow at your face, as it will draw all neighbors’ germs into your breathing zone,” says Dr. Walkinshaw. Water Quality Here’s something that might turn your stomach: In 2004, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found that all aircraft public/potable water systems failed to meet national primary drinking water regulations. In a second round of testing shortly thereafter, 17.2 percent of 169 randomly selected passenger aircraft carried water contaminated with total coliform bacteria. (For the uninitiated, total coliform is a group of mostly harmless bacteria that live in soil, water, and human and animal waste, says EPA. It's an indicator of water quality.) The EPA instituted changes with the Aircraft Drinking Water Rule, which went into compliance in 2011. So all is hunky-dory, now, right? Yes…ish. “EPA is largely satisfied with the steps airlines have taken to comply with the rule, but continues to work with the industry to ensure that the health of passengers and crew are protected,” says Liz Purchia, EPA press secretary. That said, she also noted that from October 2011 to July 2013, 6.3 percent of routine samples tested positive for total coliforms and 0.2 percent tested positive for E. coli. “It's important to note that the presence of total coliforms is not generally harmful," says Purchia, but it's an indicator that fecal contamination could occur, if bad water enters the water distribution system through leaks, cracks, faulty seals or other breaches. Your defense plan: Aircrewhealth.com, recommends: • If you have any concerns, don’t drink any water that doesn't come in a bottle or can. That includes tea, coffee or mixed drinks, which are made with the plane’s water. • Ask if the ice is supplied by a caterer or if the aircraft has an ice-maker aboard — only accept caterer ice. • Wash your hands with soap in the lavatories, but give a little extra clean with alcohol-based sanitizers afterwards. • If you brush your teeth in an aircraft lavatory, use bottled water to wet your brush, and to rinse your mouth. You buy several bottles of water AFTER you go through TSA security check! Or if you trust your local airport or city water supply, you bring your EMPTY water bottles through TSA security and fill them from a bottle filling drinking fountain inside the security zone! fbradley@verizon.net on 2014-06-12 09:05:12 You cannot bring your own drinks from home and board an airplane. They are confiscated at the Security checkpoint. (Who thought up this idea??) I liked the article up until this point. Scary, though. pwall@peds.uab.edu on 2014-06-12 08:17:27 Interesting article, but this suggestion casts a shadow of doubt over the whole article: "Bring your own drinks from home." Clearly, the author hasn't actually boarded a plane in many years. sueb262 on 2014-06-12 07:40:01
. 24/7 Space News . Scientists pinpoint great-earthquake hot spots by Staff Writers Paris, France (SPX) Dec 11, 2012 File image courtesy AFP. "We find that 87% of the 15 largest (8.6 magnitude or higher) and half of the 50 largest (8.4 magnitude or higher) earthquakes of the past century are associated with intersection regions between oceanic fracture zones and subduction zones," says Dietmar Muller, researcher at the University of Sydney in Australia and lead author of the Solid Earth paper. The connection is less striking for smaller earthquakes. Powerful earthquakes related to these intersection regions include the destructive 2011 Tohoku-Oki and 2004 Sumatra events. "If the association we found were due to a random data distribution, only about 25% of great subduction earthquakes should coincide with these special tectonic environments. Therefore, we can rule out that the link we found is just due to chance," he adds. The researchers considered about 1,500 earthquakes in their study. They used a database of significant post-1900 events, as well as geophysical data mapping fracture zones and subduction zones, among others. They analysed information from these databases by using a specific data mining method. "The method was originally developed for analysing online user data," says Thomas Landgrebe, also involved in the study. "The technique we apply is commonly used to find a few specific items which are expected to be most appealing to an Internet user. Instead, we use it to find which tectonic environment is most suitable for generating great earthquakes." Since earthquake generation is a very complex process, the scientists don't yet have a complete understanding of why great earthquakes prefer the intersection areas. They suggest that it is due to the physical properties of fracture zones, which result in "strong, persistent coupling in the subduction boundaries," Landgrebe explains. This means that the subduction fault area is locked and thus capable of accumulating stress over long periods of time. "The connection we have uncovered provides critical information for seismologists to, in the long run, pinpoint particular tectonic environments that are statistically more prone to strong seismic coupling and great earthquake supercycles," Muller says. An area with earthquake supercycles experiences recurring powerful earthquakes every few centuries or millennia. Regions that have long earthquake supercycles are usually not picked up as risk areas by seismic hazard maps as these are constructed mainly using data collected after 1900. An example is the area of the 2011 Tohoku-Oki earthquake, which had no record of large earthquakes over the past century and was not predicted to be of significant risk by previous hazard maps. "The power of our new method is that it does pick up many of these regions and, hence, could contribute to much-needed improvements of long-term seismic hazard maps," Muller explains. "Even though we don't fully understand the physics of long earthquake cycles, any improvements that can be made using statistical data analysis should be considered as they can help reduce earthquake damage and loss of life." Related Links European Geosciences Union Bringing Order To A World Of Disasters When the Earth Quakes A world of storm and tempest Share this article via these popular social media networks DiggDigg RedditReddit GoogleGoogle Memory Foam Mattress Review Quake toll rises to six in eastern Iran Tehran (AFP) Dec 6, 2012 A total of six people - including five members of the same family - died in an earthquake that struck rural eastern Iran, near the border with Afghanistan, Iranian media said Thursday. The quake, which struck late Wednesday, measured 5.5 on the moment magnitude scale, according to Tehran University's Seismological Centre. Five villages near the epicentre, 25 kilometres (15 miles) from ... read more To the moon and back for less than 2 billion dollars NASA's GRAIL Creates Most Accurate Moon Gravity Map Chinese astronauts may grow veg on Moon Charitum Montes: a cratered winter wonderland Opportunity Continues Rock Studies Orbiter Spies Where Rover's Cruise Stage Hit Mars NASA to send new rover to Mars in 2020 What happens to plant growth when you remove gravity? Scientists say NASA's budget inadequate for its goals What trends will take upper hand in space exploration? 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Winter Blues Days get shorter and temperatures get colder. Winter is in full swing and for some that means their mood takes a dive. "With the days being short, we don't get as much vitamin D. Our skin synthesizes vitamin D from the sunlight we are exposed to," explains Supervised Psychologist, for Westbrook Health Services, Lisa Hutzler. It's call Seasonal Affective Disorder, also known as SAD or the Winter Blues. Experts with the Westbrook Health Services say symptoms are close to those of depression. "Often people feel tired, their processing speed is slowed down, their reaction time is a little slower, people eat a lot, and sometimes they'll have suicidal thoughts or thoughts of harming themselves." The Washington County Sheriff's Office says they also see it in many cases this time of year as well. "In the winter time, and the holidays, we tend to see people going through crisis situations, we tend to see a trend during that time frame," explains Chief Deputy, Mark Warden. And while we all have our Mondays and bad hair days but for some they seem to never end. "Generally with SAD you will have a couple weeks of dealing with depression. We all have days where we don't feel quite like ourselves, just want to lay around in our pajamas and watch movies all day but if it goes on for a week to two weeks, it's best to talk to ones physician," continues Hutzler. Experts say if it gets bad enough, visit a doctor or therapist but to try and combat the symptoms replace your Vitamin D with a supplement or healthy foods. "Don't hibernate. Try to keep yourself out socializing with other people, it's going to be difficult, it's not going to be easy, sometimes you have to like a firecracker under yourself to get yourself going but it is well worth it, you will feel better in the end." If you feel symptoms of depression or feel suicidal you can contact the Westbrook Health Services crisis hot line at at 304-485-1725 or just to speak with someone there you can call 304-485-1721. powered by Disqus
Edit Article • 19 Editors • Edited So, you've got yourself a band, including the musicians, the instruments, the amps and the practice space. But, what do you play? It doesn't help if all the band members have contrasting ideas of what would make a cool song, but following these instructions should put you on the right track. 1. Agree On Which Songs Your Band Will Play Step 1.jpg Call a band meeting and get everyone settled with drinks and snacks. Give every member a small piece of paper and a pen/pencil. (Don't forget yourself!) 2. Agree On Which Songs Your Band Will Play Step 2.jpg Instruct everyone to write down their 5 favorite bands or favorite songs on the paper. Don't let anyone else see; it might be wise to all go off to separate corners of the room. 3. Agree On Which Songs Your Band Will Play Step 3.jpg Once that has been done, sit in a circle, and make everyone pass their piece of paper round to the next person. That person then has to cross off all the songs/bands that they don't like. 4. Agree On Which Songs Your Band Will Play Step 4.jpg Keep passing around the pieces of paper, crossing off bands/songs, until everyone has their own piece of paper left. 5. Agree On Which Songs Your Band Will Play Step 5.jpg You should be left with at least one band or song that wasn't crossed off any pieces of paper, and everyone should like it. If it's a band, you can go and learn to play one of their songs, if it's a song, you can play that. Good Luck! 6. Agree On Which Songs Your Band Will Play Step 6.jpg If there are no songs or bands that everyone likes, then all the band members are very different, and it might be a good idea to expand your musical tastes. Alternatively, you can make an agreement that each band member can pick one song for everyone to play, regardless of whether everyone else likes it or not. Who knows? Perhaps some of you will discover a new band that everyone likes. 7. Agree On Which Songs Your Band Will Play Step 7.jpg If you would like to make your own songs, then try not to listen to any music for at least 12 hours and then write the lyrics and the tune. This way you don't take ideas from other artists which is bad! We could really use your help! Can you tell us about hair styling? Yes I can hair styling how to get an awesome hair style Can you tell us about Yes I can how to be strange Can you tell us about Yes I can how to plan a sabbatical Can you tell us about Yes I can how to study spanish for free Thanks for helping! Please tell us everything you know about Provide Details. Don't say: Eat more fats. • If you're a new band, it'll be best to make sure you can play several cover songs before you start writing your own (which is easier said than done!). • Try to choose cover songs people know. When the crowd sings along, it makes it a better show. Plus, they're paying for a good show, give it to 'em. • After you get the hang of it start writing your own material. • Someone should be assigned as band leader so that you don't have a big scrum for command or control. That way, everyone will listen and you will have a much more productive band session. • New songs are bound to be played more than older favorites if you are promoting a new album, especially if the band starts to grow a large bank of songs. If you are pressed for time, you may have no choice but to push new and upcoming singles before the older, but popular songs. • Remember, once a song/band is crossed off the list, it stays crossed off. There should be no arguing about who crossed off someone else's favorite song. Just accept that people have different tastes in music. • Let's be frank. Some songs are bound to be played more often than others. Some songs that never made it to the album may be played less, as well as some great songs in albums that never made it as a single. Though you should switch them up to the play list if you have a longer gig. Article Info Categories: Band Management Recent edits by: Meethos Funkhouser, Writelf, Lily A Thanks to all authors for creating a page that has been read 35,383 times. Did this article help you? Yes No an Author! Write an Article
When Did the US Get Off The Gold Standard? When Did the US Get Off The Gold Standard? 40 years ago today, on August 15, 1971 President Nixon officially took the United States off the Gold Standard. In his speech, President Nixon claimed to have asked Treasury Secretary John Connally to defend the US Dollar by closing the convertibility of the dollar into gold. According to President Nixon this was done to protect the United States and the US Dollar against speculators and is remembered as “Nixon Shock”. “In recent weeks, the speculators have been waging an all-out war on the American dollar. The strength of a nation’s currency is based on the strength of that nation’s economy – and the American economy is by far the strongest in the world. Accordingly, I have directed the Secretary of the Treasury to take the action necessary to defend the dollar against the speculators. I have directed Secretary Connally to suspend temporarily the convertibility of the American dollar except in amounts and conditions determined to be in the interest of monetary stability and in the best interests of the United States.” As always, speculators or those who understand economics and recognize economic bubbles are blamed. People didn’t short the US Dollar or convert their US Dollar holdings into gold on unfounded rumors. The United States ran significant deficits that couldn’t be financed through direct taxation. The cost of the Vietnam war amongst other unfunded expenses would not be paid through direct taxation but through inflation. Since Bretton Woods of 1944, the value of the US Dollar was tied at a fixed ratio of 35 dollars to one ounce of gold. Still claiming to be on the gold standard the United States had to redeem US Dollars for physical gold. In the months leading up to President Nixon’s famous speech, France correctly assumed that the United States devalued their paper currency . In an effort to continue fooling the world the United States made good on the promise to exchange physical gold at the 35:1 ratio. This temporarily restored some faith in the US Dollar but having inflated the paper dollars beyond the promised gold backing was a limited and unsustainable strategy. It was on August 15, 1971 that President Nixon officially took the US Dollar off the gold standard but nobody really knows the exact date that the US Dollar was no longer backed by gold at $35 per 1oz. according to the agreed Bretton Woods agreement. Fact remains that any currency speculator that shorted the dollar assuming that the US had more paper dollars in circulation than gold backing was correct. It wasn’t the currency speculators that devalued the dollar, it was runaway government spending. Post to Twitter Post to Digg Post to Facebook Post to Technorati This post was written by: Jesse Livermore - who has written 99 posts on WTF Finance. Contact the author Precious Metals – Gold & Silver [Most Recent Quotes from www.kitco.com] [Most Recent Quotes from www.kitco.com] WTF Finance Subscriptions:
Faster-than-light travel discovered? Slow down, folks By Phil Plait \| September 22, 2011 3:27 pm Photons travel at the speed of light — they are light! — so this means the neutrinos, if this is all true, traveled faster than light speed. Holy Kessel Run! But is it true? Now first off, if it were this would overturn so much physics that they may as well have discovered that gravity pushes, not pulls. So right away we need to treat this claim with lots and lots of skepticism. I’ll note these are actual particle physicists making this claim, and not some crackpots who will shake their fists at the sky and say how Galileo was laughed at too. [UPDATE: The paper is now up on the arxiv preprint server. I took a look, and must say at first glance their reasoning looks solid. They appear to have the baseline distance nailed and the timing as well. However, the devil's in the details, and this isn't my field, so I'll be very curious to see how the pros in this discipline react to the paper.] But I wouldn’t use that argument too strongly; perhaps this experiment creates neutrinos in a different way, or the neutrinos from this new experiment have different energies than ones created in the cores of supernovae (a good bet). Still, it’s enough to make me even more skeptical of this FTL claim. I’ll note that the scientists will be presenting these results tomorrow at a conference at CERN. We’ll learn more then. It’s not clear to me if these results are being published, or have been peer-reviewed, or what. As usual, we’ll need to have other scientists either confirm this result using other equipment, or show where things went wrong. That’s how science works. And the scientists involved are asking for criticism here! That’s just so; incredible results need to be tested incredibly well. So don’t let your imagination run away with this just yet. This result will, in my opinion, probably turn out to be incorrect for some reasons dealing with measurement. Faster than light travel is still a dream, even though I wouldn’t say it’s impossible… just very, very, very, very unlikely. Maybe someday we’ll boldly go. But for now, I’m not betting my dilithium on it. Image credit: OPERA; NASA/ESA/Hubble Comments (350) Links to this Post 1. Faster-than-light travel discovered? Slow down, folks \| Bad Astronomy \| Today Yoga Blog \| September 22, 2011 2. Warp Speed and Time Travel to Past and Future might now be possible! - Baha'i Forums \| September 22, 2011 3. Neutrino discovery could prove existence of Yngwie Malmsteen \| September 22, 2011 4. Strange Particles May Travel Faster Than Light – Fox News \| Tucson AZ News and Weather \| September 22, 2011 5. Neutrinos más rápidos que la luz « Círculo Escéptico Argentino \| September 22, 2011 6. Quora \| September 22, 2011 7. Ask a physicist anything. (6) - Page 98 - Christian Forums \| September 22, 2011 8. Faster Than Light Particles! So, Warp Speed Ahead, Right??? « A Quantum of Knowledge \| September 22, 2011 9. Let’s Go Slow on CERN Faster-Than-Light Claims « The Skeptical Teacher \| September 22, 2011 10. Faster-than-light travel discovered? Slow down, folks \| Bad Astronomy \| America Society \| September 22, 2011 11. Mundane Neutrino Explanations \| Science Comedian \| September 22, 2011 12. Faster Than Light Particles! So, Warp Speed Ahead, Right??? \| A Quantum Of Knowledge \| September 22, 2011 13. If it wasn’t for those pesky neutrinos \| cartesian product \| September 22, 2011 14. Faster than Light Travel « The Gaming Atheist \| September 22, 2011 15. Vad kan färdas snabbare än ljusets hastighet? « vemvadhurvarfor \| September 23, 2011 16. OPERA och de alltför snabba neutrinerna \| Stjärnstoft och kugghjul \| September 23, 2011 17. Those tachy neutrinos « Lost in Science \| September 23, 2011 18. CERN claims faster-than-light particle measured \| Kajunman's Blog \| September 23, 2011 19. World’s Strangest \| Neutrinos Beat the Theory of Relativity, and Light \| September 23, 2011 20. Faster Than Light Neutrinos? Don’t Bet On It. « News Hub Today \| September 23, 2011 21. FTL Neutrinos? Not so fast…. « Whiskey…Tango…Foxtrot? \| September 23, 2011 22. Please be true: Beating cancer, and the speed of light \| bluejay's way \| September 23, 2011 23. Assorted links — Marginal Revolution \| September 23, 2011 24. Faster-Than-Light Neutrinos? \| Richer Ramblings \| September 23, 2011 25. More news about the FTL neutrino observations \| Entangled States \| September 23, 2011 26. The neutrino velocity thing « Econstudentlog \| September 23, 2011 27. BookBanter Links Roundup For 09/22/11 « The BookBanter Blog \| September 23, 2011 28. Can the Speed of Light Law Be Broken? – About \| Alkaon Network \| September 23, 2011 29. SN1987a - Page 3 - Christian Forums \| September 23, 2011 30. So Was Einstein Wrong? « Victorian Skeptics \| September 23, 2011 31. Naughty ‘Faster Than Light’ Neutrinos a Reality? \| wpgrabber \| September 24, 2011 32. Faster-than-light neutrinos show science in action » \| September 24, 2011 33. NOT “faster-than-light” but still exciting « WhizDumb \| September 24, 2011 34. Naughty ‘Faster Than Light’ Neutrinos a Reality? \| Healthy Living \| September 24, 2011 35. It’s too early to take a stand. « Psi-Pi(Ψ-π) \| September 24, 2011 36. Relatively funny « the.soft.anonymous \| September 24, 2011 37. Why the Faster-than-Light Neutrino Experiment May Be Wrong « adafruit industries blog \| September 25, 2011 38. Science Sunday #15 « Radio Freethinker \| September 25, 2011 39. Faster-than-light travel discovered? Slow down, folks \| Bad Astronomy \| Discover Magazine \| snarkarchive \| September 25, 2011 40. faster than light? - Page 7 - PriusChat Forums \| September 25, 2011 41. - Was Einstein Wrong? U.S. Accelerator Lab To Test CERN's Results \| September 26, 2011 42. Ye Olde Soapbox \| September 26, 2011 43. Riskbloggen » Den ena vetenskapliga sensationen efter den andra? \| September 27, 2011 44. RelativKritisch Schwerpunkt: Neutrinos schneller als Tempolimit c0? \| RelativKritisch \| September 27, 2011 45. Funny Neutrino Jokes \| Guru: A Magazine for Ipad, Smartphone, e-Reader and more! \| September 28, 2011 46. links for 10/07/2011 « Alan Vonlanthen's blog \| October 6, 2011 47. Why is the Universe is Expanding and Accelerating? Here’s my pet theory… (by a non-physicist) « Doctor Stu's Blog \| October 7, 2011 48. Saltklypa #27 – Om rånete nøytroner og punkterte lunger \| Saltklypa \| October 7, 2011 49. I’ll be back…to the future \| gee/k/ink \| December 8, 2011 50. Note til journalister: Videnskab er sjældent revolutionær \| Hennings blog \| February 23, 2012 51. Science Roundup: Dawkins, Doubt, and Probability « Awaiting A White Robe \| February 28, 2012 52. Can neutrinos travel faster than light? Part Two « Skeptical Kids \| April 29, 2012 53. Supernovae \| October 4, 2012 1. Adam I do also like that they stated that they have checked their work several times and now want other scientists to go over it and see what they can find. This seems to be following legitimate scientific processes which lends a lot of credence to the scientists presenting the information. It will be fun to follow. 2. Jess Tauber O ye of little neutrality! I heard about these claims several minutes before they made them! 3. I’m willing to bet a large amount that this will turn out to be untrue. (Some sort of localized relativistic space contraction or time dilation, perhaps?) That said, I’d wish fervently that I lose that bet. 4. Jeff Johnson The #mundaneneutrinoexplanations hashtag has been great entertainment on this. 5. Rob P. My understanding was that this had not been peer reviewed, but rather was considered to be so unusual and interesting that they wanted to get it out into the world to be picked apart as quickly as possible. 6. Joe Just out of curiousity, I wonder what the implications are if this turns out to be true? What did we previously believe to be “impossible” that would then be “possible” 7. Ibeechu The way I read the initial announcement was that it’s not that all of their neutrinos were going faster than light, but that there was a probability involved on whether or not any given neutrino would go faster than light. If that’s the case, then maybe we recorded only a certain number of neutrinos from that supernova, and recorded the rest of them four years earlier. But that’s getting into kind of “conspiracy theory” territory, and I might have completely misinterpreted the original articles. 8. Patrick Thanks for the explanation. I saw an article that acknowledged the margin of error, but it pointed out that the measurements were far greater than that margin. However, you make a great point in suggesting other causes of measurement error. I’m asking from a position of near-ignorance (I have read a couple of books…), but light can be slowed down by the medium it travels through, right? If neutrinos can pass by matter, is it possible that the photons were being slowed below the speed of light in a vacuum and the neutrinos sped past them? Or am I way off because I don’t really know what I’m talking about? 9. Kieron Well light can be slowed down by matter, right? so maybe even in the vacuum of space it is slowed down slightly, while neutrinos which don’t interact with matter much at all wouldn’t be slowed down at all. However I still think this is likely just a bad study. 10. Douglas Troy This story is sooooo 60ns ago. In all seriousness, this is great stuff and I look forward to what others find and have to say about it. 11. Mimi c So you mean to say you are skeptical of particle physisicsts (who probably thought of all your concerns already) who SAT on their findings for MONTHS because they too were trying to see if there was something that was incorrect in their work. Your point about the supernova is already incorrect because the scientists say they “fired” those particles, and laboratory accelerated particles are already different than particles which may have been affected by a giant mass next to it. 12. Pete Jackson Very nice analysis Phil! One easy way to remember the speed of light for discussing experiments like this is that it’s about “one foot per nanosecond”. 13. Renee Marie Jones My guess is that there’s a 60 nanosecond error somewhere. On the other hand, general relativity does not actually prohibit faster-than-light travel, though it’s hard to believe that Switzerland and Italy are not really, really close to being in the same inertial reference frame. On the other hand (man, that’s a lot of hands!) we know for a fact that there’s something wrong with general relavitity and/or quantum mechanics as well as our understanding of gravity. So, maybe nature is trying to give us some clues here. 14. Brian Hurt Wait- they used flipping GPS to determine the distance? Two seconds with google turned up this page: in which Garmin claims GPS is accurate to +/- 15 meters. Say they’re using some super-accurate version of GPS, which is an order of magnitude more accurate that Garmin’s. So each location is only known to +/- 1.5 meters- and the combined error for both sites could then easily be 3 meters. There’s your two meters right there. 15. OK, not being a particle physicist, and not having read anything but the news reports, I wonder: Do we know how much, if at all, the speed of neutrinos is affected by passing through air? We know the refractive index of air for visible light is about 1.0003 (according to Wikipedia), and the speed of light in air is less than that in a vacuum. Is the index of refraction of the atmosphere the same for photons, which interact electromagnetically, as it is for neutrinos, which do not? Surely they accounted for this, and it can’t be that simple, right? In regard to comment 8, Relativity doesn’t expressly prohibit faster than light speeds, it prohibits anything with mass traveling at the speed of light, which prevents anything with mass traveling less than the speed of light transitioning through c to achieve superluminal velocity. Various mathematical absurdities, make superluminal velocities of massive particles (tachyons, etc) unlikely and unworkable. 16. I wonder if they accounted for this: The speed of light is different in different transparent mediums, air, water ,glass. The mediums the supernova neutrinos were going through was mostly vacuum. The medium that these neutrinos were going through was air and rock. I realize that neutrinos go through every as if its not there, but maybe that is an oversimplification that accounts for 60 ns. 17. This is pretty entertaining. For what it’s worth, I vividly remember a physics colloquium at Stanford sometime in the late ’90s where the speaker put up a plot of some parameter. The plot was a straight line, and the y-intercept was supposed to be mass^2 for the neutrinos in that experiment. The intercept was clearly negative, though within the error bars. Someone asked about this, and the speaker (can’t remember who this was) basically said that with better stats this would almost certainly go away. Regarding the comment above about GPS, I’m sure that these folks are doing better than simple commercial-grade GPS. You can do differential GPS and get accuracies down to 10 cm. 18. MadScientist Meh; I’ve seen the effects of particles traveling faster than light (not in vacuum). It produces such a beautiful glow. I’ll have to see much more information than what’s in the news to even convince me that the observation is anything new. 19. BJN Science in action. Here’s what we think we’ve found and we can’t see where we’re wrong, please help us shoot holes in it. 20. Brian, GPS can be very accurate if you average over a long time, like a week. Even more accurate if you kncorporate differntial GPS with a transponder located at a known location. centimeter accuracy or better. 21. Chris Yeah, well, not so fast. Pun intended?? :-) @14 Brian I’m sure when they were doing this they used something more accurate than a Garmin GPS! I’m sure you’ve seen the high resolution movement of glaciers and volcanoes where they can see mm of movement, so they can get very high accuracies. Just for commerical uses, a few meters of accuracy is pretty good. Maybe the neutrinos aren’t traveling faster than light, there is a wormhole in the earth between Italy and Geneva! 22. Tensorguy I totally agree with your assessment. I remember getting very excited in the 90′s when two experimenters claimed that their electrolytic cell was producing more energy than it should and that the only solution was, well, er, nuclear in nature. I don’t need to go into what a debacle that was when results could not be replicated. This is however different. It would seem that there is a fundamental flaw in the neutrino experiment as a whole or that as of yet unrecorded phenomena have been observed. Things going faster than light are not new. Cerenkov radiation is produced when particles move faster than light within a medium(much lower than the speed of light in vacuo, c) . There are recorded quantum tunneling effects in which subatomic particles appear to simultaneously bridge a gap. Similarly there are reasons to believe that space-time itself can expand or contract faster than light and that photons or electrons or bicycles traveling on that bit of spacetime would appear to move faster than c to observers. Finally there are the as yet theoretical tachyons , particles which Only travel faster than light. We must be prepared to deal with these phenomena at some point even though we have not seen them yet. The same occurred with planets and black holes and even neutrinos themselves. We theorized they existed and it was years before they were observed. We get too worked up over the great truths. Einstein clearly showed how nothing can travel faster than light and thus clocks and yardsticks dilate and contract to make this statement true and yet this was only under the special case. That’s why it was named the Special Theory of Relativity. Both Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity provide with theoretical exception to this law of physics. Einstein himself fought against the Accepted Scientific Truth that the Luminiferous Eather was all encompassing and had relative motion to the rotation of the Earth. On what side do you think he would be now? Again, this might be just an error but it opens our minds and hearts to the possibilities and I like to think that there always are, posibilities… 23. Sean H. Ibeechu: I think if it were the case that some of the neutrinos traveled faster than light and others traveled at the speed of light then there would possibly be others that fell in between those two speeds and there would be a detectable distribution likely peaking with the arrival of the light. Upon seeing this article making the rounds today my first thought was “interesting, but I need more data. How are these neutrinos distributed? Is the beam highly directional similar to a laser or more like a light bulb? What is the density of the beam, how many neutrinos per second? How do they determine the departure and arrival time of specific neutrinos? What are the implications if it does hold that under certain conditions a subatomic particle with a non-zero rest-mass can travel faster than a photon which has zero rest-mass?” My second thought was “What will Phil Plait have to say about this?” 24. Sorter Link to the live-feed for tomorrow Friday, September 23, 2011 from 16:00 to 18:00 (Europe/Zurich) We did detect those before the light, by three hours. But that’s because the light is produced at the end of the process with a Type II supernova whereas the neutrino burst occurs towards the beginning. That’s the point also of the Supernova Early Warning System to let astronomers know if a close supernova is about to have the light arrive. So this did happen, we already knew it, and it doesn’t tell us much. The more interesting issue is that a few hours before the SN 1987A neutrino burst the Mont Blanc detector detected a burst of neutrinos. This has generally been considered to be disconnected from the SN 1987A event and simply be a statistical fluke. These results raise the possibility that some of the neutrinos traveled faster than the speed of light and those were the ones detected by Mont Blanc. This seems problematic though because why then would only Mont Blanc have detected them? So overall, probably still an error. But if it isn’t could be quite neat. 26. I think it’s a mistake to harp on the scale of the numbers involved. They’re not easy numbers to achieve, but they’re not on the boundaries of believable. 60ns is on the scale that many a hardware geek has needed to measure, and the right carrier phase GPS hardware with suitable dwell time (which, admittedly, is measured in weeks) could get you to within a few cm. There could totally be other systemic issues, and it’s not easy to measure numbers like that, but it’s not like the measurement scales instantly jump out as “that’s impossible” territory. (To Brian’s earlier GPS comment: Since Garmin wrote that there has been a lot of advancement in GPS, 95% of samples in 3 meters is now a totally reasonable number for a sub $100 tracker in a pocket, and carrier-phase enhanced real-time corrected differential GPS in surveying systems is routinely used for accuracies of less than an inch). 27. Dan M. Sorry – just had to chime in on the GPS error issue – we use a fairly “off the shelf” real time kinematic GPS (RTK GPS) in our surveying work and it easily does centimetre/sub-centimetre accuracy while moving around (not on point averaging), and I am fairly sure there are better GPS solutions than the cheapie that we have. So I doubt the GPS would be the source of the error. Hope that helps. 28. Lewis Having a story like this in the mainstream press is a great opportunity to teach people about the scientific method and how it works. I know exactly what I’m doing with my scouts next week :P 29. Sion There is something called scale factor to take into consideration when using professional-level GPS. GPS works on a curved surface but the neutrinos and photons will travel in a straight line. The two measurements could be out by a significant amount if they have failed to factor this in to the distance measurement. In the UK it works out at about a 40cm per km discrepancy in the two measurements. 30. It is cutting edge news. Because how can we know that nothing can move faster than a photon? Most photons we observe are from one and the same source. We have little information about photons’ behavior, for instance, when they are confronted in an environment of many photons that move in a different direction. The movements now seen of photons that moved along a star, located in-between the origin and us, show signs of having been changed, and this is now proclaimed to be caused by gravity. But that is too simple an answer for which we do not have enough data. What about the other photons in perpendicular direction coming from the star in-between? Did that slow the distant photons? The central question may be: Does a photon from a distant star reach the surface of another star? I believe the answer is always no, and propose the photon’s path will be bent slightly due to photons from the in-between star coming straight at it in much larger quantities and pushed aside by photons with outward directions existing in much larger quantities in that in-between star environment as well. We see the result of the distant photons bent around the in-between star by the enormous amount of photons that do not come in our direction (we do not see them) — and not because of gravity. And how do we measure the speed of extrasolar photons? Are they travelling at the same speed when all we have is their arrival time? Though we should expect them to all move within the same ball park of time, how do we know all photons in the universe move indeed at the same exact speed ? Then, 60 nanoseconds is nothing to be amazed about. The neutrino may have gotten some push from our natural world (but in a different manner than mentioned in the article, and yes, I am awaiting verification of all input, too). 31. John This hit the mainstream news. I am very worried that if it turns out to be erroneous, they will not report it and there will be millions of people walking around saying “Einstein was wrong “(full stop). : ( 32. James Surely, the Earth moved during the experiment …changing the distance between the two points, slightly. Hell, even the solar system and the galaxy would have moved a little… And if these particles are unaffected by matter and already traveling at the speed of light, you can’t add the speed of the Earth to their speed. Like you would if you were running down a moving train. So if the detector was moving back towards the incoming neutrino, it would make it seem like it was traveling faster than it actually was. Basically they are trying to accurately measure the distance relative to the Earth… But the neutrinos aren’t relative to the Earth. 33. AJ Ugh, much of the media-reporting on this find is excruciating. They even quote the researchers’ warnings that we shouldn’t get carried away at this point, for example Reuters quotes Antonio Ereditato: “for the moment, everybody should be very prudent.” In another article, John Ellis is quoted as saying, “This would be such a sensational discovery if it were true that one has to treat it extremely carefully,” and even alludes to the supernova discrepancy that Phil points out. Yet the writers take no heed andstart immediately jumping to sensational conclusions. It’s sad. 34. It all boils down to one thing: Einstein is god and he cannot be proven wrong. We know he is wrong, but no one wants to say the emperor has no clothes. 35. PeteC Count me in in that group that suspects strongly that they’ll find some fault in equipment, components or computation (or, indeed something forehead-slappingly doh! like forgetting that the Earth is curved when they assumed a straight line distance from the gps measurement – which come to think about it would mean they thought the distance was further and the neutrinos faster than expected). Also count me in that group that really, really hopes they’re right. For all the dedicated and hard work done, we’ve not really seen a proper breakthrough in physics – not one that’s been experimentally shown to be true rather than string-theory philosophising – for the better part of a century now. Plus I want my warp drive. 36. SLC Re Sion @ #29 Actually, due to the curvature of space in the neighborhood of the earth, photons and neutrinos don’t travel in an exact straight line in its vicinity. 37. SLC Re Tensorguy @ #24 Tachyons also have imaginary mass. 38. Bill I like your article, but I am taken back by your suggestion that gravity pulls and to think otherwise is wrong and against fundamental laws of physics. Actually, I don’t believe that gravity pulls us. I think push is a more accurate concept. A heavenly body such as the earth displaces the fabric of space-time, and the result is an effect of tension against the surface of the earth. Matter is pushed down in an elastic-like effect. The tautness of curved space-time holds us down. There are many reputable names in physics that think the same way. So your quip is off I think. 39. BachFan @4 Jeff Johnson Dmn you, I’m going to be following that #mundaneneutrinoexplanations hashtag and giggling all evening! 40. Sion Well, yes, but that error would be swamped in scale by the one I described, so I didn’t think it was worth muddying an already complex issue. Sorry. 41. Bill Nettles These must be arsenic eating neutrinos from California. That’s the only way they can get their energy high enough. 42. Booie Could this be explained by the speed of light in air being lower than in a vacuum whereas the speed of neutrinos should not vary.Also when coming from a supernova both would be travelling in a near vacuum most of the way. 43. david why don’t you look at Firmilabs study that was done a couple years ago. Pretty much the exact same test and had the same results but wrote it off because they didn’t believe their own findings. 44. Jess Tauber During tonight’s Republican debate Rick Perry will use the news reports to claim that Einstein and that whole cosmology thing was wrong so we should trust only the Bible, and some of the other Republican candidates (not Huntsman) will fall all over themselves to be on the latest antiscience bandwagon. Bachmann will have some old lady whisper to her that her daughter was rendered retarded by having to take high school physics. But Mitt Romney will save the day, because in his flip-flopping he is the living instantiation of quantum statesmanship. 45. AstroPaul @30 (James): Remember that special relativity ensures that regardless of our motion (relative to anything!) we should not see anything massive move faster than c. To get this kind of effect from the cosmological expansion, you’d need to put 100kpc of empty space between your source and detector; to get it from a point mass, you’d have to get within 40,000 Schwarzschild radii, i.e. within 120,000 km of a solar-mass black hole. So I think both relative motion and general relativity can be ruled out as explanations — unless one or the other relativity theory is in serious error. @8, 9, 15, 16: I’d be very surprised if anyone is racing light and neutrinos to do this measurement. They’re most likely assuming that we know c very well from experiment and comparing the arrival time to the predicted arrival time for “ideal light” in a perfect vacuum. So considerations about EM interactions affecting light and not neutrinos should be beside the point. 46. GR@Y_M@TTER Folks, Einstein said that Light was a universal constant. That is true. Period. Yes It can be slowed down, but It can’t exceed its natural threshold, as defined by nature/God. The scientists will find out what I already know; that the neutrinos took a short-cut. Now you see them, now you don’t. They should conform, but they wont. Cause there be holes in space and time. So you sometimes get there before you arrive. 47. In the article I read (universetoday) it stated that time it took the neutrinos to travel the distance was 60ns, whereas that same distance at the speed of light would’ve taken 2.4 thousandths of a second. By my calculations, that’s 400,000 times faster than the speed of light. 48. Juan 38 comments and only one “warp drive” reference? Come on, boys! we’re better than this! Bring them on! 49. James @AstroPaul – Thanks for clearing that up for me. I love how science turns ‘being wrong’ into a positive experience ;-) Experiments like these… and you guys debating over them… is humanity at its best. 50. Poul-Henning Kamp You overlook another possible interpretation: The constant ‘c’ in relativity is not speed of light, but slightly higher, because photons have rest-mass, which must be slightlig larger than neutrinos. The photons rest-mass being zero is based on the fact that we havn’t been able to measure it, not on the fact that it is theoretically impossible for it to have one to begin with. The reason this is worth considering is that until a couple of years ago, we were pretty damn convinced that neutrinos were mass-less too. 51. Brian Too Imagine this turns out to be true. Just for kicks. I’m not sure we can exactly start building our interstellar rocket ships yet. After all, the increase over c is still only 1 part in 40,000. And while it would overturn the idea that c is some kind of absolute speed bump, there’s no mechanism for getting large multiples of c here. Not in any practical way, and maybe not even in principle. And yet that’s what we’d need in order to make interstellar travel practical on anything like a human timescale. So even if true, this might turn out to be applicable only to massless particles like neutrinos. 52. T For your info, they said results will be published… Let’s see what community has to say about it. 53. CB Thanks, Phil. I was waiting for you to give your initial reaction to this, and as usual you didn’t disappoint. 54. Infinite123Lifer Phil stated: My understanding varies on this. On one hand Earth “pulls” objects down at about the rate of 9.8 meters per second squared. On the other hand I have gathered that Relativity actually explains that the mass of the Earth has warped the space around it, essentially causing the space-time around the Earth to actually “push” the object into the Earth. In which case…gravity actually causes what essentially is a push? Yeah? Nay? Ehm? 55. Oops, didn’t see your parenthetical about how the neutrinos did arrive faster. I still think the Mont Blanc issue may still be relevant. 56. GR@Y_M@TTER MASS SMASH, Anything that enters our (matter-real) material plane, has to take on the shape of matter to exist in the first place. Anything that exists in our universe has a mass. Despite how tiny a given particle may be, it has mass, might be near impossible to measure but it has a mass none the less. Consciousness has no mass, but affects the material world thru a material body. Our consciousness exists out side of time and space, and is locked in phase with your genetic code(via junk DNA), to create a quantum connection, that forces matter to simulate, resonate and align with its higher vibration. Neutrinos that travel faster than light would be like saying, a car is faster than a bike. And its a true statement under the right circumstances. What are the circumstances. The neutrinos are not moving faster by velocity. But they are by actual distance traveled. 57. Yousuf It’s possible that it’s just a calibration error in the distances. There was an earthquake in this part of Italy a few years ago, the Aquila earthquake of 2009. The land could’ve have stretched a bit, or the land could’ve even risen or fallen in some places putting the source and destination a little further apart vertically. I don’t know if they recalibrated their distances after the earthquakes. And if earthquakes don’t explain the error, then here’s a tachyon joke. :) 58. Chris A. Okay, surely I’m off on this, but here goes: According to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle delta(p)delta(x) >= h/4pi Meaning, there’s a minimum product of the uncertainty in a particle’s momentum and position. Thus, if we know its position well (where it was emitted and detected), our knowledge of its momentum (and therefore, its velocity) is poor. Is there a chance that the intrinsic uncertainty of the velocity is enough to allow a superluminal v? Without seeing their paper, I don’t have any numbers to plug in for the neutrinos’ momenta. And we don’t have a very good number for their masses either. But, if the difference between a neutrino’s velocity and c (call it epsilon) is less than delta(v), aren’t superluminal velocities allowed? 59. Keith Hearn Phil wrote: “this would overturn so much physics that they may as well have discovered that gravity pushes, not pulls.” You mean something like discovering that the universe is expanding instead of being pulled back together by gravity? Inconceivable! Also, did we have any neutrino detectors in operation four years before SN1987A was detected? Do we know for sure that there wasn’t a burst of superlimunal neutrinos passing through in 1983? Hmmm, SN1987A was detected at 3 neutrino detectors. Kamioka was completed in April 1983, which would be very close to Phil’s “almost 4 years” before February 24, 1987. Phil, can you be a bit more precise on when we would have seen neutrinos from SN1987A if they were going the same speed as those in this report? On the other hand, the second detector was IMB, which apparently was operational as early as 1982. And Baksan started operations in 1977. So there were detectors in existence early enough to spot them. We don’t know if they were actually in operation at the right time, but I’m sure that could be checked. But in the end, I suspect they’ll eventually figure out that it was some sort of measurement error. Hmm, my back of the envelope calculations says that if two points are 730km apart measured along the curved surface of the earth, then they’re about 147m closer measured in a straight line. That’s too much, so that’s probably not the explanation. But it’s probably something like that. 60. Spection As we skeptics have learned to regrettably expect as “quasi-journalistic business as usual”, this story is being hyperluminously hyped by nearly all authors and readers alike at nearly all other sites (:sigh:)… Thus I am once again delighted (though not at all surprised) that our beloved Phil Plait has penned one of the needed but all-too-rare pro-science cautions against falling into yet another mindless-media-driven “science by press-conference” fiasco (lo! what hath Pons and Fleishman wrought!) Well done, sir! I’d like to share some quotations from the ScienceNow article Phil cited. Regarding the probability of systemic measurement-related errors producing inaccurate FTL results, “… Chang Kee Jung, a neutrino physicist at Stony Brook University in New York, says he’d wager that the result is the product of a systematic error. “I wouldn’t bet my wife and kids because they’d get mad,” he says. “But I’d bet my house.” Jung then goes on to focus his skepticism on one key aspect of the OPERA group’s claims that other web articles posted today haven’t highlighted (so far as I’m aware) — specifically, the suspicious precision of their stated value for the max GPS imprecision. He states: “I would be very interested in how they got a 10-nanosecond uncertainty, because from the systematics of GPS and the electronics, I think that’s a very hard number to get.” 61. Chip Following up on what Brian Too@53 wrote – Yes, I agree – however we wouldn’t need to go FTL to explore [dramatic music] “where no one has gone before” [/dramatic music] – if the technology ever existed, we’d just need to get to just a little under the speed of light, among many other staggeringly difficult technological accomplishments I’m overlooking, and we’d also have to accept that as explorers or settlers, we’d never again see our friends and relatives who remain on Earth. 62. AndyC I was mostly glad to read that they want their peers to dog into their findings. This showed that they are willing to admit mistakes or oversights on their part if any are found. This will be very interesting. 63. SLC Re GR@Y_M@TTER @ #57 Actually, an upper bound can be put on the mass of a photon. In computing the anomalous magnetic moment of the electron, it is assumed that the photon has mass 0. The result of the calculation is that the computed value agrees with the observed value to 10 significant digits. If the photon had sufficient mass, this agreement would not hold. 64. Wzrd1 Of interest is, how many times did they repeat the experiment? Was it ALWAYS 60ms, no more or less? If that is the case, EVERY parameter should be re-examined, including the actual particle release time, not the initiation time. If there is a degree of variability to the measured result, has tidal effects been accounted for? The crust DOES move a bit in response to the moon’s passage… I’d love to read whatever paper that they produce as well. I’m seriously thinking a minor procedural error is causing this anomaly. 65. Joe Another cold fusion? 66. Poul-Henning Kamp Are you sure that the theory underlying that calculation is not also premised on zero rest-mass for the photon ? QED falls apart of the photon has rest-mass and I’m not even sure charge-conservation would survive. It is a very fundamental assumption, but as far as I know, we have no hard data that it has to be a mathematical zero mass, only that it must be very small mass indeed. But the assumption throughout is that it is zero mass (as in: “speed of light” for instance.). Last I heard, the observed limit was measured to mumble10^-16 eV and that is pretty far from zero, considering how many of the darn things there are. Thinking more about it, if both the photon and the neutrino have non-zero rest-mass, it is not obvious to me that the 60ns tells us which one is heavier. Anyway, an experimental issue is far more likely, I just wanted to point out that there is another interpretation that does not invalidate the ‘c’ being an absolute upper bound in relativity. 67. @ Wzrd1, Tidal issues would be way too small. They would need to alter things by close to 18 meters (the approximate length that light travels in 60 nanoseconds). Tidal forces don’t move solids that much, and if something was moving that much you’d sort of notice. 68. I don’t thin the idea of giving the photon non-zero rest mass works. We’d have to explain then why the photon always seems to be traveling so close to the actual limit. Worst, you get the speed of light from Maxwell, and Maxwell with a small bit added in implies most of SR, so the “c” in SR should be the same as the “c” you get from Maxwell. And Maxwell is talking about electromagnetic radiation. 69. Wzrd1 Joshua #71, my point, poorly made, was intended to suggest cumulative errors and possible sources. Sorry for not being clearer, but I was also having a conversation here at the house while I was trying to post AND being called from the other room… :/ 70. Kim Man, there are levels and levels of awesome in this! I think the highest level is not the possibility that neutrinos indeed travel faster than light, but that those scientists are dealing well with the press! Admiting that they possibly are wrong, that they had to check and recheck, and that they are opening their data for everyone to analyze is great for True Science©’s image to the public! But! What did they expect with the experiment? To find neutrinos arriving exactly at the speed of light or a little less, due to interaction with matter? I’m expecting eagerly for they broadcast, as well to a Sean Carrol’s post. Tomorrow will be a great day, and all the next to come! Way to kill my buzz, Phil. Haha. Skepticism’s a bitch. 72. Speed of light in vaccuum: 299,792 km/s 730 kilometer distance:2.43551 milliseconds With refraction of air:2.43624 milliseconds difference: 73 nano seconds Following on my comment at #16 (and karls at 15 you bastard!), that difference is close enough to be within the claimed time measurement error to call into question the entire experiment. However, this is seems such a basic and obvious answer to the problem, its hard for me to believe it was not accounted for in some way. Further the calculation above is for a specific wavelength of light in air. They used neutrinos, but it went through rock for much of the journey (curvature of the earth, plus the detector is underground). Could they just have assumed no refractive index for neutrinos through rock? Is that a correct assumption? I’m not a physics guy, so I truly dont know. 73. wzrd1 @68 from the article… Yes it was done multiple times. Assuming they are competent, i’m going to guess that the median and variance was far enough away from the speed of light to get excited. 74. techskeptic, Neutrinos refracting in rock would be very weird and would almost require a fifth force. Furthermore, that would make the neutrinos move slower not faster. 75. Chad I say we let the gamers figure this one out. 76. VinceRN Great article, a much better explanation of this than the couple I’ve read earlier. Is their equipment actually accurate to measure the time of leaving and time of arriving that accurately? 77. Viadd Among the things that might have gone wrong are the geodetics of the distance measurement. Specifically, the Earth is not a sphere or even an ellipsoid, but something bumpy (called a geoid). Also, a latitude of thus-and-such doesn’t mean that the angle to the center of Earth w.r.t the equatorial plane is given by the latitude. Also, you can’t use GPS under a kilometer of rock, so you have to get the location somewhere that you can see the sky, then accurately measure the displacement from your experiment. Plumb lines and levels are going to do complicated things due to the local mountains and other masses. Forget about magnetic compasses. I am confident at the 99% level that the science team knows all this. But 1% is still much more likely than FTL neutrinos. 78. Peter B David Harrison @ #49 said: “In the article I read (universetoday) it stated that time it took the neutrinos to travel the distance was 60ns, whereas that same distance at the speed of light would’ve taken 2.4 thousandths of a second.” Unfortunately the author of that article is wrong, and several commenters have pointed that out. 79. Peter B David de Hilster @ #36 said: “It all boils down to one thing: Einstein is god and he cannot be proven wrong. We know he is wrong, but no one wants to say the emperor has no clothes.” Would you care to expand on that, please. 80. if true this is absolutely amazing. However, this does need to be confirmed for some kind of systematic error. There could be some kind of error in the distance calculations or something. However, there’s really only one place in the world I can think of that could take this on. The Tevatron at Fermilab is the world’s second largest accelerator of this type and can produce similar neutrino streams. Fermilab has a detector setup some distance away. The best way to confirm this would be to try to observe the same thing at Fermilab. If they did, that would just about clinch it and prove it was not some kind of bug in the system at CERN. Oh… except the Tevatron is set to be shutdown on the 30th of this month. Fermilab could not secure $35 million in federal funding to keep it open another three years (yes, 35 million with an M. Like,less than is spent on the National Centers for Complimentary and Alternative Medicine in the same time period. 81. Robin There’s a whole lot of excitement that’s way out of place right now. Given the scientists who did the experiment aren’t sure of their results, it’s at least premature to start making proclamations about emperors and their new clothes, Einstein’s god-like status, and so on. The scientists are asking for other scientists to essentially help them with error analysis, theoretical analysis, and etc. I think publishing a paper with tentative results would have better, especially in light of well things went for Pons and Fleischmann. There are a lot of things to consider here: –how accurate and precise was their event timing? –what uncertainty is there in the assumption(s) that they were timing the correct neutrinos? –what is the real error in distance measurement? –how well does the data from a set of runs correlate with the rest of the data? –much more…… Certainly, the assumptions that have been made about what parameters were constrained and known need to be closely examined and tested. Given the measurement resolution of the test and its intent, it certainly cannot be assumed that the source frame and the measurement frame were inertial. In fact, it’s likely they weren’t inertial at all. After all, there will be some difference in acceleration of gravity between the two frames. I’m sure there are going to be many scientists expert in GRT and SRT analyzing the setup and data. It is fun to think about. We understand well, just from mathematical analysis, what happens when vc…..well, things get funky. Suddenly a pesky i pops up, and it’s not clear what happens then. In a lot of science, we’d discard the imaginary part, but here maybe that can’t be done. Long ago a smart person or two looked at the seemingly pedestrian Pythagorean Theorem and wondered what happened when c (you know from the a^2+b^2=c^2) had an imaginary solution (we conveniently threw those out all through junior high, high school, and much of college). They then realized that perhaps that solution represented a path not in our common 3D space. That idea blossomed a bit and had impact and influence on some ideas about strange physical phenomena today (wormholes, black holes, and etc.). What impact will or does that i in some Lorentz Factor have on what we believe? What could it mean? It’s certainly fun to think about and could lead to valuable science and technology. That’s far off the path of where things are now and what needs to be done and analyzed with the test in question. I’ll wait until the results are released in a paper and others repeat the test. The Scientific Method has been pretty damned reliable so far. 82. Man, I get into these discussions late… GPS can be made accurate to within 1cm using surveyor and military grade equipment. Has anyone done a resurvey since the last big quake in Italy? 83. Sander Salazar Would it be possible to share an article about what would it imply if, indeed, the speed barrier have changed to the neutrino’s? Since my knoledge of physics isn’t quiet as high as I wish I can’t think of any effect other than relactivity and possibly eletromagnetism, though how would it change and how it would affect anyone isn’t something easy to grasp. I think that would be a good reading for the weekend. Well anyway, good article, it is something that more people need to read, the amount of misleading and dreamstate statements I have already read is scary, many StarTrek references and even some ballistic! 84. Sander Salazar Since my knowledge of physics isn’t quiet as high as I wish I can’t think of any effect other than relativity and possibly electromagnetism, though how would it change and how it would affect anyone isn’t something easy to grasp. I think that would be a good reading for the weekend. Well anyway, good article, it is something that more people need to read, the amount of misleading and dream-state statements I have already read is scary, many Star Trek references and even some ballistic! 85. Doug A The official paper notes that they detected a 7cm shift in their baseline due to the 2009 earthquake in Italy. 86. Beelzebud I’m just glad particle physics is back in the realm of making real tests, and observing real reactions. For too long it’s just been a lot of math, with not much based on what we see as reality. I just fear that something like String Theory is so ingrained in people’s heads, that they’ll continue “bending the math” to fit whatever observations are made. 87. Paul @Steve Packard Neutrinos at fermilab are created by the Main Injector, not the Tevatron. The neutrino program there is continuing for the forseeable future (MINOS+, Nova, Minerva, etc) As for confirming this, MINOS also reported, a few years ago, that their neutrinos were arriving around 60ns earlier than expected on a similar baseline to CNGS, but their systematics were also around 60ns. 88. Wzrd1 @#81. techskeptic, thanks. Only barely had the chance to skim the article. Too many distractions here at the time… Hmmm, if the distance were greater, hence, the time, I’d suggest neutrino switching and some potential special physics involved in it, but not at this close a distance. I can’t see diffusion of rock, not dense enough to properly interact with that miniscule neutrino. I noticed a kind poster sent the URL for the report. I’ll review to see what the distribution is. Certain artifacts can be technologically induced, but may be outside of the view of the scientists (such as network issues, noise factors in circuitry, etc. I’m both a network guy and an electronics guy, so I’m conversant with some potential issues. The abstract removes the probability of geographic errors: “Dedicated upgrades of the CNGS timing system and of the OPERA detector, as well as a high precision geodesy campaign for the measurement of the neutrino baseline, allowed reaching comparable systematic and statistical accuracies.” “The kicker magnet trigger-signal for the proton extraction from the SPS is UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) time-stamped with a Symmetricom Xli GPS receiver [10]. The schematic of the SPS/CNGS timing system is shown in Fig. 3. The determination of the delays shown in Fig. 3 is described in Section 6.” Hmmm, removes ONE source of error. “The proton beam has a coarse bunch structure corresponding to the 500 kHz of the CERN Proton Synchrotron (PS) (left part of Fig. 4), on which the fine structure due to the 200 MHz SPS radiofrequency is superimposed, which is actually resolved by the BCT measurement, as seen in the right part of Fig. 4.” Removes ANOTHER source of error. Looking at the graphic, I’m becoming excited with a GOOD problem. :) Figure 5 is giving me heartburn, it looks like TWO signals before the peak from CERN. Though, the first two seem weak looking. “Fig. 7: Monitoring of the PolaRx2e GPS antenna position at LNGS, showing the slow earth crust drift and the fault displacement due to the 2009 earthquake in the L’Aquila region. Units for the horizontal (vertical) axis are years (meters).” ANOTHER suggested error source in the circular file. Interesting! “The total statistics used for this analysis consists of 7586 internal (charged and neutral current interactions) and 8525 external (charged current) events. Internal events, preselected by the electronic detectors with the same procedure used for neutrino oscillation studies [29], constitute a subsample of the entire OPERA statistics (about 70%) for which both time transfer systems at CERN and LNGS were operational, as well as the database-logging of the proton waveforms. As mentioned before, external events, in addition, are requested to have a muon identified in the detector.” Could they be oscillating and tunneling when oscillating? THAT could create a solution AND give some serious heartburn for some of the quantum guys and gals out there… “The schematic of the SPS/CNGS timing system is shown in Fig. 3. A general-purpose timing receiver “Control Timing Receiver” (CTRI) at CERN [30] logs every second the difference in time between the 1PPS outputs of the Xli and of the more precise PolaRx2e GPS receivers, with 0.1 ns resolution. The Xli 1PPS output represents the reference point of the time link to OPERA. This point is also the source of the “General Machine Timing” chain (GMT) serving the CERN accelerator complex [31]. The GPS devices are located in the CERN Prevessin Central Control Room (CCR). The time information is transmitted via the GMT to a remote CTRI device in Hall HCA442 (former UA2 experiment counting room) used to UTC time-stamp the kicker magnet signal. This CTRI also produces a delayed replica of the kicker magnet signal, which is sent to the adjacent WFD module. The UTC time-stamp marks the start of the digitization window of the BCT signal. The latter signal is brought via a coaxial cable to the WFD at a distance of 100 m. Three delays characterise the CERN timing chain: a) The propagation delay through the GMT of the time base of the CTRI module logging the PolaRx2e 1PPS output to the CTRI module used to time-tag the kicker pulse ΔtUTC = (10085 ± 2) ns; b) The delay to produce the replica of the kicker magnet signal from the CTRI to start the WFD Δttrigger = (30 ± 1) ns; c) The delay from the time the protons cross the BCT to the time a signal arrives to the WFD ΔtBCT = (580 ± 5) ns.” The kicker signal is just used as a pre-trigger and as an arbitrary time origin. The measurement of the TOFν is based instead on the BCT waveforms, which are tagged with respect to the UTC.” I’m out of potential sources for error from the circuitry or network. I’d LOVE to see their baseline signal resolution, without CERN input… 89. Jason From what I have seen they are using the aggregate results of three years worth of expierments. I would guess that the first couple of times the times where off one of the very first things they would have done is to 1) ensure their clocks were right and 2) double-check the distance. And then probably do it all over again. Perhaps they even re-calculate the distance each time to make sure. I haven’t read the paper to see if they included the procedures followed included this step or not. Given their invitation for peer review and confirmation I would assume they at least believe all their ducks are in row. (Very very fast ducks it appears) 90. Rick yawn one of my other infinite selves in a different trouser leg of time read this 6 years in the future. Me in this world says, ‘cool’. Looking forward to the peer review stuff. And, lets all give subatomic-particle-physicists some credit for probably thinking of each of the ‘inaccuracies’ we’ve thought of. 91. Crux Australis It almost seems odd, to me at least, that the difference (1 in 40,000) is so small. I mean, the electron’s mass is 1/1800 of the proton’s mass, h has no other constant even near so small (AFAIK), and c is so high. It just seems more likely to me, that such a small difference is more due to experimental uncertainty, than to some ground-breaking New Physics. 92. Wzrd1 Jason, someone posted the URL for the paper earlier. Just skimmed through it, as is in my post above. I’m wondering if neutrinos lose mass during oscillation or if they’re perhaps tunneling for some odd reason… 93. Read about this on the internet, was skeptical. Came here to get explanation of whats’ going on. Did not leave disappointed. 94. PatrikD Keep in mind that 60 ns is a lot, given the kind of accuracy that is routinely achieved with atomic clocks in particle physics. Likewise, 18 meters (60 nano light-seconds) is a huge distance even with fairly simple methods. The magnitude of that effect rules out a lot of likely failure modes. Which means they’ve either done something really stupid, OR there’s some other interesting non-FTL effect at work (like, the neutrinos were actually generated 60ns earlier than they assumed?), OR they’re about to overturn physics as we know it. Also, I’m sure the discoverers are aware that those are their options – including the first one… 95. punk_rock_physics Lets suppose this result is valid for a minute. Could one of you guys explain the paradoxes that would imply? Could we use neutrino beams to send information about today to ourselves in the past? 96. Tom Brown Hi Phil, Great piece. Your point about SN1987A is excellent, and I’ve reposted it elsewhere. 97. Physics is inconvenient sometimes. It just really ought to be possible to get out and see the universe. There SHOULD be a way to travel FTL. Damned reality always standing in the way of our fun. 98. Even if the results are wrong and neutrinos travel at c. neutrino’s have mass. Particles without mass travelling at c I can deal with, but particles with mass? Maybe neutrino’s predilection to oscillation might cut in here, but got me. 99. tqft, It has been known for a long time that neutrinos generally travel very close to c (generally at least (1-10^6)c ). They have so little mass that it doesn’t take much to accelerate them to very close to the speed of light. So that isn’t new. 100. Parlyne @Poul-Henning Kamp/#73 Amusingly enough, performing the calculations you’re asking about actually requires one to assume a photon mass to avoid a nasty infrared divergence in certain individual terms which would prevent them from being evaluated at all. In the final result, the infrared divergences cancel, and it’s consistent to take the photon mass to zero, which is how one arrives at the standard result that agrees so well. But, if you take seriously the idea of photon mass, you can ask how large it can be without changing those results too much. As for this experiment, though, the neutrinos aren’t being raced against light. Their travel distance and flight time are being measured directly. The comparison to the speed of light is simply a mathematical one. 101. Chris L. Unless I’m mistaken, the neutrino’s mass should have gone to infinity just as it passed the speed of light. Also, it would have required an infinite amount of energy to get it there. Wouldn’t have those two things been noticed at the time? 102. Joseph G @52 Poul Henning: I was wondering if it could be something like that – that it’s not a case of neutrinos “breaking the light barrier”, but simply a case of photons not actually moving quite at the speed of… for want of a better term, the speed of causality? I wonder if neutrinos have ever actually been timed before this? Neutrinos from the sun, supernovas, nuclear reactors etc can’t really be timed with the degree of certainty we’re talking about here? I mean, I’ve heard of neutrino detectors picking up nuclear weapons tests, but I still kinda doubt anyone had the data necessary to time them to the nanosecond. 103. Joseph G @60 Yousuf: I laughed, but you know I’d already seen that one, right ;) @78 Kim: The scientists are dealing well with the press, but is the press dealing well with them? I anticipate many facepalms in my near future as I follow coverage of this. Anyway, I’ll try to add some crazy speculation, ‘cuz I want to be part of the group :) Maybe they’re accidentally creating tachyons which are hitting the target 60 ns early and creating neutrinos that travel exactly as fast as we’d expect them to? Or maybe there’s a loose bit of metal 18 meters up the beam path, and that’s where the neutrinos are getting generated? Silly, I know, but this is fun… 104. James @Chris_L unfortunately the scientists didn’t realise their experiment had used an infinite amount of energy… until they got the bill from their electricity company. ;-) 105. Neutrinos have a very small amount of mass, is it enough for them to be affected by the Earths gravity on the way through? Does that play a role? Gravity after all can be strong enough to bend light. 106. Joseph G Also, I’m assuming they allowed for altitude? Even if they’ve got the XY coordinates pinned down to a fraction of an inch, they might be doing their distance calculations XY to XY. I kinda doubt they’d forget this, though, as presumably both machines are underground (I’m not familiar with OPERA, too lazy to look it up before posting). Also, the earth isn’t perfectly spherical (even beyond its oblateness), so even coordinates that are locally accurate in all three dimensions might not line up quite the way we think they will? Hell, I think I’m going to bet my money on this second scenario. Do I have any takers? 20 bucks each :D 107. Adam @ #14 a typical Garmin GPS for your car, those cost less then $100 and have low accuracy +/- 15 m, the GPS used by the scientist is likely a sub-centimeter accuracy GPS that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and can accurately locate a point to about the size of your thumbnail. i can’t wait to hitch a ride with Kirk on the Enterprise. 108. Keegan Hey Phil, I love your work but I have one question… Why do you hate my dreams of time travel? 109. Bill Clack Take-aways are: photons probably have mass; C is at least 8 km/s faster than we thought; C is not light speed; C > neutrino speed. New value for C may explain Pioneer spacecraft positional anomalies. E=mC^2 : we all thought the speed of light was C. Light speed is still a constant, but it isn’t C. The reason we got confused is the speed of light is so amazingly close to “C”. 5 miles/sec; 8 km/s. If C in e=mC^2 is larger than we thought, then more energy hides in mass than we thought. We may have found the missing mass of the Universe–in front of our eyes. Photons…@billcad15 110. Brian Weaver How sure are we that superluminal neutrinos WEREN’T detected sometime in 1983-84? No one was really sure you could even detect supernova neutrinos until 1987A happened, so at the time period when the hypothetical superluminal neutrinos would have arrived the science of detecting neutrinos was still relatively young. One of the neutrino detectors that picked up on the 1987A supernova, Kamiokande II, didn’t go didn’t have the requisite sensitivity to detect supernova neutrinos until upgrades were done in 1985. The other, IMB was still pretty new during this period, only having made it first observations in 1982. With the equipment still getting shaken down, you have to wonder if any superluminal neutrino busts that may have been recorded but without an accompanying supernova might have been throw out as spurious data, especially without Kamiokande II available to back up the results. Is it possible the data was actually captured, but it was never considered good enough quality to publish? If the CERN results pass initial scrutiny, I’m curious what a re-examination of the raw data from the collectors of the period would reveal. 111. Andreas H I just love the process. Scientists figured something out and to the best of their abilities made sure there was no error. Now this claim is out in the open and everyone can take a good hack at it. Just think about the brain power pondering over this issue right now, magnificent! No matter the end result, this is just pretty damn awesome. 112. Rasputin I haven’t been this excited since I saw Princess Leia’s slave girl costume for the first time. It’s probably not true but holyzomgawesome what if it is? 113. Aleksandar I’ll try some mind test. Let’s suppose the results of measurement were true (I wouldn’t bet on it, but suppose they are true). What we get? The speed of neutrinos measured through rock and air is a fraction of c greater then the speed of light measured in vacuum (c). And we know from other measurements (supernova’s, GRBs, etc) that the speed of neutrinos is approximately or exactly c, measured through the medium of vacuum. The difference here is the medium (rock and air versus vacuum). For photons, the difference is measurable and known. Speed is 0.00m/s through rock and they are slowed down in air, a fraction less than c. In vacuum, light speed is, well…c. With neutrinos, we would get the other effect, they are sped UP, not down in presence of mass/gravity. If these is true, it CAN be measured to even greater accuracy if we put a detector on the other side of Earth (New Zealand, perhaps). What would this mean for all the theories of forces and gravity, is mind boggling. I repeat, only and only if these measurements come to be true (which I highly doubt). 114. Duncan Young GPS position solutions are typically calculated in a earth-centered earth-fixed reference frame, so the concerns about curvature and rotation are probably not valid. One catch is the wet tropospheric correction, which can lead to elevation biases of 10′s of centimeters. The critical citation is number 26, G. Colosimo, M. Crespi, A. Mazzoni, M. Jones and D. Missiaen, “Determination of the CNGS global geodesy”, OPERA public note 132 (2011), which does not appear to be on the web. There is this from 2002:; citing issues with traffic constrained access to survey points in the road tunnel near the detector. 115. Evil Merodach While I am skeptical of these findings, this is the second experiment that has intimated that neutrinos are somehow moving at superluminal speeds. Fermilab’s Minos experiment showed similar results but the findings were within statistical error ranges. There is an explanation that doesn’t violate Einstein’s speed limit but it may be even more mind-bending. It’s been suggested that there is a fourth type of neutrino called a “sterile neutrino.” The sterile neutrino is suspected to be a type of particle called a Kaluza-Klein particle which, unlike normal matter, has the ability to escape our three spatial dimensions and travel into higher dimensions. The LHC is expected to prove or disprove these extra dimensions. This may be the first inklings of higher dimensions to come out of CERN. If there are extra dimensions, there is no reason to expect that the speed of light there is the same as it is in our three-space. All three known types of neutrinos (electron, muon, and tau) have mass, and thus cannot reach the speed of light. The sterile neutrino is also expected to have mass. But as neutrinos “rotate” through each of their different types, the sterile neutrino may be straying into dimensions where the speed limit is higher. When the sterile neutrino rotates back into one of the known three types, it may be forced back into our more mundane dimensions. As for the neutrinos from Supernova 1987A, those neutrinos are far less energetic than those used by CERN. It may be the energy of the neutrino contributes to the effect. This news falls under the heading of extraordinary findings so it definitely requires extraordinary proof. This is just one experiment out of many that are needed to confirm this result. Still, this is exciting stuff! 116. Joseph G @121 Andreas: I know, isn’t it great? I can practically hear the gears grinding. And by contrast, imagine a not-so-skeptical community (lets say homeopathy) that when faced with new information would either dismiss it outright or get really excited and wax imaginative without ever bothering to do anything useful, such as confirm or disprove the discovery. @123 Evil Merodach: Fascinating! Particularly the bit about CERN producing higher-energy neutrinos then a supernova! Or is this a case of the neutrinos all rotating to a lower energy state en route to earth? mental note for my hard sci-fi novella: FTL communication but no FTL spaceships :-P And as for 117. Evil Merodach I agree with Brian Weaver (#120) that we may not have had the means back in ’83-84 to detect neutrinos from Supernova 1987A. It could be that in 1987 we were detecting only the lower energy neutrinos from that supernova? It might be interesting to see if there are any neutrino bursts unassociated with any event that might herald a pending (to us) supernova. 118. Julie The opening headline on this mornings French breakfast TV news was devoted to this story. “Scientists run experiment and have unexpected results. They may replicate this, or they may not”. They interviewed two scientists, one in Geneva and another in Paris. They showed pictures of of products being scanned at a supermarket as proof of the importance of Einsteins theory. . Quite exciting. 119. andrew when i heard about this on the radio, my very first instinct was “theres a mistake somewhere”. i tried to think of a few things from what i had heard about it on the radio, one of which was the distance thing Phil mentioned. But seeing as 30cm = 1 ns, GPS can easily nail it to less than that! are they using straight line distance or distance along the curve of the earth? maybe it was the exact timing of when the neutrino left and arrived? the true test lies in whether their results can be reproduced by a different team, in a different place! it may take a while, but i cant wait! 120. kamacitrus Yes, I’m sure they’ve used a Garmin GPS unit to measure the distance. Give me a break. I think one thing that may be a point of conversation is; what part, if any, does the observer with foreknowledge of the arrival have to play in this experiment? We all know about Heiblum’s study. Just a thought… This, if true, will change the fundamentals of our daily lives. Cause and effect. Think about it… We’ve all had the thought “This is a bad idea”. What happens after a thought like this crosses our minds? Usually something bad. Are our action determined because of the probable outcome? If so, where does freewill exist? Amazing study. Perhaps we will finally have a unified theory. 121. TerryEmberson One of the first things I did when I heard this was to try and find a real science blogger to clarify it. At least I’m getting skeptical instincts. 122. Ralph The neutrinos are produced in ten microsecond bursts from a proton beam. So the time-distribution of the neutrino burst would appear to need to be known to part-per-thousand accuracy to get the claimed timing accuracy. The paper indicates that the time-distribution of the proton burst is understood (not sure how accurately). However, if the geometry of the proton beam changes during the burst, then that might influence the direction of the subsequent neutrinos, biasing the distribution of neutrino arrival times at the detector? I’d be looking very very carefully at the pulsed kicker magnets that extract the protons out of the SPS, and also at mechanisms for protons early in the burst to disturb protons later in the burst. 123. prianikoff Neutrinos are detected indirectly, using Cherenkov radiation. So, if they’d arrived at the photo detector faster than light, wouldn’t they produce a characteristic double image, after the event? One of the particle arriving at the detector and one of it departing, in the opposite direction. 124. Pete I think today’s xkcd sums up everything nicely… 125. Eric Pepke I see a much more basic problem with these results. It’s possible that the known value of c is slightly wrong. However, ignoring that possibility… Let’s say that a neutrino, which has mass, is going faster than c. That means one of two things: 1) It has imaginary rather than real energy under relativity (plug it into gamma), or 2) Relativity is off. If 1, I’m not sure how a detector could detect imaginary energy. If 2, then the GPS, which relies on relativity, might be off, too. Pedantic note: If c were a little larger, they wouldn’t change the number, just make the meter a bit longer. Same result. 126. Mark Bruton Just a thought as I am not a physicist, can they launch both a photon and what is it neron at the same time and see which one arrives first, is it that simple , i suspect not 127. b This reminds me of when Cold Fusion came out 128. ponyface Is the 730km or so along the surface or detector to detector (ie through the Earth)? Surely that could account for 20 metres. 129. I don’t know the math on this, but I’ll be interested to see how it holds up under the scrutiny of the scientific community. xkcd has an entertaining take on it…. 130. haha If using GPS, they will use Einstein’s relativity theory, but if you find a faster particle the GPS is not valid anymore because relativity does not apply. So, can we find a faster particle using GPS? 131. Nigel Depledge PeteC (37) said: Manhatten project. Quantum Electrodynamics. Quantum Chromodynamics. 132. DennyMo I love XKCD’s treatment of the report: 133. Dave Steckler My first area of concern after my first read of the article is that the distance measurement might be incorrect (it is, in fact, not a “measurement” – it is a calculation). While the GPS positioning on the surface of the earth is very, very accurate, calculating a point-to-point distance is derived from simply using the etrf2000 geoid. Since the etrf2000 geoid is an approximation of reality, so is the “known” distance the neutrinos travelled. 134. MarkHB Move at c Move at c Whisper words of wisdom Move at c… 135. Nigel Depledge Gray matter (59) said (and, no, I’m not impressed by your use of “@” symbols in place of the letter “a”): Sound waves have no mass. Are you saying they don’t exist? This makes no sense at all. A recipe for rice pudding has no mass, but it still exists in the real world, and we interact with it in exactly the same way we interact with other forms of information. Neither vague “quantum connection” nor “aligning with higher vibration” required. So what is velocity, if not distance travelled per unit time? 136. jupiterisbig I love all the posters here commenting about the earth’s shape and how accuracy – that’s what I would have discussed at high school, man … I think they threw it open because they were deep in n-space or some such and still couldn’t't find a solution! one for messier or cromwell …. ;-) 137. Eric Pepke Remember the mirror on the Hubble telescope? I’ve heard that people were so busy looking for fine problems they didn’t notice a gross calibration one. Oh, and a recipe for rice pudding has mass. It has information, which means it has a temperature, which means it has energy, which means that unless it’s moving at c which would make following it difficult, it has mass. 138. Christian Treczoks I bet that the distance is somehow “off” by the right amount. Earth is not a perfect sphere, maybe they mapped GPS coordinates on a sphere and calculated the distance based on this (No, I did noch check whether this would provide for a sufficient difference, I’m just thinking aloud) . Or they just checked everything over and over again with the exception of the one very measurement that is off (hi, Murphy). I just imagened the following scene: Jamie Hyneman (looking at a neutrino detector on a table at M5 industries): “Thats an interesting device! So what do we have today?” Adam Savage: “CERN claims that they found neutrinos being faster than light, and I thought when we can confirm THAT…” 139. Georgia Not sure if this has been addressed … but their talking about comparing the speed of neutrinos through dirt (I think it’s all underground) with the speed of light through a vacuum (i.e. nothing). They can’t send light the same way… 140. GPS accuracy can be boosted to centimetre levels. It uses signals from stationary radio stations but is commonly use in geodesy. So at least distance they have got accurately. 141. flip While skeptical of the results – and from Phil’s reckoning, it sounds like it’s more likely that the results are off a little – the potential for coolness is huge. Sounds like it also needs lots more study to discover out what’s really going on! I do hope that an update here of what happens next will occur. This is just too interesting not to follow. (Sadly, I suspect I’m going to be disappointed) #20, BJN summed it up nicely. New word learned today: dilithium. Thanks Phil! I always learn something here, even if it has nothing to do with the actual topic. Thank you Nigel (#156) for deconstructing those weird comments. I was waiting for someone to do that. 142. Mesh Can’t wait till they invent Neutrino based internet! Imagine the ping! 143. @47. AstroPaul, If they are not racing photons and neutrinos to the target, it’s makes it harder to eliminate experimental technique /measurement errors. That would mean they are assuming their control, “We already know the speed of light in a vacuum, so we don’t need a control in this experiment.” In college, we always performed the control experiment, even if it was a known value, such as the speed of light. Part of the purpose of control is also to ensure you don’t have some error in the techniques used. “Well we’re faster than c, but so are the photons, there must be an error somewhere.” It seems to be an interesting coincidence that the distance used and the velocity supposedly measured were just enough (relatively speaking) for the results to be indisputably significant (if shown to be correct). If you think about it, it’s somewhat anthropicly lucky. There’s no a prior reason to suppose the degree to which the velocity of these neutrinos exceed the speed of light would be detectable at the distances over which we are able to experiment, nor is there reason to assume the opposite, either, it would seem the experimenters lucked out. 144. Infinite123Lifer 127. Andreas H Says: September 23rd, 2011 at 1:01 am “I just love the process. No matter the end result, this is just pretty damn awesome.” Here here. Awesome statement. It’s one I can ponder at least and appreciate. Robin says:(92) This kind of thinking is of the highest degree. I appreciate the statement in full. I could not agree more heartedly. I would even venture to say that its never far off the path when considering unknown variables especially based on new observations. Very intriguing, highly intensive thought produced blog. I think the same thing every day. For instance: If the definition of 0 is the absolute absence of the universe. And the definition of 1 is the universe itself. I have some very suggestively crazy ideas that I care to share to the right sort of people…first, that 0 (zero), in this world, in our math, in working out real life problems…where mathematics results in an undefined, incalculable or undetermined state that; zero, actually does not exist in some instances, or at least would better suit the base 10 system better if infinity were to replace by the 0 when talking about certain aspects of…the universe and its fundamental parts. After all if you have absolutely nothing, than you have infinitely nothing, and if you have a universe (meaning 1, always) than it is impossible to have nothing or 0. I know it sounds stupid, but I’ve been thinking along those lines for a long long time, and most everything totally outrageously possibly and true or not does sound stupid to most the first time it is offered (i guess thats what makes progress fun, or at least slow and excruciating) An incredible list of actually “of no relevance” things are perhaps just “not relevant” as well. Please somebody mathematically inclined consider the ramifications of devising a new # system based on the only place where 3 primes show up in a row…arguing that 1 is a prime number. For there is only 1 universe as the number is defined and nothing can multiply together to make it except for itself and 1. Thus I offer that 1,2 & 3 are all prime numbers…of which, this only occurs once in the entire numeric system and that zero does not exist but should be replace with the symbol of infinity and that by using triangles, anything can be calculated and understood. I am not a cookoo. I just have this idea. I wish I could grasp the mathematics to really check into this further. Somebody please just think about for a second. I know how truly “divine” almost mathematics is & now that I started learning about the science of Logic I am even more impressed by its natural world continuity. But to really prove my point! What if we only had 3 fingers and not 10. I am highly intrigued in profound and simple logic forming from the complicated darkness and things which are not understandable. Awesome stuff, I have not looked up this many terms since my last chemistry class. I ll let you guys get back to it. 145. M. Pu In which amateurs think they know better than CERN physicists. 146. Nigel Depledge Eric Pepke (158) said: It has information, which means it has a temperature How so? 147. Joseph Hoshen GPS is very accurate for stationary points especially if GPS measurements are done continuously. A centimeter level of accuracy is achievable. (GPS is used to measure earth plate motions to sub-centimeter level accuracy.) To get GPS position at a given point in space at least 4 GPS satellites have to be visible, which is almost always achievable. Based on data from these satellites, the GPS receiver calculates X, Y, Z and the time t of the GPS fix. The X, Y and Z are universal GPS coordinates. Earth curvature has no impact and is irrelevant to the GPS coordinate calculations. The distance can be calculated from the coordinates of the source in CERN and the detector coordinates at OPERA Italy using a very simple Pythagorean formula. Furthermore, because the time of each GPS fix is also calculated, any variation in distance as a function of time can also be determined with high level of accuracy. So the question of distance accuracy between the 2 points is not an issue. The time of flight of the neutrinos is a more complex problem and could be in question. If the tests were repeated for various distances, say 1460 km; and if the neutrinos arrive 120 milliseconds earlier than the speed of light in vacuum predicts, it would give a significant boost to the results of the current test. 148. KennyBloggins Warp Speed Engage! 149. Joseph Hoshen Correction to my previous posting; the time unit is nanoseconds; not milliseconds!!! If the tests were repeated for various distances, say 1460 km; and if the neutrinos arrive 120 nanoseconds earlier than the speed of light in vacuum predicts, it would give a significant boost to the results of the current test. 150. Betz For a fun thought experiment, assume the results are actual and true. So what’s special about the path these neutrinos take? They go through several km of rock. They have to be passing through N atomic nuclei. Is there any mechanism that could act as if they are being accelerated & decelerated as they pass through the nuclei, kind of like gravity slingshot of a space probe? OK, granting that c is indeed the speed limit would rule out any acceleration; then the actual distance travelled must be shorter. Can there be any kind of de facto shortcut for a neutrino so that it doesn’t really travel the width of a proton or quark, but sort of instantaneously appears on the other side? 151. Kaychsea It’s through the definition of entropy in relation to information theory. In actuality it doesn’t. Of course where the statement misses the point is where he assumes that because something has energy it has mass, if this was so a photon would be unable to move at the speed of light because it has energy. It does because what it has is mass equivalence. Which is different. 152. Kriton Phil admittedly points out that his argument about the neutrinos from SN1987A is a bit weak. Keith Hearn and Brian Weaver already make some good points about this. I’ll point out a couple more. The analysis of SN1987A makes the assumption that the measured speed is consistent throughout space time. However, if this is not true, but turns out to be, for example, some faster than light tunneling exclusively at the start of the process, both the conclusions made above and the experiments may be consistent. Secondly, has any analysis been attempted for correlating detection events with others years in advance of the supernovas? How do we know the spike attributed to SN1987A might not be attributable to another supernova that is yet to be seen? I doubt, until now, that the question has ever been seriously considered. I agree with Brian – review the data. The above argued its absence, but if no analysis has been done, then how do they know it is absent? So be careful about believing that an experimental result has been debunked via clever, but ultimately irrelevant analysis. 153. koza dereza Of course neutrinos do not travel faster than light. Yes, there are theoretical mechanisms for superluminal speeds, but they are extreme theoretical constructs, not anything we see on earth. I suppose some people still believe the magnetic monopole was actually discovered in San Francisco in the early 1980′s t00. That was a little bit before the web became popular, so it did not get some much coverage. Like the monopole, this “event” will not be confirmed. It is rather sad it gets blasted over the internet, however. 154. Viadd Looking at the paper, it appears that they probably did the geodesy right. (Doing old-school surveying from GPS base-stations at both ends of the tunnel, ETRF2000.) Knock the Bayesian prior of that source of error down to below 1e-3. The time transfer includes a 8.3 km optical fiber, which means a ~part-per-thousand error in the propagation delay can cause the effect (the stated error is a part in 40k). The wrong way to measure the propagation delay of a fiber is to bring it into a lab measure it with a (light pulser & photodetector) at one end and a photodetector at the other, going into a timing circuit. That tells you the what the propagation delay is in the lab, but as-installed the cable will stretch, it will be at different temperatures, it will generally be different. The less-wrong way is to put a reflector at the far end of the installed fiber and measure how long it takes for the signal to go down and come back and divide by 2. The propagation delay is not necessarily the same in each direction (e.g. Faraday effect, change in polarization from the reflector) so that can screw you up. I assume (I Am Not A Metrologist) that the right way to do it is synchronize a portable atomic clock to the signal generator at one end, carefully transport it to the other end and check the delay, bring it back to the signal generator to check for drift, and repeat to build confidence. You do have to worry about both special and general relativistic effects (from moving things and from spending time under a mountain). I put the Bayesian prior for getting this wrong at 1E-3. (If I just read all the references, it probably says explicitly how they did the time transfer.) 155. Kriton, valid points, but the idea that the neutrinos that we thought were from SN 1987A actually coming from another supernova that hasn’t reached us yet seems extremely unlikely. That would mean that by an accident of timing the neutrinos happened to show up exactly when we would expect them by conventional theory if they came from SN 1987A. That would almost be evidence for an evil deity that likes to mess with astrophysicists. 156. Viadd I just read more of the paper, and they state that they did time transfer both by two-way fiber and by portable atomic clock, so my post #175 is invalid. Knock the Bayesian prior for time transfer error back to 1E-5. 157. Jamey Issue re: neutrinos in this experiment, vs. neutrinos from SN1987a… If neutrinos are in fact tachyonic, then they have an imaginary rest mass, and adding energy slows them down. Neutrinos from SN1987a would be expected to have much higher energies than those from this experiment, and therefore their speed should be much closer to c – probably enough to wipe out most of the 4 year issue. 158. PeteC I wish I had time and still had some of the ability to go through this paper myself; while I did physics at university I moved into IT after graduating, so after a couple of decades I’m more than a little rusty. Did they consider the weaker gravitational field the neutrinos passed through? Earth’s gravity decreases linearly as you head towards the center of the planet (there’s a shell of matter over your head effectively pulling you back up again). I know it’s not a lot, but as they travelled in a straight line underground they would have moved through a lower gravity field, which if I remember corrctly would result in a very slightly different time. It’s remembering the Hafele–Keating experiment, where they flew an atomic clock around in an aircraft, that reminds me of this; though of course, that was moving as well, so it suffered from increased dilation. 159. Al Cibiades This all sounds pretty interesting — Even if “FTL” is NOT being demonstrated, there may be some startling discoveries in the wings — possible exception for Equivalence (10.1103/PhysRevLett.107.081102); Minimization of Uncertainty via entanglement (Science 316, 726 (2007);; Science 324, 764 (2009)) 160. M.L. Some have interpreted dark energy as evdience that gravity does indeed ‘push’ on large scales. 161. SkyGazer Ok, my eyes can handle the impact of photons hitting them at the speed of light! But those neutrinos are scary. 162. bigseph Perhaps if anyone in history had been able to test the one-way speed of light without using mirrors or redirection or hokey gamma experiments, this result wouldn’t be so surprising to most people. Photons themselves travel faster than our supposed SOL. Physics and cosmology’s reliance on each other as well as manipulation for the purposes of “propping up” various ideology has caused a pure science (physics) to be a slave to the whims of other tertiary sciences that actually DEPEND on physics for proper baseline assumptions. Interesting that the article mentions Galileo, because Galilean velocity fares better than Einstein’s when it comes to faster than light calculations. But oh no, we wouldn’t want to find that c isn’t constant, because we’ve long ago assumed that it is, and numerous experiments show that it can be slowed down. Now we see that there is no actual limit to potential speeds in physics, there was just a limit to Einstein’s theory. One day someone will measure the one-way speed of light from a distant star or planet and use a proper experiment to do so. The speed of this neutrino will pale in comparison. But by all means nitpick this research. People will keep getting similar results as technology improves. And the earth won’t explode by a neutrino reaching infinite mass because it moved faster than c. That’s an erroneous theoretical HUMAN boundary. Not a boundary of our physical universe. 163. TedK To Karl Withakay, who asked if neutrinos would be affected by passing through Earth’s air: I’m glad you admitted you know nothing about physics because that question shows you know nothing about neutrinos. Those particles can pass through rocky planets without hitting a single atom along the way. Everybody thinks we’re going to have the USS Enterprise on our hands next week. God, would someone do something about the science education levels in the USA, please!! 164. Infinite123Lifer Neutrino Neutrino had a great fall Neutrino Neutrino went through the wall Neutrino’s watchers expected the fall The Neutrino with its mass if at all Detected by CERN and that is the call If by mystery it traveled at all Faster than light! Response to the call The brightest and best and smartest of all Responding to CERN the craziest of all Testing to see the Bayesian priori fall All around the world they hear this call Its written in stone as up on a wall Sweet wisdom i cant let help you to fall The answers hidden and not in us all 165. I would not look towards the distance measurement nor the timing system are the source of error, although advanced and precise they are relatively trivial technologies to comprehend and test and have been validated many times. I would look at the timer triggering mechanism and how it is coupled with the generation of the particles. The generation side is where a phase delay could create this result. 166. Scott Uh, that description of the “fabric of space-time” sounds suspiciously like the “ether” which Einstein maintained does not exist. If the pressure of the displaced fabric is pushing objects, shouldn’t the pressure be higher on one side of the Earth than the other, due to the headwind encountered as the Earth travels through space due to the movement of the galaxy, the galactic rotation, and the orbit of the Earth around the Sun? 167. Torbjörn Larsson, OM So … has everybody caught where they goofed yet?* * Extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence. Other outstanding concerns are: 1. This needs to be repeated. Especially since the neutrino beam oscillates between different kinds of particles! 168. Scott 169. cruf A pretty straightforward generalization of Einstein’s rule is that nothing can accelerate to the speed of light, either from above or below. So subluminal things like snails and rocketships and electrons can’t speed up to c and superluminal things (mabe like these neutrinos they’re detecting) can’t deccelerate down to c. The problem with superluminal particle is it’s very hard to iinteract with them and detect them. Maye that’s why neutrinos are so hard to detect in the first place. Incidentally, the “rest state” of superluminal particles ought to have infinite velocity with respect to our reference frame. So they are basically everywhere at once. This sounds suspiciously like dark energy to me – we can’t detect it but it is apparently all over the place. If 73% of the total mass-energy in the universe is dark energy and another 23% is dark matter, that only leaves 4% for everything traveling slower than the speed of light. It would seem more natural for there to be equal mass-energy on either side of c. If the velocity of all the tachyons (> c) relative to us was infinite, they would appear to be everywhere all the time and their portion of the mass-energy budget would tend toward 100%. The fact that it is only 96% is a signature of their actual velocity distribution. So tachyons appear to have more energy than they actually do. And the excess grows as their speed increases, asymptoting to infinity as their velocity (relative to us) goes to infinity. This is probably a result of how we are interpreting the indications of dark energy’s presence – using inappropriate subluminal physics. 170. jimthompson The SN 1987a argument is just really, really dumb since Kamiokande wasn’t sensitve enough to see them until 1985…Come on people, you have google, look it up! 171. @188. TedK Please actually read my comment before going off on your rant. I know quit a bit about physics and neutrinos. I’ve actually tutored college physics. I never said I didn’t know anything about physics. I said I was not a particle physicist . Although they do not interact electromagnetically, neutrinos do interact through the weak force (and gravity) or there’d be no way to detect them. I am well aware of the massive numbers of neutrinos that pass through every square centimeter of this planet every second. It would seem that you either did not really read my comment, or you did not understand my meaning. My point was exactly that neutrinos would not be expected to be slowed down by traveling through matter (have any refractive index) while light would, therefore it might be possible for a neutrino to exceed the speed of light in a particular medium. Perhaps I might have phrased it better so that it was easier for some people, such as yourself, to understand my meaning. 172. Robin @ Bigseph (#185): Do you have any actual evidence to support your claims. You seem to display a lack of understanding about how the speed of light has been measured throughout history. That the measured speed of light seems to converge nicely over the history of its measurement seems to indicate the techniques for measuring it are appropriate. Certainly there is nothing inherently better about measuring the speed of light “from a star”, and in fact trying to do so presents quite a few challenges, one of the biggest of which would be constraining the experiment such that you were actually measuring the speed of light (directly or indirectly) and not some velocity or time that included factors not held constant or that were unknown. Physics is not slave to the whims of anything. Science is not slave to the whims of anything. People maybe slave to the whims of other people, and certainly people can willfully misinterpret or misstate scientific data or results, but that is something that is not part of science itself. 173. Joseph G So is the accelerator actually creating a beam of neutrinos that are aimed at OPERA, or is OPERA just detecting neutrinos that shoot out omnidirectionally, as in a nuclear detonation? OP makes it sound like a beam, but I was under the impression that when neutrinos are created, they pretty much go every which way? In so, they’re not charged (obviously), so you can’t collimate them or anything… 174. Chris Winter (Emphasis added.) Blas Cabrera, perhaps? I remember a lecture by him about neutrino detectors. 175. Joseph G Erm… Showing that light can be slowed down has nothing to do with disproving general or special relativity. Special relativity has been experimentally proven literally tens of thousands of times (proven trillions of times, if you want to count technologies like GPS). If you’re looking for a way to catch those know-it-all scientists in a mistake, you could scarcely pick a worse theory to rail against. Try ranting about the MACHO model of dark matter, if you want a somewhat mainstream scientific idea to tear down (while not coming off as a total crank while doing it). You’d be a bit late on the bandwagon, as it’s already been pretty well disproved, but you’d at least be on the side of reality. 176. bigseph @ Robin- The same “science” that has held to it’s dogmatic claim that the matter has been solved for the past 50 years? I’d also suggest that the speed of light has been measured at different speeds throughout our history, and there are at least a dozen cosmological problems when using our standard c in equations to explain universal phenomena. I’d rather not do your homework for you, there are numerous articles of people slowing down the speed of light as well as the previous neutrino study that was just barely found lacking. Feel free to cozy up to your laptop and visit a search engine. It seems to converge nicely that all the times I have looked for the sun at midnight, it’s nowhere to be found in the sky. Yet on the other side of the earth, they can see it just fine. Does that mean they are wrong? Hardly Having a restricted perspective causes people to look at an experiment testing the speed of light, bounce it off a mirror, halve the distance, and say “Voila!” How can you measure the one-way speed of light unless you are either equidistant and closeby the source or in some universally quantifiable position away from the actual receiver of the light? Ironic that you would be against a SOL test from light source to destination from a universal perspective, but you think we have accurate measurements from a light source to a mirror from an earthly perspective. Light exists in this universe independent of human existence. What makes you think it should bow to your theoretical ideas because it just so happens to be what YOU experienced here on earth? True science is observable/repeatable/testable. When multiple experiments record particles moving FTL or demonstrating the ability to slow light down, perhaps it’s time to scrap the plan of plugging c into all of your equations. We’ve manipulated it ourselves from a limited perspective on earth. That alone makes c hardly a universal constant. I have nothing further to say on the subject, assail my comments as much as you like. Toodles. 177. Tim Just to be clear, the Kessel run wasn’t significant because it was fast. It was significant because it was short. 178. CScott Before ruling out a surveying error did they consider that the detector is a Km or more below the surface. At that latitude a verticals will be out by 600-700 seconds of arc due to the Earth’s rotation. Over a depth of a Km that could give an error of a few meters. 179. Joseph G @202 Tim: Eh, I think that’s a clumsy retcon. The most plausible explanation (other then the writers just not giving a womprat’s ass), is that Han was bulls**ting, trying to impress people he thought were ignorant rubes with some made-up impressive achievement. Given his personality, I think that explanation makes the most sense. 180. davem What Geoid are they using to measure the distance on the GPS? WGS84? If so, how do they know that their particular part of the globe conforms to it? We know that WGS84 is an approimation to reality. Has it ever been measured accurately? While GPS can get to cm accuracy, that’s over smaller distances, where the actual shape of the planet doesn’t matter so much. 181. Ema Nymton 205 comments, and the small handful of crackpots are exceedingly obvious. Even with disparate ideas, the tenor of their rhetoric is like a big blinking beacon. 182. Wally-Bob Not being the caliber of many that have posted here but having studied relativity in college, looking for an explanation of the following: I am an observer at position=origin @ velocity=0 (by definition as all is relative) To my right I observe an object “A” traveling away from me @ 0.6c. To my left I observe an object “B” traveling away from me @ 0.6c. A, B and me are collinear points. A sees me as B does also. A and B do not see each other as each is beyond the other’s luminal event horizon. (red shifted to wavelength = infinity and/or light never arrives at the other and/or each is the other’s dark energy, which ever one prefers) Changing the relative reference frame to A, I am departing at 0.6c and B is departing at 1.2c. Obviously my next question is: Why not? 183. Mind Of course there is something faster than light…it is our mind…in my mind i can travel through one point in the universe to another point in the universe in less than one second….thats really fast, isnt it?…;) The Mind 184. eduard what would happen if the lab’s budget was to be cut and then they claim this? 185. Joseph G @209 Wally Bob: I probably am less well read in this area than you, but I’ll take a wild stab at it. My understanding is that light appears to travel at the same speed to observers in all reference frames. The light passing between A and B would be redshifted (a lot) but it would still get there. Time dilation doesn’t increase linearly, it increases asymptotically with proximity to C so even if the relative speed of A and B is 1.2 C the redshift would not be infinite (in fact, I believe the redshift would only be by a factor of about 2). Hopefully someone can correct me there if I (almost certainly) am wrong. 186. Voltaire2 If another intelligence were trying to get someone’s attention, might not playing with some fundamental forces of physics be one way? It’s still a cool idea, regardless of its reality or lack thereof. :^) Perhaps we all better read Einstein’s Bridge. 187. Michael Bryant I’m puzzled. I’m an accountant but I read years ago about neutrinos travelling FLT. How come I seem to be the only one who remembers? 188. redshift Comment 192 suggests arc vs. chord error to br 22m, equating to 60ns time error. Comment 203 suggests depth below surface to have measurable effect on distance. Comment 205 discusses choice of geoid as a source of error. Let’s just scotch these with some proper maths: We are assuming they made the schoolboy error of measuring an arc instead of a chord. Mean radius of earth 6371km. The guys measured 731.278km between the two points. Angle subtended from earth centre = 0.11478rad. Chord length (2rsin(angle/2) = 730.877km. Error 0.401km. Time for light to travel 401m at 300 000 000 m/s = 1339ns, not in the same ball parks as 60ns. As for being a km or so down or using the wrong geoid, that’s nothing compared to the variation in earth’s radius. I used the mean 6371km. The actual range is 6353km to 6384km. Repeating my calculations based on these figures gives errors between 400m and 404m, which equate to time differences in the range of 1346ns to 1333ns, therefore it doesn’t matter what geoid is used or if they were a few km down, the variation is miniscule. Read the report. There are no obvious errors. 189. Al Viro re photons having non-zero mass: that would make velocity dependent on frequency, so we’d have X-ray detectors catch supernovae before optics and radio… SN 2006gy was ~7e7pc away and it had been observed both in X-ray and optically; if optical-range photons were, indeed, moving at about (1-1/(4e5))c, the X-ray ones would be at about 1-1/(4e10) or so (for nanometer wavelength ones; harder ones would be faster). For that kind of distances that would amount to optical part reaching us ~50000 years after the X-ray observations… Moreover, I strongly suspect that we’d have noticed already simply for red vs. blue light – 1-(v/c)^2 is changing as E^-2 and for velocities that close to c it means that (c – v) is proportional to E^-2. So just switching from red to blue light would decrease c – v by factor of 3 or so. Not to mention that VLF radio would be seriously* slower than visible light, with all kinds of interesting effects caused by photons slower than hyperbolic relative to Sun ;-) 190. redshift Einstein wasn’t comfortable with the discrepancies between relativity and quantum physics. If relativity is actually flawed, maybe it’s the gateway we need to finding a grand unifying theory. What if the c in e =mc2 were not the velocity of light but simply taken to be velocity of the particle being measured? Sub-atomic particles with lower mass than a photon (e.g. neutrinos) could then have a higher velocity for a given energy. A theoretical zero-mass particle would be pure energy and could have infinite velocity (gravity?) 191. Wzrd1 From the graphs in the report, it seems as if some of the neutrinos may be arriving far before the main train, another group in front, then the observed reported main groups. For all the world, it looks like a phase shift of an arriving signal, added to the premature arrival. Now, WHY would they arrive early? If there were a fourth flavor of neutrino that was massless, it would have no effect, they’re not accelerating. Tunneling, perhaps, during oscillation? 192. BSteele Good point about the supernova. What if neutrinos travel faster through matter than through a vacuum, though? Has this ever been tested? I’m asking you because you seem like you might know. Thanks a bunch! 193. HowardW Comment 130 (Duncan Young) asks for reference [26] Colosimo et al. concerning geodesy. It may be found at this location: 194. gayathri 195. karishma can i know more about this? 196. Deepak Apart from the implications to the physics world, can someone kindly explain the implications on the day-to-day life if this turns out to be true? 197. T. Peterson Perhaps someone has already made this point in the comment section: these researchers weren’t making any claims (as you say twice in the article). They were presenting their results for others to verify. 198. hollypahl I beleive that “Entanglement,” proves the transfer of information at vastly grater speeds than the Speed of Light. 199. Hrune I have a logical conundrum: Results that are against relativity are based on GPS measurement which is based on relativity:). 200. Albert I’m just an amatuer but is it possible that it’s going thru a warped space so it’s traveling less distance than the actual distance hence the faster time??? 201. Giancosimo Perhaps they have measured the distance on a circumference arc but neutrinos travel on a chord internal the Earth? 202. CScott 700 seconds of arc over 2 Km gives 6.79 M – not enough, but it is a start. Since you can’t take a GPS measurement 2 Km underground extrapolating from the surface is going to be a weakness. How exactly was the location of the underground detector determined? Conventional surveying techniques are really designed for use on the surface. 204. Switzerland to Italy… Maybe Italy’s horrific fiscal deficits combined with Switzerland’s strong franc have created an economic gradient down which those Swiss neutrinos accelerate? Perhaps if they fired them toward Greece, the overage could be well north of 100 ns. Just a hypothesis from someone whose portfolio just got poleaxed to the tune of 20% this week. 205. Alan D It’s nice that they have put their results out for scrutiny by other physicists. Sometimes, I think, people are too close to something, and some avenues of checks or verification can get overlooked. 206. Wayne Jones Twitter version: GPS calc -> straight line distance btween source and target – what if path of neuts was curved due to gravity’s small pull on them? FB version: Setting aside any difference between the mass of a neutrino and that of a photon: 1) the path of the neutrinos was a straight line, there was no tunnel because none was needed, and there was no “frictional” interaction between the neutrinos and the atoms in the earth’s crust through which they passed — right? 2) Gravity is a warp of space/time and has a vector component for each center of gravity — right? 3) Although the crustal materials and all other visible and dark matter in the universe exerted gravitational force with individual vectors calculated by the centers of gravity of whichever aggregates suit the convenience of calculations, the largest vectors working on the neutrinos were the vectors between each neutrino and the center of the earth, along the line that swept through a computable angle with the center of the earth as its vertex — right? 4) Oh . . . maybe number 1 above is not correct — maybe the neutrinos followed and flight path that approximated an arc because on average the force of gravity felt by each neutrino was constant; however, that would make the path of the neutrinos longer than the straight line indicated in the diagram and assumed in the +/- 20 cm accurate GPS calculation of the distance between source and detector, and if longer, the problem of the neutrinos going faster than c would get even worse — oops (maybe – but we’re talking about tiny differences here any way, so I would think such considerations ought to be addressed and dealt with as inconsequential [too small to matter] or additive or misguided). 5) The question I have been trying to get to: if each neutrino can be thought of traveling in its own gravity well (the warp of space/time that is gravity), is the measurement of its speed between points A and B affected by the fact that the vector associated with that gravity well sweeps through an angle relative to the greatest source of the gravitational field (here the center of the earth)? It’s clear that gravity affects photons – hence, gravitational lenses – the standard example of gravity as a space warper. Given the gravitational lensing example, what is the effect on the flight path of a neutrino in the experiment of the interaction between the gravitational deflection of the neutrinos and their inertia (the light we see that demonstrates the lensing makes it around the deflecting gravitational fields – except those passing a black hole within its event horizon – where their inertia is not great enough to overcome the gravitational vector of the black hole)? 207. Hmm.. On @Quora: How does one verify that the Superluminal neutrino in question is infact was from CERN? 208. Completly Ridiculous Hypotosis I think this is just a result of virtual pair production by light. When it produces a pair its energy is transferred slower giving it an average velocity less than c. While light is actually traveling at c, in between pair productions but its energy is transferred by the pair at a slower v depending on the energy of the photon, so its averaged velocity is slower than c. But neutrinos don’t pair produce so they can have a “superluminal velocity” which is slower than c. Presuming the experiment stands. QFT for the win. 219 you’re talking about kinetic energy and Newtonian theory which is equivalent to relativity with c=infinity. 209 you’re using Galilean velocity addition formula but in relativity they would appear to be traveling away from each other at 0.88c so the light frequency is halved and the wavelength doubled. 209. harry astropaul@47, while the observed speed of a photon would not have changed due to the motion of the observer, these experimenters didn’t measure the speed (of the non-photons). They measured the arrival time of them and then computed a speed from it, based on a presumed distance. That distance changes as much as 71m in the 2.4ms flight time of the neutrinos due to the Earth’s orbit around the sun. Astronomers have to correct for the aberration of light due to the Earth’s velocity when they measure the direction or frequency of photons. Arrival time of a wavefront is also dependent on the motion of the observer. The Opera team did not report on accounting for this motion which could cause a much larger effect (depending on the relationship between the vector from CERN to Gran Sasso and the Earth’s velocity vector at the time of the neutrino creation). It is a glaring omission. 210. Bamber Umm, dunno much about quantum physics, but did the CERN folks take into account Earth’s 30km/s movement on the orbit around the Sun? As far as I know there is the invariance of the speed of light regarding light and electromagnetic waves, which light is, but when we’re talking about neutrinos, do they fall into the same invariance law’s yard? 211. Hah I like how far off the mark the estimates are in the original article. They need to know the distance to an accuracy of 3m, if it’s off by 20m it’s too much. 20m is 3 orders of magnitude larger than the 2cm to which they know the distance. This is the problem with very smart people from outside the field commenting on experiments, models and results, such as we see all the time in Climatology. 212. David Kahana Regarding the photon having a non-zero rest mass: this is certainly a possibility. But there are some pretty stringent experimental bounds on the photon mass. These bounds are both direct and indirect. By measuring the frequency dependence of the speed of light in a laboratory the best bound available is m_photon < 10^-10 eV. The indirect tests are all based on the point that a non-zero rest mass for the photon would modify Coulomb's law by a Yukawa like screening factor and also, similarly, change the behaviour of various static magnetic fields. So there is a stronger limit of m_photon < 6×10^-16 eV from measurements of Jupiter's magnetic field. There are even stronger limits from galactic magnetic fields, but those are generally considered not to be trustworthy, since the mechanism of generation of the galactic magnetic field is not well understood. The strongest earth bound laboratory limit that I know of is one that determines the product of the photon mass squared and the ambient cosmological vector potential measured extremely accurately using a specially designed toroidal Cavendish balance and finds m_photon < 7×10^-17 eV for specific estimates of the ambient cosmological vector potential. That experiment was done in about 1998 by Roderic Lakes. Photon masses this small would certainly imply a value of c in the Lorentz transformation that is far too little different from the currently measured value of c to accommodate the supposedly observed anomaly in the neutrino travel times. So that can't be the explanation. Similarly, the mean free path of a 1 MeV neutrino in solid iron is on the order of 1 light year, so the fact that there is rock in the way of the neutrinos is not expected to make any difference at all. Personally I'm in the camp that holds that the experimenters have simply missed something in the analysis, that they have missed some source of systematic error. The statistical nature of the analysis, the fact that the experiment is not actually capable of determining the travel time of any individual neutrino since there is no very firm knowledge about where or when any individual neutrino detected at Gran Sasso was produced by decays of pions and kaons in the secondary beam, and the fact that the zero point for time is established only by a measurement of the proton beam pulse timing and pulse waveform at the CERN SPS, all of these leave the method open to many possible sources of systematic error. In my view, what is needed for such a measurement to be convincing is to have two neutrino detectors in the neutrino beam: a near one and a far one. Then you can measure the transit time from the near to the far detector. That will eliminate the need to know as much about the time structure of the primary beam. 213. Guy who lived in Japan Hey, great article, and thank you for explaining how science works — I wish our education system did as good a job as you do. Anyhow, you said “scosh” to mean a little. I think it should be spelled “Skosh”, as it comes from the Japanese word “sukoshi” which means “a little bit”. 214. Stephen @#51 James “I love how science turns ‘being wrong’ into a positive experience ;-) You have it wrong. What is good is finding out that you were wrong. What is bad is staying wrong. Faith keeps you wrong. Science moves you forward to the truth. 215. Kieran Miles 1st Question: - When the LHC went online they said that there were possibilities that a wormhole might be produced and such wormholes would either dissipate or move to the centre of the earth, if such wormhole were to move to the centre of the earth would this have an effect on the neutrinos in anyway? Wormholes have no mass they consume mass and cause space and time to warp funny, this is just a question not trying to scare anyone here. Please see link below: - 2nd Question: Taking into account the link I just posted would the fact that space time is being distorted by the earth itself causing an arch (dip) effect cause neutrinos to react/act different as the earth causes space/time to distort. Could this distortion cause neutrino travel times to distort as they are passing through the earth? Would this not be a likely explanation? 3rd Question: (not really a question more of a theory about the speed of light which I posted to a friend on facebook) My theory of how one could travel faster than light involves part of the experiment I posted above and surfing. Take a massive object like the size of a sun, have it spining as fast you can then drop it as hard as you can and detonate it, if you could cause a ripple (wave affect) in the fabric of space and if you could surf that wave you might be able to travel the speed or faster. What you have to remember is that the wave is the fabric of space itself not matter, not particles, the universe is stretched like a rubber band, so this idea is allowed in the theory of relativity as space is not matter. Then you would need to find something which reacts with the fabric of space to be the surf board and then all that’s left is to survive the ride. Have you ever had a skipping rope and flapped it up and down the harder you flap it to begin with the quicker the first wave travels down the rope, it also dissipates as it moves down the rope. So what do you think? Please come back to me on these points, i welcome it, if it’s sensible and objective. 216. ab @181: The effect is a number of orders of magnitude too small (fortunately or unfortunately) Too all who are hoping this is true and implies a future warpdrive (as I do): Think on the implications regarding the Fermi paradox Potential ideas from top of my mind: * speed of light in vacuum is “dressed” and below a “naked” speed of light due to interaction with virtual particles. See Scharnhorst / Barton effect. Maybe neutrinos interact more weakly, thus are less “delayed” – since it does not carry charge there is no Cherenkov radiation * neutrinos being able to partially go through some additional dimension. If so, why only neutrinos? I do not like that * neutrinos having negative squared mass and i being a real thing with regard to mass: not as mad as it sounds – a number of “calculation helps” in physics have been found to have real meaning, e.g. see Aharonov Bohm effect 217. Dave Nixon The sun orbits the galactic center at a speed of 250km/s and the Earth orbits the sun at 30km/s. Due to earth rotation the actual direction the neutrino path is pointing relative to the direction of the Earth’s motion varies, but obviously the Gran Sasso target moves some hundreds of meters during the 2.4ms flight. Neutrino path is north-south approx at 42 degree latitude (Gran Sasso) so any net motion of the earth to the north results in decreased distance traveled since the target is closer when the neutrinos hit it than when the neutrinos left CERN. Galactic center is 29 degree declination so is always in the northern hemisphere (ignoring precession). Sun’s vector is apparently 60 deg approx away from the galactic center so on average the Sun (and the Earth) is moving more to the north than to the south. Need to work out the exact geometry but this seems a plausible explanation of why the neutrinos are traveling a smaller distance than terrestrial geodetic measurements. 218. Harry It seems to boil down to this: If they know precisely when the particles left CERN and they know precisely when they arrived at the detector and assuming the particles measured were the same particles at both ends then the results are accurate. That being the case we would have a new branch of science with the goal of determining how they did it, reproducing it and up-scaling it for some practical use. Maybe one day some brave soul will do to light what Chuck Yeager did to sound. Who knows, it could be just what Stephen Hawking needs to bag the theory of everything. 219. amber Not fair!! i was just doing a physics report on neutrinos and i find THIS! maybe it could mean a supernova will occur which is why there are neutrinos whizzing around faster then speed of light or maybe this can explain something about blackholes.. 220. I truly wish this wonderful, dedicated team of physicists to be finally proven right! Here is their current full length publication with about 60 names on it: I read it and the physics is clearly well grounded and professional. The determination of the distance is taken from a professional geodesy group, who constantly report the arc distance between the starting point at CERN and on the surface near the detection point along the Gran Sasso The paper states that the GPS coordinates are measured with cm accuracy. No word is given on the difference between the arc distance along along the Earth’s perimeter (D[Earth Arc], which is longer, then the distance between the same two GPS points (D[Neutrino]), the one traversed by the neutrinos. Given the extremely important scientific implications the full paper on the “dedicated geodesy on the ETRFS 2000 reference frame” should be disclosed! As an extreme example, if the two points were at opposing half of the earth surface at the equator, then D [EarthArc] would be R3.1415 ~ (Rπ) while the straight line cutting through the Earth would be D[Neutrino] = 2* R. The difference in this example is R1.1415 ~ (R(π-2)). The distance between the 730 km arc “as the crow flies” and the 730 km point-to-point straight line distance can be calculated. Its approximate value is ~2800 cm. Useful arc calculations are here: Here is a reference on how ETRF89, ETRS2000, and ETRS2005 geodesics work (in detail). All presume finite steps of stright line on Earth surface. It would be worth to dig here a bit more and see how these different ETRF, ETRS geodesic systems link first on national level within Italy, and then with Switzerland! This is worth reading. Neutrino science and geodesics are mastered by different people. 4.1 ETRS89 and its realizations The local reference system suggested for mapping applications in Europe is the European Terrestrial Reference System 1989 - ETRS89 (Boucher and Altamimi, 1992), based on a densiﬁcation of the global frame ITRF. The ETRS89 deﬁnition has its rise in the cartographic requirements: an European site generally moves of about 2-3 cm/y with respect to the global system ITRS; this, even at the scale of only ten years, produces a displacement that is signiﬁcant at least for the large scale cartography: one purpose of ETRS89, therefore, is to reduce this issue in order to obtain reference frame as crystallized as possible. ETRS89 is then de- ﬁned as coincident with ITRS at 1989:0 epoch, but it moves and rotates with the so called stable part of Europe. At the continental scale, ETRS is realized and monitored by the EUREF Permanent Network (EPN) and is updated in line with ITRF. An exception is the realization 2005: for complex technicalities, not discussed here, the ETRF2000 is still the current European frame. ETRFyy is distributed with the estimated coordinates and velocities of the EPN permanent stations, at the reference epoch and the transformation parameters between ITRFxx and ETRFyy (Boucher and Altamimi, 2007). 4.1.1 The Italian national ETRS89 realizations Many nations have their own ofﬁcial ETRS89 realizations: in Italy, until the last year, it was materialized by the IGM95 network of the Istituto Geograﬁco Militare Italiano, (IGMI); the network is composed of about 2000 markers, surveyed in the nineties and adjusted in ETRF89 (Surace, 1997); IGM95 is distributed by the IGM monographs. In Italy, differences of some decimetres exist between IGS05 and ETRF2005, with an increasing rate of 1-2 cm/y and deformations of some cm between the Northern and Southern regions, due to differential geodynamical deformations a the national scale (Jimenez-Munt et al., 2006); moreover, due to surveying instrumentations, data analysis techniques and elapsed time, IGM95 presents additional, spatially correlated deformations and randomly sparse errors, whit a RMS of 3 cm in planimetry and 5 cm in altimetry.” The trivial (simplistic) explanation can be that these neutrinos KNOW their speed and the CERN-OPERA team ended up measuring the TRUE distance between CERN and OPERA! 221. Marcelo Miller I agree with Dave Nixon. From the distance between CERN and Gran Sasso you know that light takes about 2.4×10^-3 s to travel. Then, at those latitudes the earth rotates with a surface velocity of about 3.3×10^4 cm/s, what means that the laboratories moved about 22 meters in the time the light travels from cern to sasso ( 2.4×10^-3 s). Close to the speed of light that distance of 20 meters means ~70 nanoseconds… VERY close to the “measured” delay. Of course these are very rough numbers using newtonian physics and no relativistic corrections. But this order of magnitude estimate makes me wonder that the faster-than-the-speed-of-light neutrino measurement is just about some mistake in the corrections for the rotation of the earth. 222. DaveW …. I’ve always thought that time was discrete and not continuous… these guys have discovered quantum aliasing? 223. Dave Nixon Marcelo #261 raises the rotation of the earth as an extra motion over and above the earth’s orbit around the sun and the sun’s orbit around the galactic center that I mentioned in #256. I think the target speed due to the earth’s rotation (330 m/s) is much smaller than the other two motions that are 30 km/s and 250 km/s respectively. Also the earth’s rotation is at right angles roughly to the neutrino path, so the change in the distance the neutrinos actually travel because of the target movement due to the rotation is quite small. However the earth’s rotation is crucial in analyzing the neutrino path direction relative to the absolute motion of the earth due to the other larger motions. If the earth is travling more towards the pole star (north) than the other way, then Gran Sasso is on average closer to the neutrino start point at CERN after the 2.4ms flight than it was when the neutrinos left CERN. So need to understand the geometry in detail, but it seem likely this makes the FTL effect go away. 224. David Kahana Marcello: I think you’ve gotten things quite wrong there. First of all the rotational velocity of the earth is much smaller. Here’s a rough calculation: Equatorial circumference of earth C_e = 40,075.016002 km. Latitude of Gran Sasso ~= 42 N and cos(42) ~= 0.743144. So the rotational velocity at Gran Sasso = C_e * cos(42) / 86,400 s = 0.344693 km / s. Thus in 0.002433 seconds Gran Sasso moves about 0.000839 km towards the east along it’s line of latitude, or about 0.84 meters. A correction would need to be applied to that number though, which reduces it, because the chord from CERN to Gran Sasso has a significant North-South component. The coordinates of CERN are about 46 N and longitude 12 E, while the Gran Sasso mountain is at 42 N and about 6 E. At any rate, the size of any ground motion from rotation during the neutrino transit is at most 0.84 m. But now consider the following: the earth also moves in it’s orbit during the transit of the neutrinos from CERN to Gran Sasso. Now, how big is that motion? Well, the mean radius of the earth’s orbit is 150 million kilometers, and it’s average orbital speed is about 29.78 km/s. So in 2.43 ms, Gran Sasso moves 72.454 meters along the earth’s orbit. Moreover, the sun is moving relative to the galaxy, and the galaxy is moving relative to other galaxies, and these are much higher velocities than the orbital velocity of the earth. Now, ask yourself: do you really need to apply all of these “corrections” for the “ground motion” of Gran Sasso to the neutrino arrival times? Or is there something simply very wrong with this whole line of reasoning? Here’s the trick: you should carry out the whole analysis in one reference frame, the frame that makes the analysis the easiest for you to do. A reference frame that moves instantaneously with the orbital velocity of the whole earth in its orbit at the time of emission of a neutrino at CERN might be a reasonable first choice. It’s clear that in such a frame the relative distance between CERN and Gran Sasso is essentially fixed, up to tidal and other potential motions of the earths crust, and the neutrinos are – theoretically that is, I’m going to blithely assume that special relativity is still correct, here, despite what these crazy guys from Gran Sasso are suggesting – emitted with an initial velocity that is the relativistic composition of their velocity due to the earth’s rotation at CERN with the velocity at which they are produced. Now, a couple of milliseconds later, when the neutrinos arrive at Gran Sasso, the earth’s orbital velocity will be slightly different, it’s true and the earth moves in a very slightly curved path over that 72.454 meters that I calculated … but it will be only very, very slightly different from a straight line. So this will only produce tiny corrections — proportional to the curvature of the earth’s orbit. In this inertial reference frame, the neutrinos will simply move in straight lines. But better still, you could carry out the whole analysis in a frame that co-rotates with the earth. An earth fixed frame is not quite an inertial frame of course, and there will be corrections to straight line motion for the neutrinos, because in an Earth fixed frame the neutrinos don’t move exactly in straight lines. There will be a Coriolis effect – this is one of the fictitious forces that exists in a constantly rotating reference frame in Newtonian physics. There will even be general relativistic corrections to the neutrino paths due earth’s gravitational potential, and other people above have pointed this out correctly. But the basic point to understand is that all of these corrections are calculable and they are very, very small relative to just assuming straight line motion at constant velocity for the neutrinos. Because when the neutrinos are emitted, the velocity of CERN has to be added to their velocity, and CERN and Gran Sasso are BOTH moving with the rotational and orbital velocities of the earth in such a way that their relative distance doesn’t change. It’s the relative velocities and distances that matter – that’s the meaning of relativity whether it’s Galilean relativity, or Einsteinian special relativity. 225. darck Eisenstein teori was only for the FIZICAL reality the mass univers not the quantum , the thing is that the world that we all know and observ isnt all that real . I am surprised that the faster that light article was even published. … 226. Dave Nixon Re: #264 David Kahana – I think you’re neglecting earth’s orbit around the sun and the sun’s orbit around the galactic center which are not so small – 30km/s and 250km/s respectively. In the galactic frame, during the 2.4ms from the neutrino production at CERN, to them hitting the target at Gran Sasso, Gran Sasso has moved several hundred meters in some direction that depends on the orbital geometry and state of rotation. Also I don’t think CERN’s velocity matters. Once produced, the neutrinos are going to move at the speed of light no matter what CERN’s velocity. 227. Lemme Tellya Nothing here points to exceeding the limit of the speed of light. Assuming everyone checked their math it means one of two things. Either the distance or timing is off. Einstein came to his conclusions not by using measurement, but by logic. Nice try, though. 228. Jeff P. Brian Cox has suggested that this may not invalidatate Einstein, other than the fact that the neutrinos may have passed through more than the standard 4 dimensions. I would think the discovery of a 5th or more dimensions very significant in itself. 229. David Kahana Re: #267 Dave Nixon, no. I’m not neglecting anything. The motions of the earth with respect to the sun, its rotation on it’s own axis, the motion of sun with respect to the galaxy, the motion of the galaxy with respect to the center of mass of the local group of galaxies and of the local group center of mass with respect to the cosmic microwave background radiation are only relevant to this calculation of the expected neutrino flight time from CERN to Gran Sasso to the extent that a reference frame in which every one of these individual motions I listed is set to zero deviates from a perfectly inertial frame. The non-inertialities in this case will be extremely small: of the order v^2/R for the motion of the earth’ in its orbit. Similarly for the solar and galactic motions. They are very close to constant motions over the time scale of the neutrino transit. The biggest deviation may be that due to the earth’s gravity in fact. But in 2.43 milliseconds (approximately) neutrinos will not fall very far towards the center of the earth. It doesn’t make sense to talk about “ground motion” of the earth unless you say precisely what it is that you’re measuring that motion with respect to. Specifying that precisely will define your frame of reference, and then you’ll need to do the whole calculation consistently in that one frame. Now let’s suppose for just one moment that we are back in the world as it was before we heard this rumour that neutrinos might go faster than light. Back in that world, the world that I suggest we’re actually still living in, the world where special relativistic kinematics has always worked to extremely high accuracy, neutrinos are known to have a mass, because they display flavour oscillations. So in that world, the one in which special relativity is strictly true, neutrinos do not move at the speed of light. Instead they move almost but not quite at the speed of light: they actually go a little bit more slowly than light, depending on what their energy is. So that’s the time of flight calculation you’ld need to do if you wanted to be absolutely precise. If I chose to work in a frame in which all of the motions you list, except the earth’s rotational motion, say its rotation with respect to the background stars of the milky way, rather than with respect to the direction of the Sun are all zeroed out, then I’ld need to use the relativistic velocity addition law to add the velocity of CERN in that frame to the velocity of the neutrinos in that frame, to find the actual velocity of the neutrinos in that frame. The resulting velocity will have a speed which is almost, but not quite, the speed of light. Of course, the actual deviation from the speed of light would be very, very small. But it wouldn’t be zero. 230. Hannibal Four-Vector Suppose that some particle can travel faster than light. Then all adjacent events on the particle’s world line are space-like separated. Since the neutrino travels freely, its world line is straight. There exists therefore a frame of reference in which all events on this world line are simultaneous. This means that the particle is not, then is(everywhere at once), and then again is not – like the an antimatter version of the beast in the revelation of St John the Divine. 231. Nigel Depledge Betz (171) said: Well, I suppose this is technically correct, but N is probably a lot more likely to be zero than you might expect. The nucleus is typically only about a millionth (give or take an order of magnitude) of the cross-sectional area of an atom. And your neutrino would have to interact with the nucleus for it to make any difference, and I have no idea what the chances of that actually are. Never forget that billions of neutrinos pass straight through the entire Earth every day. 232. noreneherman For instance, even the speed of light might turn out different in different directions in space, depending on your viewpoint, and depending on how you do the timing. 233. prianikoff Amazing how many competing theories are now being aired on the basis of one experimental result that’s yet to be replicated! More likely there’s an error; either in measuring the distance S from A to B, or determining t, when the neutrinos were first produced at A. 234. Robert I’ve seen several people claim that the experiment might be explained if photons had some small rest mass, and were moving at less than the relativistic speed limit, while neutrinos move at this limit, or at least faster than the photons. If this were the case, relativity predicts that photons of different energies would move at different speeds and for a far off event like a supernova we would see the high energy photons arrive before the low energy ones. This is not the case. 235. SN1987A Wow, I am suddenly a superstar again. Everybody is talking about me. Everybody seems to know where I live and uses simple arithmetic to calculate how long would it have taken for my magnificent radiance to arrive in the wake of 24(!) neutrinos back in 1987 if the CERN guys wound their clocks up regularly. 3 hours instead of 4 years? Well, maybe I live a lot closer than you think. Or may be neutrinos can travel even faster. What you call light does have a speed limit in its what you call medium. So does the sound in its own. Bang on one end of a lumber and it will take time to hear the sound from the other. Flash a torch at one end and it will take a lot shorter but still a finite time to reach your eyes peering over the other end. Push one end and the other will slap your bewildering face (Ouch!) with no delay. Simultaneous signals, different mediums, different speeds. You learned how to measure the speed of sound long before you learned how to measure the speed of light. “M” limits the speed of sound wave exactly as “C” limits the speed of electromagnetic wave. It does not stop you from flying at supersonic and even hypersonic speeds. It is just time to learn about the first of many mediums beyond the time-space continuum and how to observe and measure the processes happening in it rather than discard the observations only “because Einstein said so”. Einstein, a truly great scientist gave you a perfect tool to model and predict the three-dimensional world and this model will be valid for you as long as you choose to have the three-dimensional perception of the Universe. The Universe is what you think of it. Any model you device will be valid within its framework and does not gave to be so without. Just lift your gaze off the calculator and look at the stars. We are not far away, we are not close we are you and you are we. A moment we send our light, your world changes with no delay (a kiss rather than a slap) but you may choose to observe this light through the models of space-time curvature, strings or gravitational lenses – totally up to you. All these devices distort the awesome beauty of the real Universe and create the illusion of space. Then you divide this illusion by time that does not exist to compute speed (DivideByNothing exception). Welcome to the 4th dimension. Sincerely yours, SN1987A. Love, Light. 236. Nigel Depledge Bigseph (185) said: Photons themselves travel faster than our supposed SOL. [yadda yadda] OK, so I haven’t yet read all the comments, but I assume you are going to back up your claims with some evidence and reasoning, rather than simply make them and expect us all to believe you. 237. Dave C I haven’t yet read the paper but I’m sure these headlines would be better stated as, “CERN Scientists Discover Error in Survey Quality GPS Measurements”. Whilst the best GPS measurements may have a resolution of around 10mm over short distances, I doubt that its absolute accuracy is anywhere near that over the distances involved in this experiment. 238. Nigel Depledge Bigseph (201) said: This is not relevant, and if you understood the meaning of c, you would know why. I could follow your unhelpful example and simply say “I’m not going to do your homework for you”, but consider this a freebie: c is the speed of light in a vacuum. No-one has ever slowed it down, nor claimed to do so. Light slows down in various media because it interacts electromagnetically. Hence, transparent materials all have a refractive index. 239. Nigel Depledge Wally-Bob (209) said: Obviously my next question is: Why not? I did not study relativity at college, but I think I can answer this one. Nothing prohibits the relative velocities of A and B in your example (I’m ignoring time dilation and distance contraction here, which will probably come into play to some extent, however . . . ), but neither A nor B is exceeding c relative to its local spacetime. 240. Karl Love They say they measured the distance between the two sites using GPS. If we assume that their GPS-derived measurement was accurate, wouldn’t that still imply that their measurement between the sites was along the curvature of the Earth’s surface? Wouldn’t the neutrinos have passed between the two sites in a straight line, cutting through the Earth’s surface / crust? Surely that would imply that the measured velocity between the two sites would be faster than expected? 241. Teokox In my opinion neutrinos cannot travel faster than light, but if their speed is so close to the speed light, their mass grow up (neutrinos have mass, very little but they have) and the space is shortened according to the relativity laws. So the effect is the distance is smaller at that speed and the neutrinos go faster than light. Could be this the answer? 242. Dave Nixon I guess I am learning something about relativity that I thought I understood – only 40 years since I took that course – and the rust is showing. Thanks David Kahana for your detailed explanation. My bet is now on some subtle statistical error in the way they figure the arrival time of the leading edge of the neutrino pulse. 243. David Kahana Cheers, Dave! Special relativity is pretty strange, indeed. If you had actually followed your own reasoning all the way to the end, working in whatever frame you chose, done the whole calculation there and then finally transformed the results back to an earth fixed frame, you would of course get the same result for the travel time as if you calculated in the earth fixed frame taking account of all the deviations from inertiality of the earth fixed frame. By the way, having read the experimental paper in some detail now I’m inclined to agree with you that a very likely source of error here is in the determination of the zero of time, which is coming from a measurement of the detailed time structure of the primary PROTON beam. The zero of time is when the leading edge of the proton pulse hits the target that produces the secondary pions and kaons. There is no direct experimental knowledge of when or where any individual neutrino is produced in the secondary pion+kaon beam, thus there is no direct measurement of the time of flight for any individual neutrino. All they really have is the arrival times of the neutrinos they detected at Gran Sasso, and the times when the particular pulses of protons that produced the pis and Ks that produced each detected neutrino were on target at the CERN SPS. The experiment would be a lot more convincing to me if there were a near and a far neutrino detector in the neutrino beam, like at MINOS and Super-K. In that case you wouldn’t need to worry much at all about the time structure of the primary beam, you could just keep that information as a consistency check. Not being a surveyor, I’m not really competent to comment on the determination of the distance, which seems like another possible source of error. They claim to know the baseline to within +-20cm. I really do wonder if such accuracies are possible over a distance of 730 km given that they have to propagate the distance from their GPS measurements, taken at the surface, down into the detector halls … I mean, I remember the story of how long it took and how difficult it was to get a good measurement of the elevation of the top of Mt. Everest. Of course, that was in the days before there was GPS. 244. QED?Solid-state,expansion,light? 245. A quick question over Phil’s statement: “If neutrinos travel faster than light, then we should’ve detected the neutrinos from Supernova 1987A before we saw the explosion itself.” 1. Didn’t we receive the neutrinos some 3 hours before the light from the event was spotted? Since the neutrinos are generated by the progenitor and the light when the shock wave reaches the surface this is what was expected. 2. Why do some websites and papers report that the first neutrinos reached Earth 18 hours prior to first light? Is this event documented? How can this event be explained? 3. Given the distance to the LMC, site of SN1987a, shouldn’t the results from CERN dictate that the neutrinos arrival should have some 4 years prior to the first light? 246. We do not see any reference neither in the original paper nor in any of the discussions to Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle! The uncertainty of Location [x] and Velocity [v] of the traversing (muon) neutrino can be determined. From the CERN – OPERA paper we learned that the studied particles energy was ~ 20 GeV. This can be applied into ∆X ∆ mv ≥ħ/2. Nobody has mentioned that we also have to part with the determination ambiguity. This needs serious and thorough analysis. Another pandoras box? 247. Flash does this mean i am no longer the fastest in the world? 248. Chris Regarding the comparison with supernovae observations, this argument usually assumes that the neutrinos and the visible light departed at the same time. However, isn’t it possible that neutrinos could have departed the supernovae at some arbitrary time before or, more importantly, after the visible light departed? Maybe a supernova generates a burst of neutrinos at some particular point in its timeline that is different to when the burst of visible light is created. In your article above, you suggested we should have seen the neutrinos 4 years before the visible light. But what if there was some process that caused a burst of neutrinos 2 years after the burst of visible light? In this case, the neutrinos might have caught up to the visible light, passed it and then arrived only 2 years before the visible light. What if the process that causes a burst of neutrinos occurs 5 years after the burst of visible light? My point is simply that this argument is only valid to the extent that you accept that neutrinos are created at the same time the burst of visible light is. /apologies if this was already suggested in the 291 replies above! 249. Anonny There are GPS units so accurate they use them to measure continental plate movement, way better than “a meter or two”. If they used a military model and not ye olde garmin mapping unit, their locations should be close to spot on. 250. Panchito666 I see here a terrible mistake. “The travel time at the speed of light is about 2.43 milliseconds, and the neutrinos appear to have outraced that speed by 60 nanoseconds. If true, that means they were traveling just a scosh faster than light, by about 1 part in 40,000″ WRONG. We have to assume, that the neutrinos surpass the light by only 60 ns, not in this particular “race” but in every race. So, to know the “factor” between how fast is the neutrino than the light, we just divide 1/0.000000060. If we apply the “error” the CERN is reporting of 10 ns, que just divide 1/50 ns and we have that the neutrinos are faster only in a part of 1 in 20 million. That matches up, with the result the CERN gave in their press release: “…and appears to indicate that the neutrinos travel at a velocity 20 parts per million above the speed of light…” SO, WE MAKE THE WHOLE OPERATION AGAIN: 160,000 (distance to supernova 1987) x 0.00000005= 0.008 YEARS! So the neutrinos should arrived only 2.88 days BEFORE the supernova… 251. Matthew Domville I’m hoping that this translates into more fantastical science-fiction style technology in the near future. Here’s a comic that encapsulates my thoughts: 252. SN1987A Here we go again. You have chosen an ARBITRARY number of 168.000 light years to my home, an ARBITRARY number for the speed of light and use scalar arithmetic to compute distance and time. The difference in arrival time of the neutrinos and the light violated your dogmatic model of the Universe, so you had to come up with an elaborated abstract mental model of the supernova process which you cannot observe. You can get away with this as there are no witnesses. Any violation of the theory you compensate for by RLATIVISTIC corrections. For what cannot be corrected you device a special case that always involves some kind of non-linear distortion of space. You MUST distort space because you assume that time is linear and the relationship is locked by the space-time continuum model. You try to twist the reality in favour of your “sanity” exactly as you wrinkle your trousers in favour of storage convenience. Reality however cannot be twisted because it is REAL, only your perception based on your believes can. Why would you apply the light speed limit to something that is NOT light? Just treat what you call neutrino as a phenomenon since you do not know what it really is. Make an observation of this phenomenon without translating it to particle/object/thing and try to expand your awareness beyond the three-dimensional space-time box. Sooner or later someone will come up with a new dogma that makes FTL phenomena legal for superluminal entities and imposes a new, higher limit on Reality – just another step in the evolution of human consciousness. Do not worry; TOR will still be governing the GPS operation in space-time and the ballistic computers in your tanks will still be using the Newtonian mechanics. GPS is touted as one of the most distinguished practical applications of TOR. If in this particular case both the timing and the position are derived from the same source and are locked by the space-time continuum relationship. Any change in one part shall be RELATIVISTICALLY compensated for by a change in the other. No error is introduced as long as it is not already present in the system itself. Anyway there is only one REAL Reality, only one Truth and it is ABSOLUTE. It can only be observed (and enjoyed), not perceived or interpreted. Any RELATIVE (as in relativity) concepts are NOT Truth and are of no consequence in Reality. They however limit your ability to enjoy the unlimitedness of the Universe and for instance observe the life of a supernova as it is (not what you think it might be) and marvel at its perfection. Always sending you Light and Love. SN1987A. 253. Joseph G @289 SN1987a: Um… what? 254. David Kahana Chris #293: There’s certainly no assumption made that the neutrinos depart at the same time as the light. That would be the wrong assumption to make in every proposed mechanism for a core collapse supernova I’ve ever seen. The theoretical assumption is that the neutrinos depart first, before the light. I suggest it’s well-nigh impossible to imagine any reasonable mechanism for the explosion that produces a neutrino pulse of the correct magnitude at any time after the light pulse begins to go out, never mind at a time years later than the light. At a time of several years, let’s say four years, the matter from the exploded star will have spread out to a large radius: some non-negligible fraction of a light year, say 1/5 of light year if the shocked stellar matter finally achieves 1/20 of the speed of light. Chinese and Arab astronomers saw and recorded a supernova explosion in 1054 CE in our own galaxy, and the remnant (the Crab Nebula) and the pulsar have both been detected. The current expansion velocity of the Crab Nebula is much smaller: more like 1/200 of the speed of light. But the point is that the matter is even now expanding very rapidly, so rapidly that the expansion was eventually seen in successive photographs of the nebula. The very dense core of SN1987A would still be there, four years after the collapse, as a neutron star, although there some, crazy in my opinion, theorists who say that it may have gone into a black hole after it produced a supernova, because no pulsar is observed at the position of SN1987A. Probably no pulsar is seen, because the pulsar is spinning and has magnetic poles that are oriented in a such way that its outgoing pulsed radiation, which is expected to be fairly directional, just doesn’t head towards us. But in four years, all of the neutrinos that were produced would have transported out of the core. Any model that exists has that happening on a time scale of a few seconds at most. Neutrinos interact only very seldom with matter at ordinary densities. But the visible light from a supernova explosion only begins to escape when the density of the leading edge of the outgoing matter in the explosion has dropped to a point at which it is basically transparent to light — when it is no longer an optically dense plasma but is instead at low enough density for the light to begin to free stream. As the material from an exploded star gradually spreads out, its density is inevitably dropping with time. There is just no plausible way for matter at low and dropping density to produce so very many neutrinos and anti-neutrinos as are contained in the pulse from SN1987A. The point is that the light is released at a stage when, for practical purposes, the main part of the explosion, the part that produced the neutrinos, is already over and done with. The time scale on which the neutrinos are released, is certainly no more than a few seconds, and the neutrinos must come from the very dense inner core of the star, not from the low density exterior. Remember: it’s known that the time spread for the arrival of the neutrinos at earth was no more than a few seconds. The neutrinos were certainly not produced over a time scale of many days, like the light … they were produced very quickly. So to do what you want to do, you’ld actually need to think of a mechanism that could trap all of the neutrinos inside the collapsed core for a few years after they were produced, and then release them -all at once. That is simply crazy – what could possibly do that? At a minimum, neutrinos will be escaping all the time from the surface of the collapsed core. There’s nothing can stop them from transporting out. Barring such a mechanism, all that’s really needed for the argument that bounds the difference in the velocity of the neutrinos and the velocity of light is the distance to the supernova and the time difference in the arrival of the light and neutrino pulses at the earth. Of course, we also need to make the assumption that light and neutrinos travel at constant velocities from SN1987A to earth. The distance to SN1987A is known by a pretty direct method, more or less by simple geometry, thanks to a very famous series of observations that were done using the faint object camera of the Hubble telescope, beginning in 1990, the first observation having been done 1278 days after we saw the supernova itself.. Due to these observations, there was a way of determining the physical size of a large ring of matter that surrounded the precursor star, which brightened and then dimmed in a very specific way with time, as the light pulse from the supernovae passed through it Due to the 1278 day time lapse, this matter had to have been pre-existing, since it was at too large a distance to have come from the supernova itself. As Hubble continued to observe SN1987A, the ring of matter gradually brightened up, the illumination proceeding gradually around the entire circumference of the ring from one side to another, at which point the entire ring was lit, and it reached maximum brightness. The ring of matter glowed for a period of about 400 days, the light fading away gradually. From that behaviour, we can estimate the ring’s actual size, and its inclination to us. And since it clearly surrounds SN1987A, we get a good measurement of the distance to the precursor star … unless you imagine that the ring lighting up was caused by something other than the light pulse from the supernova … I’ll give a brief account of the prompt mechanism for a core collapse supernova, here, in which the initial shock that forms in the core collapse is sufficiently strong that it never stalls on its way out, becoming an accretion shock. Certainly it’s true that not all, maybe even not most theorists believe in that mechanism. However I think it’s probably the most reasonable mechanism. It’s a bit of a joke, if you ask me, if as some people say the shock stops at first and then is re-invigorated a second or so later on by the outgoing neutrinos, or if convection or some 2D or 3D hydrodynamic instabilities are really needed to explode stars. In fact, I’ld say that since the equation of state of the matter in the collapsing core is not at all well known then the prompt mechanism is the most reasonable to consider. But none of the mechanisms will differ very wildly from all the other ones about the time scale on which neutrinos begin to come out. The (anti)-neutrino data from SN1987A is not really sufficient to distinguish the mechanisms. But the order of magnitude of the observed pulse confirms the idea that the explosion was caused by the collapse of the core … there is nothing else imaginable that can provide that much energy. Then I suggest that you just think about it for a while and see if you can come up with a different and detailed mechanism that does what you want to do with the relative timing of light and neutrinos, so that the results from SN1987A would agree with this one questionable experiment from Gran Sasso. Remember that you’ll need a pulse of anti-neutrinos and neutrinos of the right size to come out about 4.2 years after the light from the explosion comes out. Remember that neutrinos interact extremely weakly with matter at ordinary densities. For myself, I can’t imagine any such mechanism is possible. It’s actually the pulse of neutrinos and anti-neutrinos that is the prompt signal of a core collapse supernova, and it is an absolutely enormous neutrino pulse, containing an almost inconceivably large number of neutrinos. Consider that SN1987A, at a distance of 168,000 light years, was about as bright in anti-neutrinos at the earth, as own sun is, in neutrinos. In fact, the neutrino flux in a core collapse supernova is so big that, if you were near enough to a star which underwent such an explosion, you would die of acute radiation poisoning – from neutrinos! before you even got the chance to see the star explode. A core collapse supernova happens within a couple of days after the inner core of a high mass star begins to burn silicon into iron. The iron builds up in the inner core very quickly: silicon burning doesn’t last for more than a couple of days. At the beginning of silicon burning the core collapses further and also heats up. The core is supported against further rapid gravitational collapse for the moment, by its luminosity, which comes from fusing silicon to iron, and it’s also supported in part by the pressure of the free electron gas, which is a degenerate Fermi gas at the densities that exist, which are close to the density of a white dwarf star. At the end of silicon burning the inner core will be a spherical object composed mostly of iron nuclei, photons and electrons, having a radius on the order of 3,000 km and weighing on the order of one solar mass – actually it’s somewhat more than a solar mass – it will be closer to the Chandrasekhar mass let’s say 1.3-1.4 solar masses. It will also have low entropy. Now iron cannot fuse into any heavier element without a net input of energy, so the luminosity of the core, in photons, begins to drop when only iron is left. Further collapse then leads to more heating, and some of the photons in the core are so energetic at this point, due to the temperature, that they can actually break up iron right into 13 heliums plus two neutrons and then also break up helium itself into protons and neutrons. This process of photo-dissociation removes more energy from the core, destabilizing it further by reducing the pressure. Moreover, the free electrons in the core, which were providing some of the pressure which was holding it up, begin to be captured on the protons that are being released, and as they are captured they release electron neutrinos, removing still more pressure from the core. This point in time is the very beginning of neutronisation of the core and it’s also when the very first neutrinos from the supernova begin to come out. But the neutrino flux will not yet be at its highest point, by any means. This point in time is also the end of the star’s life, one way or another. It will now become either a neutron star or a black hole, because there simply isn’t enough pressure to hold the core up any longer. The inner core now falls in on itself, and very rapidly. The collapse occurs more or less in free fall, and the free fall time for the core can be calculated to be on the order of 10-20 milliseconds. It starts at a radius of about 3000 km and it falls freely all the way down to about 30 km, when densities of at least 2-4 times nuclear matter density are reached, and neutron degeneracy pressure finally begins to stabilize the core against further gravitational collapse. It’s after this rapid, essentially adiabatic collapse stage that neutrinos and anti-neutrinos start being produced very rapidly, mostly by e+ e- annihilation in the core, the e+ e- pairs having been created by the temperatures that have developed. Entropy now rises in the inner core. The densities reached are so high in fact, that at first the neutrinos are trapped, as the core falls in. But very soon, far less than a second after the collapse begins, neutrinos begin to transport out in earnest. In the models, there is typically a large increase in the neutrino flux within the first second after the collapse, and a tail of about four or five seconds at lower flux. And that’s about the limit, unless you admit the possibility of a transition to quark matter in the very deepest portions of the neutron star. If that happens, then the star will likely convert some of its up and down quarks into strange quarks, and there could be an additional burst of neutrinos associated with that. But the time scale for that conversion is only about ten seconds. The basic point here is that the collapsed core is just not very big anymore, and all of the neutrinos inside will transport 30 km within a few seconds. Now what about the supernova light? At some point in time during the collapse there appears a point within the collapsing core at which the speed of sound in the core matter is just equal to the speed at which the core is falling inwards (the collapse is homologous meaning that the velocity at which the matter falls in is a linear function of the radius from the center of the star – faster on the outside/slower on the inside). That point is called the sonic point, and a shock wave forms right there as the matter on the outside which is falling in at faster than the speed of sound reaches the sonic point. In a successful prompt explosion the shock wave eventually propagates outward and has enough initial energy to go all the way out, and blow off the outer envelope of the star, leaving only the collapsed core behind. But any shock will lose a lot of energy as it moves outward because it has to move through un-dissociated iron nuclei in the outer core and it breaks some of these up as it passes through. Each 0.1 solar mass of iron that the shock breaks up costs about 1 foe = 10^51 ergs of energy. Now the total energy made available by the collapse of the core is just the change in gravitational binding from when it was 3000 km in radius to when it is 30 km in radius. And that can be estimated to be about 10^53 ergs, or 100 foes. A healthy shock might have only a few foes, initially. A very healthy supernova explosion releases about 1 foe in kinetic energy of the outgoing matter and in supernova light. But there will generally be tens of foes released in neutrinos and anti-neutrinos in a core collapse. When the core collapses, the outer envelope of the star also falls inward, as well as the outer layers of the core. The smallest red supergiant star capable of burning all the way up to iron in it’s core has a mass on the order of 8 solar masses. So in such a star there would be roughly 7 solar masses of material still outside the collapsed iron core. The shock has to propagate through most of this material before any light can be released. Now the radius of the photosphere in such a star (the photosphere is the radius at which temperature and density is low enough for light to stream freely) would typically be at a distance from the center of the star which is on the order of the radius of Jupiter’s orbit around the sun, or about one light hour. So the light from the supernova doesn’t appear until the shock wave reaches about that distance from the core of the star. In a healthy supernova explosion, the velocity of the shock wave reaches about 1/20 of the speed of light. So this means the delay from the time of collapse, to the time at which light begins to escape would be about 20 hours. However, as we see, the neutrinos and anti-neutrinos have been streaming out from the core on a time-scale of only seconds, beginning in essentially the first milliseconds after the collapse, and unlike the shock, the neutrinos that get out are not impeded at all by the outer layers of the star. In the case of SN1987A, the precursor star, Sanduleak -69° 202a, was not a red giant, it was instead a blue supergiant, which may form when a red giant somehow loses its outer hydrogen envelope, leaving the inner layers of the star uncovered. So the photosphere was likely at a smaller radius than a light hour, and that could account for why the delay of the light was only three hours relative to the delay of the neutrinos. The number of (anti)-neutrinos observed from SN1987A suggest, when compared with models, that the total integrated energy released in neutrinos was 82 foe in the first 1.6 seconds. If those neutrinos have energies of about 10 MeV then that amounts to about 5.12e+57 neutrinos. If you can imagine a plausible way to delay the emission of all those neutrinos for 4 years — then my hat’s off to you! 255. Nigel Depledge @ David Kahana (301) - Wow, those numbers are just mind-blowing! Thanks for the comprehensive* description of a core-collapse supernova. * To a layperson, anyhow. 256. Nigel Depledge @ Joseph G (300) - 257. Scott We ARE on a planet MOVING through space. In other words, the end points were in motion during this experiment. That could have some affect on this. And what’s to say you can’t move faster than light anyways? [only theories] 258. SN1987A Mind blowing the Universe is. Numbers are brain blowing. Brain and Mind are not the same. Brain is just a biological computer that executes someone’s models you willingly load into it. The Universe does not have spatial dimensions – they are a product of these models. Your brain as any computer is object oriented and needs to keep objects separated by either space or time hence the space-time continuum. Objects are constructed by your brain by applying the model’s rules to your sensory input. This input is real, a direct experience of the Universe but no brainware is capable to apprehend the infinity of energy change cycles happening continuously. Yes, the cycles are continuous and have neither beginning nor end. There is no past, no future, only eternal NOW. Time does not exist but the continuous change does. Your brain samples the sensors (observation) and updates the object’s properties according to the models (perception). A sample is the sum of the infinite number of cycles and two consecutive samples are different, not the cycles themselves which are continuous. One of the properties in your models is position. If a model disallows objects to share space (sanity), so any position conflicts must be resolved by some other form of separation. You introduce the concept of time to make the model “sane”. It is quite easy to pick the most obvious and easily identifiable cycles like planetary ones, scale the fictional time and assume it to be linear. As any computer your brain uses scalar processing for everything. Any discrepancies in models due to non-scalar input are either ignored (scientific ignorance or (lack of education == inferior model)) or corrected by a special model extension (prudent science) . To some degree it can be corrected by a generalized theory but when it fails an even more specialized extension is introduced to make ends meet (how many quark flavors do you need to explain matter?). This is a domain of hardcore scientists who always chase discrepancies that will always have their own (quite fractal isn’t it?). In any case the space linearity is sacrificed in favor of maintaining time linearity. Your models no matter how brain blowing they are by no means govern the Universe – Mind does. But the models can be upgraded to accommodate higher dimensions not by extension though as they make space meaningless and retire time back to oblivion. You can use one model for everyday life of material values, particles and linear clocks. You can switch to other model in which photon is neither wave nor particle but a pure Idea that vibrates the whole Universe simultaneously. Somewhere in this Universe this vibration is experienced by you sensors and converted to particle/wave mutant by your model in use. Same is applicable to all other matter substructures. Niels Bohr shared with you that there is no “Deep reality”. Von Neumann looked hard and found no reason for “ordinary objects” to exist and John Bell proved that all communications in the Universe are instant. You already have foundations for new models. Now you are given an opportunity to experience and understand the experience beyond current models. The brainware is available to download, all you need to do is ask for one. Ask and thou shall receive – one of the Universal Laws. Until you do you will keep arguing about matters of no consequence. Just to give you some help in this world of constant conquest of brains, this bizarre bazaar of brainware here is a tip. Truth is always simple. The more complex explanation/model the farther it is from the Truth. A great master sends you this message: “Nothing has attributes, qualities, properties or values apart from ones assigned by you. And another one to cheer you up. “Mind over matter: if you don’t mind it does not matter.” Love, Light. SN1987A 259. Mr. Immortal Actually, gravity does push instead of pull. Gravity is the pushing force or pressure of the fabric of space exerted against all matter and most, if not all, particles. 260. MaDeR Wow, obvious crackpot is obvious. He even thinks he is physical star. Off meds much? 261. Mr. Simple Another thing. If e=mc^2 then objects can go faster than the speed of light. Because the mass times the speed of light times itself again is when matter becomes energy. Or should we just change the equation to e=mc? 262. skiffle I thought E=MC Hammer 263. Hrvoje Crvelin I noticed following paper appeared on arXiv: Inside they claim neutrino wave did come 3h before light (though they clearly indicate most people do not consider this as fact for anything further). 264. Ravison Please correct me if I’m wrong, but assuming a neutrino interacts with very little are there measurements to ensure the thing passed through the entire circuit. Couldn’t it just have taken a shortcut? Was it measured at multiple locations and does not the 265. Mike The CERN scientists are very well qualified. Surely they accounted for Cherenkov radiation, GPS error, etc. That does NOT mean that the results are evidence of faster than light travel, but it does mean that these folks accounted for at least the most obvious errors. As far as evidence of neutrinos from 1987A….those neutrinos (If..and that’s a really big if neutrinos travel slightly faster than light) would have gotten to earth a few years before detection (say 1983). a)Neutrino detection was very new in 1983 and if we did detect some in those existing SQUIDS we may not have correlated them with an event from 1987. b) The research does not claim that all neutrinos travel FTL, only the ones detected in this experiment..and then the research does not even claim that (just that they appeared to travel FTL). Anyway…this is all interesting stuff. 266. Hrvoje Crvelin And here comes another update which claims to have explanation which matches what has been observed. Relativity is a bitch. 267. There is a saying in Science which explains that a thousand experiments cannot prove a theory right, but one experiment can prove a theory wrong. Angelo Molinaro Tel 570 489 3059 e-mail 268. Rick Cordasco Gentlemen, please!!! When I herd this stuff I just laughed. This is not first order macroscopic homogeneous differential equations, high school stuff, v=dx/dt, This is laced with Neutrino stuff that goes back into the Hans Bethe postulate, the Sun is Fusion , and Fermi’s the missing energy, the baby neutron. There is and has been for the past 40 years experiments going on about neutrinos (see CERN, FERILAB, SLAC, USCLA, BROCKHAVEN etc), the numbers don’t match the theory, so the process has been to find a new theory… yeach, not to mention science hasn’t been the same since Feynman farted!!! QED changed everything. So whats going on!, In case you were asleep for the last 20 years, the Super Collider was cancelled, Big Science ended!!! Sorry. The problem is much, much deeper than Neutrinos traveling faster than the speed of light. Einstein was proclaimed to be out of touch, the last 15 years of his life at the Advanced Institute. The fact of the matter is that he was in touch exclusively with a guy named Kurt Godel. Kurt basically showed that mathematics in general (Incompleteness Theorm,, Good Luck!!) l, and specifically was incomplete, overturned all of the verifiable exactness of scientific method and Greek logic in general, crazy SOB, and of course was rejected by the entire world community. Besides the appartent,,, instrument error etc. its even beyond Brian Green or Steve Hawkins. As Nietzsche said man is a bridge, and there very well may not be another side! So I’m afraid my cynicism has overtaken me,,, its about money and funding. 269. Fascinated Firstly, they announced that they achieved a result and they needed it to be checked, so there was no real claim. Secondly, there is an army of the best physicists in the world with the best gear possible, I doubt that they are so silly not to realise the bloody obvious when doing their calcs. Thirdly, Someone will always come up with some bodgy solution to make the data fit the theory. i.e. Oh it must have twisted spacetime with no evidence to support the claim. People are happy with claims like these as it keeps the status quo and billions in grants are kept. Lastly, To many ill informed opinions are being spread all over the internet, just like this one. If you read this article carefully, it is nothing more than a bunch of IFS and alternative reasons to keep the data fitting the theory. So we all need to shut up and wait for Fermilab and others to update their gear and do the experiment again. Only with more results can we move on to the real truth. In the words of Kip Thorne ” Lots of things in the universe travel faster than the speed of light; The speed of light is a LOCAL statement” ( search for Dr Karl, Kip Thorn and Sir Roger Penrose in the same search ) There is only the mindset of limitations that govern our finite and controlled universe ) 270. Sen. Abba Aji I would rather give benefit of doubt to the chance that nuetrinos may have actually been found to be faster than photons. It is after all, in expectation of understanding how energy acquired mass to form matter (Higgs bosons), and possible discovery of unknown behavior of other elementary particles at the initial state of the universe, that such unprecedented resources were pumped in the CERN project. So let keep our minds open to surprises. Acceptance of passed Surprises were indeed what got us to our current stage of knowledge 271. Sen. Abba Aji Sen. Abba Aji 272. The errors I believe are in the programming of the GPS timers. I believe they overestimated the distance by about 10 meters using the GPS system, and underestimated the coordinated timing by about 30 nano-seconds, also based upon the GPS timing system. 273. kentee I do think that it can travel faster than light because it has happened and that time difference is actually quite large if compared to that speeds 274. Ok, mistery resolved! :) Somebody in the first comments asked the question whether the earth’s movement around the sun was incorporated into the distance measurement: While the geographic distance between CERN and Gran Sasso is precisely measured by GPS to within cm, the earth is still moving around the sun while the Neutrinos are on their way. It is even possible the earth is moving towards the Neutrinos during this time (I spared myself from the trigonometrics of the relative movement, and only worked out the max movement, so this needs to be adjusted). As always, I am never sure about the correct fram of refernce, etc, but I surmise this effect might explain all of the whoopla, so smarter brains than mine please check. I did this calculation: How far does the earth move during the Neutrino travel time of 2.43 ms between CERN and Gran Sasso? The sun is 150 million km away, the earth takes 365 days around, meaning the earth moves at 30’000 m/s. During 2.43 ms, the earth travels 72 m. That is more than enough to explain the “gain” in speed of the Neutrinos against the photons! (It helped to remember that the photons are not running in parallel with the Neutrinos in this experiment, as the Neutrinos actually are able to pass through mass – being neutral – while the photons cannot, so this was not a side-by-side speed competition). That would explain it all. I wonder whether I have come across the correct explanation here – myself and my buddy from the earlier comment would certainly accept some sort of medal and free travel to Gran Sasso for the next Neutrino arrival party. 275. “Neutrino” “Knock, Knock” 276. Randy The speed limit of the universe is set at the speed of light. Now you check, and find neutrinos are traveling faster by 20%. Same experiment plays out every day on every highway. 277. Jennifer A new set of scientists conducted same tests and experiments and found the same result! There are particles that travel faster than the speed of light. Heres the link! 278. Fastrogeek Perhaps the accepted value for the velocity of light is wrong? c is speed of light in vacuo, but my guess is all measurements have been made in an environment that contains Dark Matter (try sucking that out of your vacuum tubes). So, perhaps photons are slowed down by Dark Matter more than are neutrinos. In which case perhaps the neutrino speed as witnessed by the Opera experiment is more indicative of the true value of c, rather than the one we’ve been measuring using photons? 279. Wim 1. the accepted light velicity is not wrong, it would make E=mc² into E=(m’how much we were off’)² 2. I understand they used gps for distance measurements, I believe their measurement will be accurate to the cm, otherwise they would not come out with these results. So theres still 2 problems I can think of, measuring time, which is tricky, if you where to set 2 atom clocks to the exact same time, and move one to gran sasso, then that clock will be off due to time dilation, this is certainly not what happened, it just explains how difficult a correct time measement is. The other thing might be a quality about neutrinos we don’t yet know. I could think of 1 that explain the whole thing. Maybe the reason why neutrino’s don’t interact with matter is because they phase through, being destroyed at one end of it and recreated at the other, highly speculative, but entirely possible. Whatever happens, Einstein will still be right, about everything he observerd and explained, neutrino’s being created or traveling in the circumstances they did, may just not be part of it. 280. Wim It would be awesome if they didn’t travel faster than light, but still arrived early, my phasing example could explain this, OR CERN somehow made a space-like curving in spacetime. Meaning manipulate the space between LHC and grand sasso in such a way that the neutrinos didnt have to cross the whole length to get to the other side. as I understand LHC is only 32km (the collider itself) so most of the travelled distance is through the earths crust, which makes it impossible to do thesame thing with visible light, that way you could at least measure if light is travelling lightspeed, cause it its not, then your experiments are wasting a lot of money for nothing 281. Thats Guy Once we realize that Gravity is actually atmospheric pressure coupled with electro magentism, Warp Drive and Interstellar travel will be like riding a bike! 282. Question The reasons they have for the neutrinos not being faster than speed of light. Wouldn’t those same reasons apply to how fast light travels as well? 283. zero is the speed of earth accounted for? do we actually know the “actual speed” of earth? the actual speed of earth depends on the following ———–the speed of the motion of solar system,if it is moving ———–the speed of milky way galaxy ———–we might me enclosed in a smaller universe of the many universes existing,making a larger we know its speed? and so on… we might never know the actual speed. what about the law,that ‘relativistic mass’ increases with velocity? does ‘relativistic mass’ increases ‘relativistic gravity’ ? does the rate of increase of gravity has any effect on its time? 284. Ieuan Styne The Neutrinos most likely took a short-cut route (perhaps a sign post was moved ) between the two points. They’ll figure this out once they’ve slepton it a while. 285. Brian Calla If dark matter is expanded via gravity in a black hole and light can’t leave it and or time or light is bended why is it hard to believe that something can control and “go faster” then the speed of light. These ideas that exist and laws must always be challanged with all the options in from of mankind I think to often we ignore all other choices. Dark matter can not be seen or reflected. The invesitgation into gravity and the FORCE that ex 286. it appers to me that most of you are barking up the wrong tree ok you have just seen the first faster than light sub particle and have got just a little exited have any of you so called brains considred multiple 11 dimentional frameworks ie 11 times 11 framework or 11 by 11 matrix the numbers should not be that hard to crunch and will show many farster than light particles now consider a 0 0 matrix with .0000000000013578 degree offset at below 0 point or 0.000000856-42squared there is only potentiality dissolving into reality dissolving into potentiality 287. henry just a theory if you have a long car , with a road on top of it and this car is travelling at 100km/hr then you have another car on the road on top of this car travelling at 100km/hr with reference to ground… would not the second car be travelling at 200km/hr ? e.g: walking on a travalator… your speed with references to stationary objects outside of the belt would be your walking speed + the speed of the belt… hence if LIGHT was a carrier, and on this carrier something is travelling inside of it, that thing would definitely be faster then light light traveling on top of light, would mean the inner light is travvling twice the speed of light if this partical of nutrinos in riding the light wave… then the nutrino would defnitely be faster than light…. now all we need to do, is figure out how to ride a light and walk on the light … and its probably not that hard too light is a photon a photon is a particle if this particle is already travelling at light speed, on this constant stream of light, we push the light forward using another light… then the first light would have travelled twice the speed,, light particles are the same, hence they should push each other around, if a torch light is already shining to a distance, and we put another torch light, (switch on another bulb), the lit area becomes brighter, bcos more light are shone on it, but did we discount the fact that light on light could have been the cause of brighter light ? excited photons are brighter.. then normal photons so to speak, heat cause rapid movement in particles/molecules… more heat = brighter = faster you want faster than light travel …. simple… get someone to shine a light at a distance, (laser or whatever) and you, run towards the target with a laser.. your light theorectically travals at the speed of light + your running speed, hences your light is faster then the other person’s light and therefore faster then the speed of light 288. Javier Quiero recordar los datos. Segun Caren Hagner (líder de la sección alemana del proyecto OPERA): El ultimo metro de fibra óptica, según se subía o bajaba, metía hasta 100 nanosegundos de retraso. Solo espero que en este blog se pueda calcular. Soy Ingeniero Superior en Telecomunicaciones por la UPM, llevo mas de 22 años en Laboratorio en Multinacionales, y conozco perfectamente las capas medias y de alto nivel de los protocolos de comunicaciones. Es IMPOSIBLE que en 3 años no lo hubieran detectado. Mas aún, conozco los dispositivos fotónicos de emisión/recepción, se que pueden meter del orden de picosegundos de retardo, JAMAS 60 nanosegundos. Pero lo peor, a nivel estrictamente físico, los retardos introducidos por deformación de un conector (Estructura pasiva de unos 2 centímetros), de un metro de fibra óptica (Lo que dice la Sra, Caren), pueden introducir entre 50 y 80 picosegundos. JAMAS, 60.000 picosegundos (60 nanosegundos). Solo puedo decir que es mentira, y me gustaría que en este blog, se permitiera el calculo libre de estos datos. En otros blogs (Como ) llevan 20 días sin calcular nada . Se les pidió en : No solo no han contestado, sino que han llenado de insultos tipo ‘magufo’, y finalmente, han bloqueado el acceso y borrado todo planteamiento de calculo. Un conector de fibra óptica , como mucho, es de unos 2 centímetros de largo. Si la fibra óptica se aleja 2 centímetros , como mucho, y aun así sigue el enlace digital (Lo que es mucho suponer), el incremento de retardo por esos 2 centímetros, con un indice de refracción de 1.2 del aire a presión atmosférica a ras de suelo, es de: Distancia / (Velocidad de la luz/ Indice de refracción) = 0.02/(3e+8/1.2) = 80 picosegundos 80 picosegundos , en esas extremas circunstancias, es el máximo tiempo que un cable óptico mal conectado puede añadir al camino óptico. 80 picosegundos son 0.08 nanosegundo. JAMAS un conector de fibra óptica mal conectado, añade 60 nanosegundos. Están mintiendo, y lo saben. 289. Artimus_Foo It is an idea to maintain a certain amount of skepticism when we talk about braking einstiens laws, but denouncing something just because it brakes a law that has been said to have been kosha for all this time can hold us back. We do not fully understand how the universe works and anything could be true. To say that a mistake was made with the distances and timing is a moot point. Something that simple would have been picked up in no time and with a fair few professional physassists and mathmaticians pouring over the data and equipment, I feel it will not be long until some laws will have to be revised and the advancement of the human race can undergo, I just hope I get to see something in my life time. 290. Artimus_Foo The Neutrinos from 1987A arrived 3 hours before the photons, true, this is because time had to be allowed for the particles to work there way out from the central mass to “free space”. This particular case there were only 24 neutrino recordings, but what fascinates me is that 3 hours before again at Mont Blanc, they detected a 5 nu burst, if from 1987A it could be proof of FTL, or just proof that something nearby was throwing out nu. The problem is that you can not really judge from this as the neutrinos and photons dispersed at diffrent times, if it were at the same time, would we find that the neutrinos arrive 5 minuets sooner? 30 minuets sooner? or at the same time? 291. I would like to pose a question to the many who seem to visit and comment here. It isn’t directly associated with the topic but I would like everyones opinion anyways. If space is a vacuum free from drag by oxygen and one was to follow a trajectory clear of gravitational forces, why is it not possible to reach light speed or greater? Even if the buildup was slow and determined what would prevent a craft or object from reaching these speeds thru space? With a constant or repeated forward push nothing would or could act to interfere with the object in motion. Please be kind with your comments as I have a very fragile ego. ) 292. fluxrider Wally-Bob (209) said: Obviously my next question is: Why not?” I’m not a physicist, but I can tell you what Relativity’s response is. When calculating with velocities that approach the speed of light, the calculations need to account for dilation effects. The proper formula to “add” two relativistic velocities together (i.e. to determine the velocity of one with respect to the other) is not v1 – v2, but rather : (v1 – v2)/(1 – (v1v2)/(cc)) (I apologize for the parenthesis, I do not have good math symbols to use here.) So to use your example, v1= 0.6c, and v2= -0.6c The speed with which B is departing from A is: (.6c – (-.6c))/(1 – (-.36cc)/(c*c)), or 1.2c/1.36, or ~0.88c (not 1.2c). Also just to note, at speeds that are much less than c, this formula yields essentially the same answer as “v1 – v2″. 293. Can someone please tell me What happens to some of the neutrino as they travel to Earth? 294. This is an old article, and I read that the fault lay in a loose connector. But I would think a loose connector would cause a slowing of the signal, not a speeding up, unless the signal going through that connector was something else, and not the actual neutrino detection signal. 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Archive for April, 2014 Summer Camp April 30th, 2014 During May, we will examine the research and discuss how to help children choose an appropriate camp. Join us! camps, friendship, nature, social-emotional Do we get to help them choose? April 24th, 2014 choice. choose. select. decide. Lori Hayungs family time, miscellaneous, parenting, religion , , , , Rituals in the Home April 17th, 2014 Donna Donald miscellaneous, moral, spiritual Spiritual Development April 11th, 2014 Spiritual development in children… yep it’s part of their natural development. It’s part of their moral and cultural development. We didn’t just pick this topic randomly. We selected it purposely because just like physical development and social development, it is a part of your child that will continue to grow and develop over time. It’s the part of your child that plays into how they begin to make sense of their world and the people in it. It’s the part of their development that shapes their values and beliefs about their families, friends, communities and nations. How then can we foster a healthy spiritual development? How can we help to answer their questions about their world in a positive way? How can we nurture values and beliefs and children’s spiritual development? Spiritual and moral development can be a daunting and abstract concept but as I was looking through various resources I came across this poem and thought I would share. What is Spirituality? delighting in all things being absorbed in the present moment not to attached to ‘self’ and eager to explore boundaries of ‘beyond’ and ‘other’ searching for meaning discovering purpose open to more? Spirituality is like a bird; if you hold it to tightly, it chokes; if you hold it too loosely, it flies away. Fundamental to spirituality is the absence of force. Rabbi Hugo Gryn What are ways that you nurture spiritual development in your child? Lori Hayungs education, family time, moral, parental relationships, parenting, positive parenting, spiritual , , , , , , Does Religion Matter? April 2nd, 2014 miscellaneous, moral, spiritual
Luna 2 From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search Luna 2 (rus. Moon 2/Луна 2) Luna 2 Soviet moon probe.jpg Luna 2 Mission type Lunar impactor Harvard designation 1959 Xi 1 SATCAT № 114 Spacecraft properties Manufacturer OKB-1 Launch mass 390.2 kilograms (860 lb) (860.2 lb) Start of mission Rocket Luna 8K72 Launch site Baikonur 1/5 Lunar impactor Luna 2 (E-1A series) was the second of the Soviet Union's Luna programme spacecraft launched to the Moon. It was the first spacecraft to reach the surface of the Moon and was also the first man-made object to land on another celestial body.[1] On September 14, 1959 it successfully impacted with the lunar surface east of Mare Imbrium near the craters Aristides, Archimedes, and Autolycus.[2] Launch was scheduled for September 9, but the Blok I core stage was shut down after it failed to reach full thrust at ignition. The booster was removed from the pad and replaced by a different vehicle, delaying the flight by three days. Luna 2, like Luna 1, took a direct path to the Moon with a journey time of around 36 hours. This was dictated by the fact that the Earth-Moon gravitational system forced it to follow a curved trajectory, and launch had to occur from the side of the Earth opposite the Moon. Its journey time had to be, therefore, 12 hours, 36 hours or 60 hours in order to ensure that the Moon was above the horizon in the Soviet Union. Luna 2 hit the Moon about 800 kilometres from the centre of the visible disk 1959 September 13 at 21:02:24.[3] Van Allen Radiation Belt[edit] USSR pennants[edit] On September 15, 1959, the premier of the USSR, Nikita Khrushchev, presented to the American president Dwight D. Eisenhower a copy of the spherical pennant as a gift. That sphere is located at the Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum in Abilene, Kansas. See also[edit] External links[edit]
Home Japan Travel Guide Tokyo Guide Contact Auction Service Japan Shop Saturday, September 17, 2011 Japanese Plural and Singular 日本語　単数　複数 The Japanese language does not place as much importance on singular (tansuu) and plural (fukusuu) as European languages do. Most of the time, the listener/reader is left to guess. This is counter-intuitive to, at least, English speakers, and at first glance comes across as a major “gap” in the Japanese language. Yet, when you think about it, in many, if not most, situations, the singularity or plurality of the object doesn’t really need to be expressed. For example, “Got a pen?” How strange it would be if the question was “Got pens?” Or, to put it another way, in response to the question, “Got a pen?”, no one would reply “Are you sure you want just one?” It is so blindingly obvious that the questioner wants something to write with, that, for all practical purposes, the issue of expressing singularity or plurality is irrelevant. There are countless other similar situations where a grammatical suffix expressing singularity or plurality adds nothing in practical terms to the intelligibility of the utterance. An obvious example is: “My mother likes Lady GaGa, too,” or “There are eight planets in the solar system.” “mother,” in this case, cannot be made plural, even if you try, and any noun that follows the word “eight” is, in real life, plural by definition, whether it has a grammatical indicator like an “s” on the end or not. Having said that, a certain degree of panic at the absence of “s” can be said to be justified in some cases. For example, “My friend likes Lady GaGa, too” compared with “My friends like Lady GaGa, too.” To be sure, the difference between “friend” and “friends” can say quite a lot. “My friend likes Lady GaGa, too” does not say much about the speaker, whereas “my friends” does. That is, a single friend liking something is unlikely to be interpreted as necessarily coinciding with what the speaker likes, whereas multiple friends liking something makes it much more likely that, as someone who hangs out with them, the speaker will like it, too. However, in the context of the Japanese language, there are surely myriad other ways, just as subtle, by which Japanese speakers can acquire clues about the speaker from what he or she says about his or her friend(s). I was recently translating a passage in Japanese that spoke of heya (a room, or rooms) in a house, and about how, in Japan’s Edo period and before, the wife in old, established families in the Osaka and Kyoto region would stay “heya no naka” ("in room(s?)" nearly every day, all year round, hardly ever going out except for a bath, maybe, every 5 days or so. I had to ask a Japanese colleague for an opinion as to whether this was likely to be a single room in which the wife confined herself, or several. My Japanese colleague hummed and hahed and said it would probably be plural, but that cases of it being a single room were by no means unlikely. In other words, having to either add an “s” or not created a problem that was basically insoluble, and distracted from the main message, i.e. that Japanese women used to stay indoors. Leaving it nicely indeterminate about numbers would avoid bringing up this rather insignificant “problem” altogether. My Japanese colleague and I continued with a discussion of the singular/plural divide in English, and the colleague asked, rhetorically, why, if English made such a big deal about whether the noun being talked about was single or not, it suddenly lost interest in the matter after that and couldn’t care if the “s” on the end represented 2, 22, 318, 6,000, 15,818, or half a million? In other words, why the obsession with unitariness, with the number 1? Why, does “1” get such special treatment (i.e. the particle “a/an” and an exemption from “s”) when each of the other equally real numbers is lumped under the suffix “s”? Good question, I thought. However, the story doesn’t quite end there. Here’s a secret: Japanese actually does use plural forms in certain cases: either the suffix -tachi, or a repetition of the noun. For example, hito, meaning “person,” is pluralized either by saying “hitotachi” or by saying “hitobito” (the “b” technically being an “h” that is voiced because it comes in the middle). But the big difference with English here is that there is never any grammatical compulsion to express the plural just because the topic may involve more than one thing. Use of the plural here is completely at the speaker’s discretion, used to convey the idea of “several” or “a lot,” on those—not so plural—occasions when it really would clarify the message. © JapanVisitor.com Like this blog? Sign up for the JapanVisitor newsletter Shin Fuji Kendama On Sale Tags Katie said... Thanks for your post; I enjoy thinking about these sorts of linguistic issues. I just wanted to add, on behalf of the gay parents I know (and those I don't), that in the sentence "My mother likes Lady GaGa, too," the word "mother" can absolutely be made plural. Soccerphile said... Katie, how true. With JapanVisitor.com having as much Japan gay and lesbian information as it does, that should not have escaped us, of anyone. Thanks for pointing out, and no offense intended.
NASA selects crash site for aged satellite Published: Sunday, June 04, 2000 The satellite changed astronomers view of the heavens after providing proof the whole universe was bathed in gamma rays, an energetic form of light invisible to the eye and hardly detectable on Earth. After a gyroscope failed, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration decided to deliberately crash the spacecraft while engineers still could control it. An analysis showed that if NASA did nothing, the craft would eventually fall on its own from space, with a one-in-1,000 chance of killing someone on Earth. The craft's orbit carried it over some of the most populated areas of the world, including Mexico City, Miami and Bangkok, Thailand. The controlled re-entry was projected to occur in a remote area of the Pacific Ocean, about 2,000 miles southeast of Hawaii. Shipping and air traffic in the area were instructed to avoid the area. The project, which cost $670 million, originally was supposed to last two years but was extended repeatedly when NASA engineers found it to be extremely successful at gathering information.
Bill Thayer [Link to a series of help pages] [Link to the next level up] [Link to my homepage] [image ALT: link to previous section] This webpage reproduces a section of The Library of History Diodorus Siculus published in Vol. II of the Loeb Classical Library edition, 1935 The text is in the public domain. This page has been carefully proofread and I believe it to be free of errors. If you find a mistake though, please let me know! [image ALT: link to next section] (Vol. II) Diodorus Siculus Library of History Book II, 35‑60 (end) p3 35 1 Now India is four-sided in shape and the side which faces east and that which faces south are embraced by the Great Sea,1 while that which faces north is separated by the Emodus range of mountains from that part of Scythia which is inhabited by the Scythians known as the Sacae; and the fourth side, which is turned towards the west, is marked off by the river known as the Indus, which is the largest of all streams after the Nile. 2 As for its magnitude, India as a whole, they say, extends from east to west twenty-eight thousand stades, and from north to south thirty-two thousand. And because it is of such magnitude, it is believed to take in a great extent of the sun's course in summer2 than any other part of the world, and in many places at the Cape of India the gnomons of sundials may be seen which do not cast a shadow, while at night the Bears are p5not visible; in the most southerly parts not even Arcturus can be seen, and indeed in that region, they say, the shadows fall towards the south.3 3 Now India has many lofty mountains that abound in fruit trees of every variety, and many large and fertile plains, which are remarkable for their beauty and are supplied with water by a multitude of rivers. The larger part of the country is well watered and for this reason yields two crops each year; and it abounds in all kinds of animals, remarkable for their great size and strength, land animals as well as birds. 4 It also breeds elephants both in the greatest numbers and of the largest size, providing them with sustenance in abundance, and it is because of this food that the elephants of this land are much more powerful than those produced in Libya; consequently large numbers of them are made captive by the Indians and trained for warfare, and it is found that they play a great part in turning the scale to victory. 36 1 The same is true of the inhabitants also, the abundant supply of food making them of unusual height and bulk of body; and another result is that they are skilled in the arts, since they breathe a pure air and drink water of the finest quality. 2 And the earth, in addition to producing every fruit which admits of cultivation, also contains rich underground veins of every kind of ore; for there are found in it much silver and gold, not a little copper and iron, and tin also and whatever else is suitable p7for adornment, necessity, and the trappings of war. 3 In addition to the grain of Demeter4 there grows throughout India much millet, which is irrigated by the abundance of running water supplied by the rivers, pulse in large quantities and of superior quality, rice also and the plant called bosporos,5 and in addition to these many more plants which are useful for food; and most of these are native to the country. It also yields not a few other edible fruits, that are able to sustain animal life, but to write about them would be a long task. 4 This is the reason, they say, why a famine has never visited India6 or, in general, any scarcity of what is suitable for gentle fare. For since there are two rainy seasons in the country each year, during the winter rains the sowing is made of the wheat crop as among other peoples, while in the second, which comes at the summer solstice, it is the general practice to plant the rice and bosporos, as well as sesame and millet; and in most years the Indians are successful in both crops, and they never lose everything, since the fruit of one or the other sowing comes to maturity. 5 The fruits also which flourish wild and the roots which grow in the marshy places, by reason of their remarkable sweetness, provide the people with a great abundance of food. For practically all the plains of India enjoy the sweet moisture from the rivers and from the rains which come with astonishing regularity, in a kind of fixed p9cycle, every year in the summer, since warm showers fall in abundance from the enveloping atmosphere and the heat ripens7 the roots in the marshes, especially those of the tall reeds. 6 Furthermore, the customs of the Indians contribute towards there never being any lack of food among them; for whereas in the case of all the rest of mankind their enemies ravage the land and cause it to remain uncultivated, yet among the Indians the workers of the soil are let alone as sacred and inviolable, and such of them as labour near the battle-lines have no feeling of the dangers. 7 For although both parties to the war kill one another in their hostilities, yet they leave uninjured those who are engaged in tilling the soil, considering that they are the common benefactors of all, nor do they burn the lands of their opponents or cut down their orchards. 37 1 The land of the Indians has also many large navigable rivers which have their sources in the mountains lying to the north and then flow through the level country; and not a few of these unite and empty into the river known as the Ganges. 2 This river, which is thirty stades in width, flows from north to south and empties into the ocean, forming the boundary towards the east of the tribe of the Gandaridae, which possesses the greatest number of elephants and the largest in size. 3 Consequently no foreign king has ever subdued this country, all alien p11nations being fearful of both the multitude and the strength of the beasts. In fact even Alexander of Macedon, although he had subdued all Asia, refrained from making war upon the Gandaridae alone of all peoples; for when he had arrived at the Ganges river with his entire army, after his conquest of the rest of the Indians, upon learning that the Gandaridae had four thousand elephants equipped for war he gave up his campaign against them.8 4 The river which is nearly the equal of the Ganges and is called the Indus rises like the Ganges in the north, but as it empties into the ocean forms a boundary of India; and in its course through an expanse of level plain it receives not a few navigable rivers, the most notable being the Hypanis,9 Hydaspes, and Acesinus. 5 And in addition to these three rivers a vast number of others of every description traverse the country and bring it about that the land is planted in many gardens and crops of every description. Now for the multitude of rivers and the exceptional supply of water the philosophers and students of nature among them advance the following cause: 6 The countries which surround India, they say, such as Scythia, Bactria, and Ariana, are higher than India, and so it is reasonable to assume that the waters which come together from every side into the country lying below them, gradually cause the regions to become soaked and to generate a multitude of p13rivers. 7 And a peculiar thing happens in the case of one of the rivers of India, known as the Silla, which flows from a spring of the same name; for it is the only river in the world possessing the characteristic that nothing cast into it floats, but that everything, strange to say, sinks to the bottom. 38 1 Now India as a whole, being of a vast extent, is inhabited, as we are told, by many other peoples of every description, and not one of them had its first origin in a foreign land, but all of them are thought to be autochthonous; it never receives any colony from abroad nor has it ever sent one to any other people. 2 According to their myths the earliest human beings used for food the fruits of the earth which grew wild, and for clothing the skins of the native animals, as was done by the Greeks. Similarly too the discovery of the several arts and of all other things which are useful for life was made gradually, necessity itself showing the way to a creature which was well endowed by nature and had, as its assistants for every purpose, hands and speech and sagacity of mind.10 3 The most learned men among the Indians recount a myth which it may be appropriate to set forth in brief form. This, then, is what they say: In the earliest times, when the inhabitants of their land were still dwelling in scattered clan-villages,11 Dionysus came to them from the regions to the west of them with a notable army; and he traversed all India, since there was as yet no notable city which would p15have been able to oppose him. 4 But when an oppressive heat came and the soldiers of Dionysus were being consumed by a pestilential sickness, this leader, who was conspicuous for his wisdom, led his army out of the plains into the hill-country; here, where cool breezes blew and the spring waters flowed pure at their very sources, the army got rid of its sickness. The name of this region of the hill-country, where Dionysus relieved his forces of the sickness, is Meros; and it is because of this fact that the Greeks have handed down to posterity in their account of this god the story that Dionysus was nourished in a thigh (meros).12 5 After this he took in hand the storing of the fruits and shared this knowledge with the Indians, and he communicated to them the discovery of wine and of all the other things useful for life. Furthermore, he became the founder of notable cities by gathering the villages together in well-situated regions, and he both taught them to honour the deity and introduced laws and courts; and, in brief, since he had been the introducer of many good works he was regarded as a god and received immortal honours. 6 They also recount that he carried along with his army a great number of women, and that when he joined battle in his wars he used the sounds of drums and cymbals, since the trumpet had not yet been discovered. And after he had reigned over all p17India for fifty-two years he died of old age. His sons, who succeeded to the sovereignty, passed the rule on successively to their descendants; but finally, many generations later, their sovereignty was dissolved and the cities received a democratic form of government. 39 1 As for Dionysus, then, and his descendants, such is the myth as it is related by the inhabitants of the hill-country of India. And with regard to Heracles they say that he was born among them and they assign to him, in common with the Greeks, both the club and the lion's skin. 2 Moreover, as their account tells us, he was far superior to all other men in strength of body and in courage, and cleared both land and sea of their wild beasts. And marrying several wives, he begot many sons, but only one daughter; and when his sons attained to manhood, dividing all India into as many parts as he had male children, he appointed all his sons kings, and rearing his single daughter he appointed her also a queen.13 3 Likewise, he became the founder of not a few cities, the most renowned and largest of which he called Palibothra. In this city he also constructed a costly palace and settled a multitude of inhabitants, and he fortified it with remarkable ditches which were filled with water from the river. 4 And when Heracles passed from among men he received immortal honour, but his descendants, though they held the kingship during many generations and accomplished notable deeds, made no campaign beyond their own frontiers and despatched p19no colony to any other people. But many years later most of the cities had received a democratic form of government, although among certain tribes the kingship endured until the time when Alexander crossed over into Asia. 5 As for the customs of the Indians which are peculiar to them, a man may consider one which was drawn up by their ancient wise men to be the most worthy of admiration; for the law has ordained that under no circumstances shall anyone among them be a slave, but that all shall be free and respect the principle of equality in all persons. For those, they think, who have learned neither to domineer over others nor to subject themselves to others will enjoy a manner of life best suited to all circumstances; since it is silly to make laws on the basis of equality for all persons, and yet to establish inequalities in social intercourse. 40 1 The whole multitude of the Indians is divided into seven castes,14 the first of which is formed of the order of the philosophers, which in number is smaller than the rest of the castes, but in dignity ranks first. For being exempt from any service to the state the philosophers are neither the masters nor the servants of the others. 2 But they are called upon by the private citizens both to offer the sacrifices which are required in their lifetime and to perform the rites for the dead, as having proved themselves to be most dear to the gods and as being especially experienced in the matters that relate to the underworld, and for this service they receive both notable p21gifts and honours. Moreover, they furnish great services to the whole body of the Indians, since they are invited at the beginning of the year to the Great Synod and foretell to the multitude droughts and rains, as well as the favourable blowing of winds, and epidemics, and whatever else can be of aid to their auditors. 3 For both the common folk and the king, by learning in advance what is going to take place, store up from time to time that of which there will be a shortage and prepare beforehand from time to time anything that will be needed. And the philosopher who has erred15 in his predictions is subjected to no other punishment than obloquy and keeps silence for the remainder of his life. 4 The second caste is that of the farmers, who, it would appear, are far more numerous than the rest. These, being exempt from war duties and every other service to the state, devote their entire time to labour in the fields; and no enemy, coming upon a farmer in the country, would think of doing him injury, but they look upon the farmers as common benefactors and therefore refrain from every injury to them.16 5 Consequently the land, remaining as it does unravaged and being laden with fruits, provides the inhabitants with a great supply of provisions. And the farmers spend their lives upon the land with their children and wives and refrain entirely from coming down into the city. For the land they pay rent to the kind, since all India is royal land and no man of private station is permitted p23to possess any ground; and apart from the rental they pay a fourth part17 into the royal treasury. 6 The third division is that of the neatherds and shepherds, and, in general, of all the herdsmen who do not dwell in a city or village but spend their lives in tents; and these men are also hunters and rid the country of both birds and wild beasts. And since they are practised in this calling and follow it with zest they are bringing India under cultivation, although it still abounds in many wild beasts and birds of every kind, which eat up the seeds sown by the farmers. 41 1 The fourth caste is that of the artisans; of these some are armourers and some fabricate for the farmers or certain others the things useful for the services they perform. And they are not only exempt from paying taxes but they even receive rations from the royal treasury. 2 The fifth caste is that of the military, which is at hand in case of war; they are second in point of number and indulge to the fullest in relaxation and pastimes in the periods of peace. And the maintenance of the whole multitude of the soldiers and of the horses and elephants for use in war is met out of the royal treasury. 3 The sixth caste is that of the inspectors. These men inquire into and inspect everything that is going on throughout India, and report back to the kings or, in case the state to which they are attached has no king, to the magistrates. 4 The seventh caste is that of the deliberators and chancellors, whose concern is with the decisions which affect the common welfare. In point of number this group is the smallest, but in nobility of birth and p25wisdom the most worthy of admiration; for from their body are drawn the advisers for the kings and the administrators of the affairs of state and the judges of disputes, and, speaking generally, they take their leaders and magistrates from among these men. 5 Such in general terms are the groups into which the body politic of the Indians is divided. Furthermore, no one is allowed to marry a person of another caste or to follow another calling or trade, as, for instance, that one who is a soldier should become a farmer, or an artisan should become a philosopher. 42 1 The country of the Indians also possesses a vast number of enormous elephants, which far surpass all others both in strength and size. Nor does this animal cover the female in a peculiar manner, as some say, but in the same way as horses and all other four-footed beasts; and their period of gestation is in some cases sixteen months at the least and in other cases eighteen months at the most. 2 They bring forth, like horses, but one young for the most part, and the females suckle their young for six years. The span of life for most of them is about that of men who attain the greatest age, though some which have reached the highest age have lived two hundred years. 3 There are among the Indians also magistrates appointed for foreigners who take care that no foreigner shall be wronged; moreover, should any foreigner fall sick they bring him a physician and care for him in every other way, and if he dies they bury him and even turn over such property as he has to his relatives. 4 Again, their judges examine accurately matters of dispute and proceed rigorously against such as are guilty of wrongdoing. p27 As for India, then, and its antiquities we shall be satisfied with what has been said. 43 1 But now, in turn, we shall discuss the Scythians who inhabit the country bordering upon India. This people originally possessed little territory, but later, as they gradually increased in power, they seized much territory by reason of their deeds of might and their bravery and advanced their nation to great leadership and renown. 2 At first, then, they dwelt on the Araxes18 river, altogether few in number and despised because of their lack of renown; but since one of their early kings was warlike and of unusual skill as a general they acquired territory, in the mountains as far as the Caucasus, and in the steppes along the ocean and Lake Maeotis19 and the rest of that country as far as the Tanaïs20 river. 3 At a later time, as the Scythians recount the myth, there was born among them a maiden sprung from the earth; the upper parts of her body as far as her waist were those of a woman, but the lower parts were those of a snake. With her Zeus lay begat a son whose name was Scythes. This son became more famous than any who had preceded him and called the folk Scythians after his own name. Now among the descendants of this king there were two brothers who were distinguished for their valour, the one named Palus and the other Napes.21 4 And since these two performed renowned deeds and divided the kingship between them, some of the people were called Pali after one of them and some Napae p29after the other. But some time later the descendants of these kings, because of their unusual valour and skill as generals, subdued much of the territory beyond the Tanaïs river as far as Thrace, and advancing with their armies to the other side22 they extended their power as far as the Nile in Egypt.23 5 And after enslaving many great peoples which lay between the Thracians and the Egyptians they advanced the empire of the Scythians on the one side as far as the ocean to the east, and on the other side to the Caspian Sea and Lake Maeotis; for this people increased to great strength and had notable kings, one of whom gave his name to the Sacae, another to the Massagetae, another to the Arimaspi, and several other tribes received their names in like manner. 6 It was by these kings that many of the conquered peoples were removed to other homes, and two of these became very great colonies: the one was composed of Assyrians24 and was removed to the land between Paphlagonia and Pontus, and the other was drawn from Media and planted along the Tanaïs, its people receiving the name Sauromatae. 7 Many years later this people became powerful and ravaged a large part of Scythia, and destroying utterly all whom they subdued they turned most of the land into a desert. 44 1 After these events there came in Scythia a period of revolutions, in which the sovereigns were women endowed with exceptional valour. For p31among these peoples the women train for war just as do the men and in acts of manly valour are in no wise inferior to the men. Consequently distinguished women have been the authors of many great deeds, not in Scythia alone, but also in the territory bordering upon it. 2 For instance, when Cyrus the king of the Persians, the mightiest ruler of his day, made a campaign with a vast army into Scythia, the queen of the Scythians not only cut the army of the Persians to pieces but she even took Cyrus prisoner and crucified him;25 and the nation of the Amazons, after it was once organized, was so distinguished for its manly prowess that it not only overran much of the neighbouring territory but even subdued a large part of Europe and Asia. 3 But for our part, since we have mentioned the Amazons, we feel that it is not foreign to our purpose to discuss them, even though what we shall say will be so marvellous that it will resemble a tale from mythology. 45 1 Now in the country along the Thermodon river,26 as the account goes, the sovereignty was in the hands of a people among whom the women held the supreme power, and its women performed the services of war just as did the men. Of these women one, who possessed the royal authority, was remarkable for her prowess in war and her bodily strength, and gathering together an army of women she drilled it in the use of arms and subdued in war some of the neighbouring peoples. 2 And since her valour and fame increased, she made war upon p33people after people of neighbouring lands, and as the tide of her fortune continued favourable, she was so filled with pride that she gave herself the appellation of Daughter of Ares; but to the men she assigned the spinning of wool and such other domestic duties as belong to women. Laws were also established by her, by virtue of which she led forth the women to the contests of war, but upon the men she fastened humiliation and slavery. 3 And as for their children, they mutilated both the legs and the arms of the males, incapacitating them in this way for the demands of war, and in the case of the females they seared the right breast that it might not project when their bodies matured and be in the way; and it is for this reason that the nation of the Amazons received the appellation it bears.27 4 In general, this queen was remarkable for her intelligence and ability as a general, and she founded a great city named Themiscyra at the mouth of the Thermodon river and built there a famous palace; furthermore, in her campaigns she devoted much attention to military discipline and at the outset subdued all her neighbours as far as the Tanaïs river. 5 And this queen, they say, accomplished the deeds which have been mentioned, and fighting brilliantly in a certain battle she ended her life heroically. 46 1 The daughter of this queen, the account continues, on succeeding to the throne emulated the excellence of her mother, and even surpassed her in p35some particular deeds. For instance, she exercised in the chase the maidens from their earliest girlhood and drilled them daily in the arts of war, and she also established magnificent festivals both to Ares and to the Artemis who is called Tauropolus.28 2 Then she campaigned against the territory lying beyond the Tanaïs and subdued all the peoples one after another as far as Thrace; and returning to her native land with much booty she built magnificent shrines to the deities mentioned above, and by reason of her kindly rule over her subjects received from them the greatest approbation. She also campaigned on the other side29 and subdued a large part of Asia and extended her power as far as Syria. 3 After the death of this queen, as their account continues, women of her family, succeeding to the queenship from time to time, ruled with distinction and advanced the nation of the Amazons in both power and fame. And many generations after these events, when the excellence of these women had been noised abroad through the whole inhabited world, they say that Heracles, the son of Alcmenê and Zeus, was assigned by Eurystheus the Labour of securing the girdle of Hippolytê the Amazon.30 4 Consequently he embarked on this campaign, and coming off victorious in a great battle he not only cut to pieces the army of the Amazons but also, after taking captive Hippolytê together with her girdle, completely crushed this nation. Consequently the neighbouring barbarians, despising the weakness of p37this people and remembering against them their past injuries, waged continuous wars against the nation to such a degree that they left in existence not even the name of the race of the Amazons. 5 For a few years after the campaign of Heracles against them, they say, during the time of the Trojan War, Penthesileia, the queen of the surviving Amazons, who was a daughter of Ares and had slain one of her kindred, fled from her native land because of the sacrilege.31 And fighting as an ally of the Trojans after the death of Hector she slew many of the Greeks, and after gaining distinction in the struggle she ended her life heroically at the hands of Achilles. 6 Now they say that Penthesileia was the last of the Amazons to win distinction for bravery and that for the future the race diminished more and more and then lost all its strength; consequently in later times, whenever any writers recount their prowess, men consider the ancient stories about the Amazons to be fictitious tales. 47 1 Now for our part, since we have seen fit to make mention of the regions of Asia which lie to the north, we feel that it will not be foreign to our purpose to discuss the legendary accounts of the Hyperboreans.32 Of those who have written about the ancient myths, Hecataeus and certain others say that in the regions beyond the land of the Celts33 there lies in the ocean an island no smaller p39than Sicily. This island, the account continues, is situated in the north and is inhabited by the Hyperboreans, who are called by that name because their home is beyond the point whence the north wind (Boreas) blows; and the island is both fertile and productive of every crop, and since it has an unusually temperate climate it produces two harvests each year. 2 Moreover, the following legend is told concerning it: Leto34 was born on this island, and for that reason Apollo is honoured among them above all other gods; and the inhabitants are looked upon as priests of Apollo, after a manner, since daily they praise this god continuously in song and honour him exceedingly. And there is also on the island both a magnificent sacred precinct of Apollo and a notable temple which is adorned with many votive offerings and is spherical in shape. 3 Furthermore, a city is there which is sacred to this god, and the majority of its inhabitants are players on the cithara; and these continually play on this instrument in the temple and sing hymns of praise to the god, glorifying his deeds. 4 The Hyperboreans also have a language, we informed, which is peculiar to them, and are most friendly disposed towards the Greeks, and especially towards the Athenians and the Delians,35 who have inherited this good-will from most ancient times. The myth also relates that certain Greeks visited the Hyperboreans and left behind them there costly votive offerings bearing inscriptions in Greek letters. 5 And in the same way Abaris,36 a Hyperborean, came p41to Greece in ancient times and renewed the good-will and kinship of his people to the Delians. They say also that the moon, as viewed from this island, appears to be but a little distance from the earth and to have upon it prominences, like those of the earth, which are visible to the eye. 6 The account is also given that the god visits the island every nineteen years, the period in which the return of the stars to the same place in the heavens is accomplished; and for this reason the nineteen-year period is called by the Greeks the "year of Meton."37 At the time of this appearance of the god he both plays on the cithara and dances continuously the night through from the vernal equinox until the rising of the Pleiades, expressing in this manner his delight in his successes. And the kings of this city and the supervisors of the sacred precinct are called Boreadae, since they are descendants of Boreas, and the succession to these positions is always kept in their family. 48 1 But now that we have examined these matters we shall turn our account to the other parts of Asia which have not yet been described, and more especially to Arabia. This land is situated between Syria and Egypt, and is divided among many peoples of diverse characteristics. Now the eastern parts are inhabited by Arabs, who bear the name of Nabataeans and range over a country which is partly desert and partly waterless, though a small section of it is fruitful. 2 And they lead a life of brigandage, and overrunning a large part of the neighbouring territory p43they pillage it, being difficult to overcome in war. For in the waterless region, as it is called, they have dug wells at convenient intervals and have kept the knowledge of them hidden from the peoples of all other nations, and so they retreat in a body into this region out of danger.38 3 For since they themselves know about the places of hidden water and open them up, they have for their use drinking water in abundance; but such other peoples as pursue them, being in want of a watering-place by reason of their ignorance of the wells, in some cases perish because of the lack of water and in other cases regain their native land in safety only with difficulty and after suffering many ills. 4 Consequently the Arabs who inhabit this country, being difficult to overcome in war, remain always unenslaved; furthermore, they never at any time accept a man of another country as their over-lord and continuous to maintain their liberty unimpaired. 5 Consequently neither the Assyrians of old, nor the kings of the Medes and Persians, nor yet those of the Macedonians have been able to enslave them, and although they led many great forces against them, they never brought their attempts to a successful conclusion.39 6 There is also in the land of the Nabataeans a rock,40 which is exceedingly strong since it has but one approach, and using this ascent they mount it a few at a time and thus store their possessions in safety. And a large lake41 is also there which produces p45asphalt in abundance, and from it they derive not a little revenue. 7 It has a length of about five hundred stades and a width of about sixty, and its water is so ill-smelling and so very bitter that it cannot support fish or any of the other animals which commonly live in water. And although great rivers of remarkable sweetness empty into it, the lake gets the better of them by reason of its evil smell, and from its centre it spouts forth once a year a great mass of asphalt,42 which sometimes extends for more than three plethra, and sometimes for only two; and when this occurs the barbarians who live about the lake usually call the larger flow a "bull" and to the smaller one they give the name "calf." 8 Since the asphalt floats on the surface of the lake, to those who view it from a distance it takes the appearance of an island. And the fact is that the emission of the asphalt is made known to the natives twenty days before it takes place; for to a distance of many stades around the lake the odour, borne on the wind, assails them, and every piece of silver and gold and brass in the locality loses it characteristic lustre. But this returns again as soon as all the asphalt has been spouted forth; and the region round about, by reason of its being exposed to fire and to the evil odours, renders the bodies of the inhabitants susceptible to disease and makes the people very short-lived. 9 Yet the land is good for the growing of palms, wherever it happens to be traversed by rivers with usable water or to be supplied with springs which can irrigate it. And p47there is also found in these regions in a certain valley43 the balsam tree, as it is called, from which they receive a substantial revenue, since this tree is found nowhere else in the inhabited world and the use of it for medicinal purposes is most highly valued by physicians.44a 4945 That part of Arabia which borders upon the waterless and desert country is so different from it that, because both of the multitude of fruits which grow therein and of its other good things, it has been called Arabia Felix. 2 For the reed46 and the rush47 and every other growth that has a spicy scent are produced in great abundance, as is also, speaking generally, every kind of fragrant substance which is derived from leaves, and the land is distinguished in its several parts by the varied odours of the gums which drip from them; for myrrh and that frankincense which is most dear to the gods and is exported throughout the entire inhabited world are produced in the farthest parts of this land. 3 And kostos48 and cassia49 and cinnamon and all other plants of this nature50 grow there in fields and thickets of such depth that what all other peoples sparingly place upon the altars of the gods is actually used by them as fuel under their pots, and what is found among all other peoples in small specimens p49there supplies material for the mattresses of the servants in their homes. Moreover, the cinnamon, as it is called, which is exceptionally useful, and resin of the pine, and the terebinth,51 are produced in these regions in great abundance and of sweet odour. 4 And in the mountains grow not only silver fir and pine in abundance, but also cedar and the Phoenician cedar52 in abundance and boraton,53 as it is called. There are also many other kinds of fruit-bearing plants of sweet odour, which yield sap and fragrances most pleasing to such as approach them. Indeed the very earth itself is by its nature full of a vapour which is like sweet incense. 5 Consequently, in certain regions of Arabia, when the earth is dug up, there are discovered veins of sweet odour, in the working of which quarries of extraordinary magnitude are formed; and from these they gather stones and build their houses. And as for their houses, whenever rain drops from the enveloping atmosphere, that part54 which is melted down by the moisture flows into the joints of the stones and hardening there makes the walls solid throughout. 50 1 There is also mined in Arabia the gold called "fireless,"55 which is not smelted from ores, as is done among all other peoples, but is dug out directly from the earth; it is found in nuggets about the size of chestnuts, and is so fiery-red in colour that when it is used by artisans as a setting for the most precious gems it makes the fairest of adornments. p512 There is also in the land such a multitude of herds that many tribes which have chosen a nomad life are able to fare right well, experiencing no want of grain but being provided for in abundance by their herds. That part of the country which borders upon Syria breeds a multitude of fierce wild beasts; for the lions and leopards there are far more numerous and larger and superior in ferocity as compared with those of Libya, and in addition to these there are the Babylonian tigers, as they are called. 3 And it produces animals which are of double form and mingled in their natures, to which belong the struthocameli, which, as their name implies, embrace in their form the compound of a bird56 and of a camel. For in size they are like a newly-born camel, but their heads bristle with fine hair, and their eyes are large and black, indistinguishable in general appearance and colour from those of the camel. 4 It is also long-necked and has a beak which is very short and contracted to a sharp point. And since it his wings with feathers which are covered with a fine hair, and is supported upon two legs and on feet with cloven hoofs, it has the appearance of a land animal as well as of a bird. 5 But being unable by reason of its weight to raise itself in the air and to fly, it swiftly skims over the land, and when pursued by hunters on horseback with its feet it hurls stones as from a sling upon its pursuers, and with such force p53that they often receive severe wounds. 6 And whenever it is overtaken and surrounded, it hides its head in a bush or some such shelter, not, as some men suppose, because of its folly and stupidity of spirit, as if it thought that since it could not see the others it could not itself be seen by others either, but because its head is the weakest part of its body it seeks a shelter for it in order to save its life; 7 for Nature is an excellent instructor of all animals for the preservation not only of their own lives but also of their offspring, since by planting in them an innate love of life she leads successive generations into an eternal cycle of continued existence. 51 1 The camelopards,57 as they are called, represent the mixing of the two animals which are included in the name given to it. For in size they are smaller than the camel and have shorter necks,58 but in the head and the arrangement of the eyes they are formed very much like a leopard; and although they have a hump on the back like the camel, yet with respect to colour and hair they are like leopards; likewise in the possession of a long tail they imitate the nature of this wild beast. 2 There are also bred tragelaphoi (goat-stags) and bubali59 and many other varieties of animals which are of double form and combine in one body the natures of creatures most widely different, about all of which it would p55be a long task to write in detail. 3 For it would seem that the land which lies to the south breathes in a great deal of the sun's strength, which is the greatest source of life, and that, for that reason, it generates breeds of beautiful animals in great number and of varied colour; 4 and that for the same reason there are produced in Egypt both the crocodiles and the river-horses, in Ethiopia and in the desert of Libya a multitude of elephants and of reptiles of every variety and of all other wild beasts and of serpents, which differ from one another in size and ferocity, and likewise in India the elephants of exceptional bulk and number and ferocity. 52 1 In these countries are generated not only animals which differ from one another in form because of the helpful influence and strength of the sun, but also outcroppings of every kind of precious stone which are unusual in colour and resplendent in brilliancy. 2 For the rock-crystals, so we are informed, are composed of pure water which has been hardened, not by the action of cold, but by the influence of a divine fire,b and for this reason they are never subject to corruption and take on many hues when they are breathed upon. 3 For instance smaragdi60 and beryllia,61 as they are called, which are found in the shafts of the copper mines, receive their colour by having been dipped and bound together in a bath of sulphur, and the chrysoliths,62 they say, which are produced by a smoky exhalation due to the heat of the sun, thereby get the colour they have. 4 For this reason what is called "false gold," we are told, is fabricated by mortal fire, made p57by man, by dipping the rock crystals into it. And as for the natural qualities of the dark-red stones,63 it is the influence of the light, as it is compressed to a greater or less degree in them when they are hardening, which, they say, accounts for their differences. 5 In like manner, it is reported, the different kinds of birds get their colouring, some kinds appearing to the eye as pure red, other kinds marked with colours of every variety one after the other; for some birds are flaming red in appearance, others saffron yellow, some emerald green, and many of the colour of gold when they turn towards the light, and, in brief, hues are produced in great variety and difficult to describe; and this same thing can be seen taking place in the case of the rainbow in the heavens by reason of the light of the sun. 6 And it is from these facts that the students of nature draw their arguments when they affirm that the variety of colouring that is put forth by the things which we have mentioned above was caused by the heat coincident with their creation which dyed them, the sun, which is the source of life, assisting in the production of each several kind. 7 And it is generally true, they continue, that of the differences in the hues of the flowers and of the varied colours of the earth the sun is the cause and creator; and the arts of mortal men, imitating the working of the sun in the physical world, impart colouring and varied hues to every object, having been instructed in this by nature. 8 For the colours, they continue, are produced by the light, and likewise the odours of the fruits and the distinctive quality of their juices, the different sizes of the animals and their several forms, and the peculiarities which the earth shows, all are p59generated by the heat of the sun which imparts its warmth to a fertile land and to water endowed with the generative power and thus becomes the creator of each separate thing as it is. 9 Consequently, neither white marble of Paros nor any other stone which men admire can be compared with the precious stones of Arabia, since their whiteness is most brilliant, their weight the heaviest, and their smoothness leaves no room for other stones to surpass them. And the cause of the peculiar nature of the several parts of the country is, as I have told, the influence of the sun, which has hardened it by its heat, compressed it by its dryness, and made it resplendent by its light. 53 1 Hence it is that the race of birds also, having received the most warmth, became flying creatures because of their lightness,64 and of varied colour because of the influence of the sun, this being especially true in the lands which lie close to the sun. 2 Babylonia, for instance, produces a multitude of peacocks which have blossomed out with colours of every kind, and the farthest parts of Syria produce parrots and purple coots and guinea-fowls and other kinds of animals of distinctive colouring and of every combination of hues. 3 And the same reasoning applies also to all the other countries of the earth which lie in a similar climate, such as India and the Red Sea and Ethiopia and certain parts of Libya. 4 But the eastern part, being more fertile, breeds nobler and larger animals; and as for the rest of Libya, each animal is produced in form and characteristics corresponding to the quality of the soil. 5 Likewise as regards trees, the palms of Libya bear p61dry and small fruit, but in Coele-Syria dates called caryoti are produced which excel as to both sweetness and size and also as to their juices. 6 But dates much larger than these can be seen growing in Arabia and Babylonia, six fingers in size and in colour either yellow like the quince, or dark red, or in some cases tending to purple, so that at the same time they both delight the eye and gratify the taste. 7 The trunk of the palm stretches high in the air and its surface is smooth all over as far as its crown. But though they all have a tuft of foliage at the top, yet the arrangement of the foliage varies; for in some cases the fronds spread out in a complete circle and from the centre the trunk sends up, as if from out its broken bark, the fruit in a cluster like grapes, in other cases the foliage at the crown droops down on only one side so that it produces the appearance of a lamp from which the flame flares out,65 and occasionally they have their fronds bent down on both sides and by this double arrangement of the branches show a crown of foliage all about the trunk, thus presenting a picturesque appearance. 54 1 That part of Arabia as a whole which lies to the south is called Felix, but the interior part is ranged over by a multitude of Arabians who are nomads and have chosen a tent life. These raise great flocks of animals and make their camps in plains of immeasurable extent. 2 The region which lies between this part and Arabia Felix is desert and waterless, as has been stated;66 and the parts of Arabia which lie to p63the west are broken by sandy deserts spacious as the air in magnitude, through which those who journey must, even as voyagers upon the seas, direct their course by indications obtained from the Bears. 3 The remaining part of Arabia, which lies towards Syria, contains a multitude of farmers and merchants of every kind, who by a seasonable exchange of merchandise make good the lack of certain wares in both countries by supplying useful things which they possess in abundance. 4 That Arabia which lies along the ocean is situated above Arabia Felix, and since it is traversed by many great rivers, many regions in it are converted into stagnant pools and into vast stretches of great swamps. 5 And with the water which is brought to them from the rivers and that which comes with the summer rains they irrigate a large part of the country and get two crops yearly. This region also breeds herds of elephants and other monstrous land animals, and animals of double shape which have developed peculiar forms; and in addition to these it abounds in domestic animals of every kind, especially in cattle and in the sheep with large and fat tails. 6 This land also breeds camels in very great numbers and of most different kinds, both the hairless and the shaggy, and those which have two humps, one behind the other, along their spines and hence are called dituloi.67 Some of these provide milk and are eaten for meat, and so provide the inhabitants with a great abundance of this food, and others, which are trained to carry burdens on their backs, can carry some ten medimni68 of wheat and bear up five p65men lying outstretched upon a couch. Others which have short legs and are slender in build are dromedaries and can go at full stretch a day's journey of a very great distance, especially in the trips which they make through the waterless and desert region. 7 And also in their wars the same animals carry into battle two bowmen who ride back to back to each other, one of them keeping off enemies who come on them from in front, the other those who pursue in the rear. With regard, then, to Arabia and the products of that land, even if we have written at too great length, we have at any rate reported many things to delight lovers of reading. 55 1 But with regard to the island69 which has been discovered in the ocean to the south and the marvellous tales told concerning it, we shall now endeavour to give a brief account, after we have first set forth accurately the causes which led to its discovery. 2 There was a certain Iambulus70 who from his boyhood up had been devoted to the pursuit of education, and after the death of his father, who had been a merchant, he also gave himself to that calling; and while journeying inland to the spice-bearing region of Arabia71 he and his companions on the trip were taken captive by some robbers. Now at first he and one of his fellow-captives were appointed to be herdsmen, but later he and his companion were made captive by certain Ethiopians and led off to the coast of Ethiopia. 3 They were kidnapped p67in order that, being of an alien people, they might effect the purification of the land. For among the Ethiopians who lived in that place there was a custom, which had been handed down from ancient times, and had been ratified by oracles of the gods, over a period of twenty generations or six hundred years, the generation being reckoned at thirty years; and at the time when the purification by means of the two men was to take place, a boat had been built for them sufficient in size and strong enough to withstand the storms at sea, one which could easily be manned by two men; and then loading it with food enough to maintain two men for six months and putting them on board they commanded them to set out to sea as the oracle had ordered. 4 Furthermore, they commanded them to steer towards the south; for, they were told, they would come to a happy island and to men of honourable character, and among them they would lead a blessed existence. And in like manner, they stated, their own people, in case the men whom they sent forth should arrive safely at the island, would enjoy peace and a happy life in every respect throughout six hundred years; but if, dismayed at the extent of the sea, they should turn back on their course they would, as impious men and destroyers of the entire nation, suffer the severest penalties. 5 Accordingly, the Ethiopians, they say, held a great festal assembly by the sea, and after offering costly sacrifices they crowned with flowers the men who were to seek out the island and effect the purification of the nation and then sent them forth. 6 And these men, after having sailed over a vast sea and been tossed about four months by storms, were carried to the island p69about which they had been informed beforehand; it was round in shape and had a circumference of about five thousand stades. 56 1 But when they were now drawing near to the island, the account proceeds, some of the natives met them and drew their boat to land; and the inhabitants of the island, thronging together, were astonished at the arrival of the strangers, but they treated them honourably and shared with them the necessities of life which their country afforded. 2 The dwellers upon this island differ greatly both in the characteristics of their bodies and in their manners from the men in our part of the inhabited world; for they are all nearly alike in the shape of their bodies and are over four cubits in height, but the bones of the body have the ability to bend to a certain extent and then straighten out again, like the sinewy parts. 3 They are also exceedingly tender in respect to their bodies and yet more vigorous than is the case among us; for when they have seized any object in their hands no man can extract it from the grasp of their fingers. There is absolutely no hair on any part of their bodies except on the head, eyebrows and eyelids, and on the chin, but the other parts of the body are so smooth that not even the least down can be seen on them. 4 They are also remarkably beautiful and well-proportioned in the outline of the body. The openings of their ears are much more spacious than ours and growths have developed that serve as valves, so to speak, to close them. 5 And they have a peculiarity in regard to the tongue, partly the work of nature and congenital with them and partly intentionally brought about by artifice; among them, namely, the tongue p71is double for a certain distance, but they divide the inner portions still further, with the result that it becomes a double tongue as far as the base. 6 Consequently they are very versatile as to the sounds they can utter, since they imitate not only every articulate language used by man but also the varied chatterings of the birds, and, in general, they reproduce any peculiarity of sounds. And the most remarkable thing of all is that at one and the same time they can converse perfectly with two persons who fall in with them, both answering questions and discoursing pertinently on the circumstances of the moment; for with one division of the tongue they can converse with the one person, and likewise with the other talk with the second. Here pear on pear grows old, and apple close On apple, yea, and clustered grapes on grapes, And fig on fig. 57 1 These islanders, they go on to say, live in groups which are based on kinship and on political organizations, no more than four hundred kinsmen being gathered together in this way; and the members spend their time in the meadows, the land supplying them with many things for sustenance; p73for by reason of the fertility of the island and the mildness of the climate, food-stuffs are produced of themselves in greater quantity than is sufficient for their needs. 2 For instance, a reed grows there in abundance, and bears a fruit in great plenty that is very similar to the white vetch.73 Now when they have gathered this they steep it in warm water until it has become the size of a pigeon's egg; then after they have crushed it and rubbed74 it skilfully with their hands, they mould it into loaves, which are baked and eaten, and they are of surprising sweetness. 3 There are also in the island, they say, abundant springs of water, the warm springs serving well for bathing and the relief of fatigue, the cold excelling in sweetness and possessing the power to contribute to good health. Moreover, the inhabitants give attention to every branch of learning and especially to astrology; 4 and they use letters which, according to the value of the sounds they represent, are twenty-eight in number, but the characters are only seven, each one of which can be formed in four different ways. Nor do they write their lines horizontally, as we do, but from the top to the bottom perpendicularly. And the inhabitants, they tell us, are extremely long-lived, living even to the age of one hundred and fifty years, and experiencing for the most part no illness. 5 Anyone also among them who has become crippled or suffers, in general, from any physical infirmity is forced by them, in accordance with an inexorable law, to remove himself from life. And there is also a law among them that they should live only for a stipulated number of p75years, and that at the completion of this period they should make away with themselves of their own accord, by a strange manner of death; for there grows among them a plant of a peculiar nature, and whenever a man lies down upon it, imperceptibly and gently he falls asleep and dies. 58 1 They do not marry, we are told, but possess their children in common, and maintaining the children who are born as if they belonged to all, they love them equally;75 and while the children are infants those who suckle the babes76 often change them around in order that not even the mothers may know their own offspring. Consequently, since there is no rivalry among them, they never experience civil disorders and they never cease placing the highest value upon internal harmony. 2 There are also animals among them, we are told, which are small in size but the object of wonder by reason of the nature of their bodies and the potency of their blood; for they are round in form and very similar to tortoises, but they are marked on the surface by two diagonal yellow stripes, at each end of which they have an eye and a mouth; 3 consequently, though seeing with four eyes and using as many mouths, yet it gathers its food into one gullet, and down this its nourishment is swallowed and all flows together into one stomach; and in like manner its other organs and all its inner parts are single. It also has beneath it all around its body many feet, by means of which it can move in whatever direction it pleases. 4 And the blood of this animal, they say, has a marvellous potency; for it immediately glues on to its place any living member that has been p77severed; even if a hand or the like should happen to have been cut off, by the use of this blood it is glued on again, provided that the cut is fresh, and the same thing is true of such other parts of the body as are not connected with the regions which are vital and sustain the person's life. 5 Each group of the inhabitants also keeps a bird of great size and of a nature peculiar to itself, by means of which a test is made of the infant children to learn what their spiritual disposition is; for they place them upon the birds, and such of them as are able to endure the flight through the air as the birds take wing they rear, but such as become nauseated and filled with consternation they cast out, as not likely either to live many years and being, besides, of no account because of their dispositions. 59 1 Although all the inhabitants enjoy an abundant provision of everything from what grows of itself in these islands, yet they do not indulge in the enjoyment of this abundance without restraint, but they p79practise simplicity and take for their food only what suffices for their needs. Meat and whatever else is roasted or boiled in water are prepared by them, but all the other dishes ingeniously concocted by professional cooks, such as sauces and the various kinds of seasonings, they have no notion whatsoever. 2 And they worship as gods that which encompasses all things77 and the sun, and, in general, all the heavenly bodies. Fishes of every kind in great numbers are caught by them by sundry devices and not a few birds. 3 There is also found among them an abundance of fruit trees growing wild, and olive trees and vines grow there, from which they make both olive oil and wine in abundance. Snakes also, we are told, which are of immense size and yet do no harm to the inhabitants, have a meat which is edible and exceedingly sweet. 4 And their clothing they make themselves from a certain reed which contains in the centre a downy substance78 that is bright to the eye and soft, which they gather and mingle with crushed sea-shells and thus make remarkable garments of a purple hue. As for the animals of the islands, their natures are peculiar and so amazing as to defy credence. 5 All the details of their diet, we are told, follow a prescribed arrangement, since they do not all take their food at the same time nor is it always the same; but it has been ordained that on certain fixed days they shall eat at one time fish, at another time fowl, sometimes the flesh of land animals, and sometimes olives and the most simple side-dishes. 6 They also take turns in ministering to the needs of one p81another, some of them fishing, others working at the crafts, others occupying themselves in other useful tasks, and still others, with the exception of those who have come to old age, performing the services of the group in a definite cycle. 7 And at the festivals and feasts which are held among them, there are both pronounced and sung in honour of the gods hymns and spoken laudations, and especially in honour of the sun, after whom they name both the islands and themselves.79 60 1 After remaining among this people for seven years, the account continues, Iambulus and his companion were ejected against their will, as being malefactors and as having been educated to evil habits. Consequently, after they had again fitted out their little boat they were compelled to take their leave, and when they had stored up provisions in it they continued their voyage for more than four months. Then they were shipwrecked upon a sandy and marshy region of India; 2 and his companion lost his life in the surf, but Iambulus, having found his way to a certain village, was then brought by the p83natives into the presence of the king at Palibothra, a city which was distant a journey of many days from the sea. 3 And since the king was friendly to the Greeks and devoted to learning he considered Iambulus worthy of cordial welcome; and at length, upon receiving a permission of safe-conduct, he passed over first of all into Persia and later arrived safe in Greece. Now Iambulus felt that these matters deserved to be written down, and he added to his account not a few facts about India, facts of which all other men were ignorant at that time. But for our part, since we have fulfilled the promise made at the beginning of this Book, we shall bring it to a conclusion at this point. The Loeb Editor's Notes: 1 The Indian Ocean. 2 Lit. "of the summer turnings" of the sun, i.e., the course which the sun seems to traverse in the heavens from the solstice on June 22 to the equinox in September, corresponding to the part of the earth lying between the Tropic of Cancer and the equator. 3 Cp. Strabo, 2.5.37: "In all the regions that lie between the tropic and the equator the shadows fall in both directions, that is, towards the north and towards the south . . . and the inhabitants are called Amphiscians" (i.e., "throwing shadows both ways"; tr. of Jones in L. C. L.). 4 Wheat. 5 A kind of millet; called bosmoron in Strabo, 15.1.13. 6 This statement may be true in the sense of a general and protracted famine; but the Buddhist records often refer to scarcity of food because of drought or forces; cp. The Cambridge History of India, I p203. 7 Literally, "boils" or "heats." Strabo (15.1.20) says that what other peoples call the "ripening" of fruits is called by the Indians the "heating." Thayer's Note: The same logical image occurs in other languages as well, including Latin, where coquere ("to cook") is the term commonly used; among very many examples, Varro, R. R. I.54. From that use of the verb, prae-cox, literally "early cooked" — from which English and other languages get precocious and apricot — the fruit that ripens earlier than others in its family. 8 A fuller account of this incident is given in Book 17.93. But Alexander did not reach the river system of the Ganges, the error being due to a confusion of the Ganges with the Sutlej, a tributary of the Indus; cp. W. W. Tarn, "Alexander on the Ganges," Journal of Hellenic Studies, 43 (1923), 93 ff. 9 In Book 17.93.1 and Arrian, 5.24.8, this the river is called the Hyphasis, which is the name preferred by most modern writers. Strabo (15.1.2732), however, calls it the Hypanis, and Quintus Curtius (9.1.35), Hypasis. 10 The same words appear in Book 1.8.9. 11 It was the teaching of Aristotle that the State (or city) rises out of the Household through the intermediate institution of the village. So the Indians, in this case, were in the second stage of this evolution; Dionysus, as is stated below, combines the villages into cities and thus makes the good life possible. 12 When Zeus, at the request of Semelê, appeared to her with his thunderbolts, the sight was too much for her mortal eyes and her child by Zeus, Dionysus, was born untimely. Zeus covered the babe in his thigh until it came to maturity. There is no agreement among modern writers on the location of Meros. 13 Arrian, Indica, 8 f., gives a much fuller account of this daughter, whose name was Pandaea. 14 Cp. the account of the castes in Strabo, 15.1.39 ff., and in Arrian, Indica, 11 ff., and the article "Caste" in the Encyclopaedia Britannica. 15 Strabo (loc. cit.) says he must have erred "three times." 16 Cp. chap. 36.6. f. 17 i.e. of the produce. 18 The Aras. 19 The Sea of Azof. 20 The Don. 21 A similar story is in Herodotus (4.8 ff.), where, however, the father is Heracles and the sons are Agathyrsus, Gelonus, and Scythes. 22 Presumably the south side of the Black Sea is meant; cp. chap. 46.2. 23 In this incursion, which occurred between 630 and 625 B.C., the Scythians overran Palestine, but according to Herodotus (1.105) were turned back from Egypt by Psammetichus. A vivid picture of these foes from the north is preserved in Jeremiah, 4‑5 passim. 24 These are the "White Syrians" of Strabo (12.3.9). 25 There are many different accounts of the death of Cyrus, but they all agree that he met his end fighting on the far eastern border of his empire. 26 In Pontus (cp. Strabo, 12.3.14‑15). 27 Amazon is commonly derived from and μαζός, a form of μαστός ("breast"), and so means "without a breast," because the right breast was got rid of, that it might not hinder the use of the bow. For a slightly different account, cp. Book 3.53. 28 The Taurian Artemis, so well known from the Iphigenia among the Taurians of Euripides. 29 i.e. south of the Black Sea. 30 The story is given in detail in Book 4.16. 31 Quintus Smyrnaeus (1.24 f.) says that she killed her sister Hippolytê on a hunt, while hurling her spear at a stag. 32 There seems good reason (see R. Hennig, "Die Anfänge des kulturellen und Handelsverkehr in der Mittelmeerwelt," Historische Zeitschrift, 139 (1928), 1‑33) to see in this people who live "beyond the north wind," as their name signifies, an early acquaintance of the Greeks, through the medium of the Celts, with Britain and its inhabitants. In this chapter Apollo would be the Celtic sun-god Borvon, and the "sacred precinct" of Apollo would be the famous Stone Age remains of Stonehenge. 33 i.e. Gaul. 34 The mother by Zeus of Apollo and Artemis. 35 The island of Delos was from the earliest period of the Greek civilization a centre of the worship of Apollo. 36 Abaris is apparently a purely mythical figure, who in some authors sailed on his arrow, as on a witch's broomstick, through the air over rivers and seas. 37 The "Metonic Cycle" is described in Book 12.36. The cycle of Meton, which was introduced in Athens in 432 B.C., was designed to reconcile the lunar and the solar year, the latter being reckoned at 365 5/19 days. That this nineteen-year cycle was actually inaugurated at this time has been maintained, most recently, by W. B. Dinsmoor, The Archons of Athens in the Hellenistic Age (1931), pp320‑1 and passim. 38 A fuller description of this custom is given in Book 19.94 in connection with the expedition of Antigonus against the Nabataeans. 39 Cp. chap. 1.5. 40 The city of Petra (rock); cp. Book 19.97 and Strabo, 16.4.21.º 41 The Dead Sea; cp. Strabo 16.2.42 f.º The remainder of this chapter appears in the same words in Book 19.98, which has been the basis of many changes in the text of the present passage. 42 Asphalt even now occasionally floats ashore from the Dead Sea. 43 The Jordan valley at Jericho. 44 Strabo (16.2.41) briefly describes how the resin, perhaps the Biblical "balm of Gilead," was extracted from this tree. 45 Chaps. 49‑53 are commonly attributed to Posidonius (cp. Jacoby, FHG HIST., No. 87, F 114). 46 The "sweet reed" (sweet-flag) of Theophrastus, Enquiry into Plants, 9.7.1, 3 (Vol. 2, pp247 f. in L. C. L., tr. by Hort). 47 Ginger-grass; cp. ibid. 48 Saussurea Lappa; cp. ibid. 49 Cinnamomum iners, idem, 9.5.3 (Vol. 2, pp243 f. in L. C. L.). 50 i.e. aromatic plants. 51 Turpentine tree; cp. Theophrastus, ibid. 3.15.3‑4 and passim. 52 These two cedars are distinguished in Theophrastus, ibid. 3.12.3‑4 (Vol. 2, pp235 f. in L. C. L.). 53 Juniper. 54 Presumably, the clay of the roof. 55 i.e. unsmelted. 56 The MSS. write "of a goose." Oppian, Cynegetica, 3.483, says that the animal was of the nature of a camel and of an "ostrich" (strouthos). 57 "Camel-leopards," or giraffes. 58 "Longer necks" has been suggested. Agatharchides (ap. Photius 455.4) had said that their necks were so long that they could get their food from the "tops of trees." Giraffes had been exhibited in Alexandria in the third century B.C., and one was brought to Rome by Julius Caesar in 46 B.C. (Dio 43.23). 59 Apparently a kind of antelope. Thayer's Note: βουβαλίς, βούβαλος, bubalus; see Mair's note to Oppian, Cyneg. II.24. 60 Perhaps emeralds. 61 A diminutive of the word beryl. 62 "Gold-stones," perhaps the topaz. 63 Such as carbuncles, rubies, and garnets. 64 Cp. Book 1.7.5. 65 i.e. at the side. The lamp of Diodorus' period had its nozzle on the side opposite the handle, and so the comparison is apt. 66 Cp. chap. 48. 67 "Double-humped" or "double-knobbed." 68 About 14½ bushels, or 900 pounds. 69 Perhaps Ceylon, if the unknown writer of the following account of a fabulous people and a political Utopia localized it in any known spot. 70 Perhaps the author of the following account, which is known only from this passage. 71 The "spice-bearing country" was usually placed in Somaliland, but according to Strabo (1.2.32) it is in Arabia, where Diodorus also apparently places it. 72 Odyssey, 7.120‑21, describing the land of the Phaeacians. 73 Possibly a reference to rice. 74 In order to remove the husk. 75 Plato's famous theory recurs here. 76 i.e. the wet-nurses of the community. 77 i.e. the atmosphere or aether. 78 Probably cotton is meant. 79 i.e. "The Islands and Children of the Sun." Thayer's Notes: a See for example Celsus, passim. b Everyone in Antiquity agreed that rock crystal was water in a changed state, but the usual notion was that it was formed by freezing at cryogenic temperatures. The loci are collected by Sir Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica, II.1. [image ALT: Valid HTML 4.01.] Page updated: 18 Sep 12
AFRICA/CONGO - Biso na Biso: the voice of the forest promotes relations between Bantu and Pygmies Pokola (Agenzia Fides) - A community radio station that broadcasts from Pokola, 800 kilometers north of the Congolese capital Brazzaville, is committed to promoting and facilitating the understanding between the majority of the Bantu peoples and the minority indigenous of Pygmies. Launched in 2008 by the anthropologist Jerome Lewis and by The Forest Trust, Radio Biso na Biso, which in Lingala language means "among us", aims to soften relations between the Bantu and the Pygmies who live in the forest. The radio station broadcasts in 12 dialects and promotes the cultures and languages in danger of extinction. It employs about 10 people, six Bantu and four Pygmies, who broadcast in their respective languages. Biso na Biso reaches about 50 000 people within 100 km, covering the northeastern department of Sangha and the northern Likouala. The radio station also seeks to promote awareness for sustainable management of natural resources. According to local data, Pokola has about 13 000 inhabitants, 10% of whom are indigenous. The Fund for Population Activities of the United Nations says that the natives are threatened with extinction and are 2% of the population of Congo, approximately 3.6 million inhabitants. (AP) (Agenzia Fides 21/6/2012) Share: Facebook Twitter Google Blogger Altri Social Network
A Potent Joy E.S. Turner • Hitler’s Rockets: The Story of the V-2s by Norman Longmate Hutchinson, 423 pp, £13.95, May 1985, ISBN 0 09 158820 0 In World War Two the science of antiaircraft gunnery rested on a single, shaky postulate, known as ‘the ack-ack assumption’: namely, that a raider would fly at constant speed, constant height and on a constant course. Only if this rule was obeyed could the gunners arrange for their salvos to rendezvous with the target, which would travel three or four miles during the half-minute or so it took the rounds to reach the required height. A lone raider could ‘jink’ to baffle the predictors, though a massed formation of bombers was most unlikely to do so. You are not logged in
jump to navigation • American Indians in Galway, Ireland? November 17, 2012 Author: Beach Combing \| in : Medieval , trackback One of the most dramatic pieces of evidence for a pre-Columbian crossing of the Atlantic is to be found in a single Latin marginalia, that is some words scribbled into the margin of a book. The sentence in question appears in a copy of the Historia rerum ubique gestarum by Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini which was published in Venice in 1477. In that work Piccolomini discusses the arrival of Indians in Europe blown from across the Atlantic at a date when America was unknown to Europeans (another post another day). Next to this passage a reader has written in Latin the following extraordinary words: Homines de catayo versus oriens venierunt. Nos vidimus multa notabilia et specialiter in galuei ibernie virum et uxorem in duabus lignis areptis ex mirabili persona. This passage presents several challenges. The first two sections are easily translated. The difficulty is in the third part. 1) Homines de catayo versus oriens venierunt = ‘Men from Cathay [China] came towards the west’ 2) Nos vidimus multa notabilia et specialiter in galuei ibernie virum et uxorem = ‘We saw many remarkable things and particularly in Galway in Ireland a man and a woman…’ 3) in duabus lignis areptis ex mirabili persona = ‘[a man and a woman] on two pieces of wood (tied together?? Drift wood??), of the most extraordinary appearance [the boat is of the most extraordinary appearance?].’ Readers will agree that the most important information is in the first two clauses. However, let us risk a translation of the whole with the understanding that there are some uncertainties in the final part: Men from Cathay [China] come towards the west. We saw many remarkable things and particularly in Galway in Ireland a man and a woman on two pieces of drift wood of the most extraordinary appearance. Now our author was in Ireland sometime in the 1470s or perhaps the very early 1480s. He then inserted this sentence in his copy of Piccolomini sometime after 1477 and probably in the early 1480s: he certainly wrote in the book in 1481. He had clearly, while in Ireland, seen a man and a woman who he believed had been blown across the Atlantic from China and who had arrived on a strange looking boat (at least if the last part of the sentence is translated well). We know Atlantic geography better. If this man and woman came from anywhere then they came from America. The Gulf Stream washes up American plants, American animals and American driftwood on the shore of south-western Ireland. Why couldn’t the Gulf Stream wash up an Amerindian vessel? This is not the only instance when Amerindians seem to have ended up on the coasts of Europe: there may even be some Amerindian archaeological finds on the wrong side of the Atlantic. The possibility that these are European Arctic people: namely the Finns or Lapps seem far less likely. For a start the currents are all wrong… If this man and woman were Amerindian we might ask ourselves about the design of that remarkable boat. Were these two canoes that had been tied together, perhaps after the pair were lost at sea? Or a raft that had fallen apart? Where had the boat come from? The Caribbean or the US or the Canadian coast? Then were the man and woman still alive when they arrived in Ireland? They would have been travelling for anything from twenty days plus: presumably they had accidentally strayed or been driven into the Gulf Stream. A couple more thoughts. This is the only first-hand account of the Galway landfall, all others stem from this passage. It is extraordinary that no writer in Ireland found this remarkable enough, even out in the Pale, to record in the 1470s. A warning about gaps in our historical record. Second, the author of the marginalia is remembered by history as Christopher Columbus. He was most likely in Ireland in 1476-1477 on a sailing trip to the north. This accidental encounter with a Amerindians (or Chinese as he believed) was to prove an important moment in his life. And years later his son recalled the episode in his father’s autobiography. It very likely demonstrated to Christopher that under the right circumstances it was possible for a vessel to cross the Great Ocean between the Indies and Europe. Much was to follow from this… 20 Nov 2012: KMH writes: ‘I believe it was common knowledge in Europe before Columbus that the Chinese were yellow-skinned. If so, why did Columbus believe that presumably red-skinned Amerindians were from Cathay? Would he have reasoned that they perhaps came from the SE Asian islands or India where skin color might be more variable? Of course, Columbus was an extraordinary figure, and might have experienced some creative wishful thinking fated to propel him into his three voyages. The sense of destiny can color normal thinking processes.’ Thanks KMH! 21 Nov 2012: The Count is on the warpath: ‘Since it seems to be entirely authentic, and there’s no reason why a man jotting marginal notes in a book he owns as a reminder to himself would make things up, presumably whatever he’s saying can be taken to be true. But what is he actually saying? The first sentence has an unambiguous meaning – “People from China have reached the West by crossing the Atlantic.” But he doesn’t say when this happened, merely that it has done at some time – possibly hundreds of years ago. The rest of his statement basically says: “when I was in Ireland, myself and my companions saw with our own eyes a man and a woman in Galway Bay afloat on two pieces of wood of very odd design.” Most commentators assume that the people, not the pieces of wood, were what struck Columbus as being weird, and because he was just scribbling a quick note, his grammar is poor. But if we assume that he did in fact write a coherent sentence expressing exactly what he meant, it reads as though the bits of wood, not the people, were unusual. It’s also customary to assume that the two pieces of wood must have been connected in some way, because two people crossing the Atlantic on two separate pieces of driftwood could hardly both end up at the other side in exactly the same place, could they? Yet the most natural reading of a text that says: “a man and a woman on two pieces of wood” is that they had one each. Also consider this. Two Apaches lashed to tree-trunks which are also lashed to each other (obviously, when planning their transatlantic jaunt, they had the foresight to bring plenty of rope, but carelessly forgot the boat) arrive, whether alive or dead, in Galway Bay – a presumably unique, and certainly very uncommon event. The usual interpretation is that they were dead (well, they’d tend to be, wouldn’t they?). However, Columbus actually saw them “on two pieces of wood”, meaning that he, the one person in the whole world most able to appreciate the true significance of this event, arrived at the exact same time as the Injuns – and he doesn’t even live in Ireland! Well, if they were alive, he must have, and if they were dead, since he saw them “on” those bits of wood, How long would the locals be likely to leave dead bodies lying on the beach before burying them? Yet apparently they hadn’t even detached them from those mysterious pieces of wood “two totem poles?) when Columbus arrived. As good timing goes, that’s so good it’s downright ludicrous! I think what he’s saying is this. He was already predisposed toward his own pet theory that it was possible to reach China from Europe via the Atlantic, and of course vice versa, and people who are stubbornly predisposed to see evidence for their pet theory are very likely to see it in places where others might disagree. And Columbus was so stubborn that, in one of history’s greatest ironies, he flatly refused ever to accept that he hadn’t been to China at all, reasoning that the idea of an undiscovered country in the middle of the Atlantic was just plain silly, and his mysteriously short travel-time could be explained quite logically by assuming that the Earth was pear-shaped. So this is a guy determined to see exactly what he wants to see. Also, anyone who can mistake America for China probably doesn’t really know a whole lot about China. I think that what Columbus was saying was this. When he was in Galway, he saw two perfectly ordinary Irish folk afloat in Galway Bay on small craft so peculiar that an experienced mariner like him couldn’t even describe them as boats. Since Chinese and Irish culture were obviously very different, anything that seemed very out-of-place indeed compared to everything else the Irish had come up with suggested to him that they must have copied the idea from Chinese visitors. You don’t need me to give you examples of precisely this kind of logic being employed by people obsessed with a controversial and eccentric theory. This of course explains why there are no Irish tales of this incident whatsoever, although you’d think it’s the kind of thing they’d all be talking about for many years hence. Two ordinary Irishmen were fishing in Galway Bay from little boats which none of the locals saw anything unusual about. Columbus, however, being a very experienced sailor (and very biased indeed when it came to spotting possible signs of Chinese influence), noticed how odd these little boats were, and drew his own conclusions. If you read that margin note again, you’ll see that, in the absence of any other account, this is the most natural reading of the text. So what did he actually see? My guess would be the traditional Irish currach. It came in all sizes, but the smallest and most basic models were very basic indeed. They were also mostly very flimsy, so it isn’t surprising that it’s hard to say exactly what a currach from that time looked like, since very few survive from any historical period. However, judging by some of the few examples that do survive from a bit later, the Model T end of the currach market was probably a tiny rowing-boat which, because it wasn’t meant to go very far or very fast, might not have been terribly streamlined – some later examples look oddly angular. Since all you needed from it was to go out a little way into calm and sometimes very shallow coastal waters to catch a fish for your dinner, it would tend to have no keel and be a rather shallow boat that sat low in the water – the later models at least partly give that impression, and those that survive are probably the most robust and expensive types. So if the angle was deceptive, Columbus may have thought he was seeing two people in totally flat craft he could only describe as “pieces of wood” whose overall shape suggested a dingy rather than a raft, but were still kind of raft-like. I’m assuming that poor Irish folk who wanted the absolute minimum of boat because they couldn’t afford more might end up with something so unseaworthy that Columbus would automatically see multiple flaws with it and perceive it as being deeply odd rather than just crappy. Other possibilities do of course exist. I’ve discounted a dugout canoe with an outrigger because, although that’s the only two-person craft that an experience mariner might describe as “two pieces of wood”, it doesn’t really make sense if the only countries involved are Ireland, North America, and possibly China. Another possibility is a couple of Welsh ex-pats in coracles. Wales isn’t very far from Ireland, and a sailor a fair distance away trying to interpret the sight of a circular boat – not a very popular concept in boating worldwide – might have trouble interpreting what he’s seeing.’ Thanks Count!
Thera Project The Thera Project is named for the Greek island Thera, commonly known as Santorini now. More than 3,400 years ago, Thera was hit by an enormous volcanic eruption, which destroyed a good portion of the island. It is widely believed that this event and the ensuing tsunamis brought about the end of the Minoan civilization, due to the immediate damage caused by these events to the island of Crete, which was the center of that culture, as well as the lingering effects such a spectacular disaster must have had on the ecosystems of the islands in the Aegean area. In the latter part of the 20th century, the archaeologist Spyridon Marinatos began a full excavation of the city of Akrotiri, on the portion of the island that was not destroyed by the blast. The city was nearly perfectly preserved, in the same manner as the Roman cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii, which were destroyed when Mount Vesuvius erupted. But there was one difference. While grotesque discoveries of human remains… or their imprints… were found in large quantities in Pompeii and Herculaneum, no such remains were found in Akrotiri. The city showed every sign of having been recently lived in when it was buried. But the absence of human remains, and the lack of any significant quantities of the personal items and valuables one would expect in a city of that size, raises an unusual prospect. It appears the inhabitants had some forewarning of the cataclysm that was about to strike, and had enough time to escape. No definitive record exists of a large exodus of people from any island in the area prior to a catastrophic event, although the history of the island bears striking similarity to the tale of Atlantis. Even if the inhabitants were able to leave the island in time their ships may not have been able to reach safe port before being overwhelmed by the enormous tsunamis that would have followed a volcanic blast of that magnitude. But it is equally possible that the record of such an escape would have been lost in the ensuing chaos from the wholesale disruption of the Minoan culture. Descendants of the inhabitants of Akrotiri may walk among us, unaware that they might not be here at all were it not for a forewarning their ancestors received more than three thousand years ago. Only one thing is certain: the people who lived in Akrotiri were not in the city when it was buried under tons of volcanic debris. It is both for the possibilities of the past, and the hopes of future, that the Thera Project is named.
Scientific Method / Science & Exploration Lasers plus a crushing magnetic field may make fusion more efficient A pair of researchers show how the combination of crushing magnetic fields and … Ever since I first heard about the idea, I have loved inertial confinement fusion. The basic concept involves blowing stuff up with lasers to get some energy, then doing it again and again as fast as possible. What more could a 38-going-on-5-year-old want? Well, what I might also want is a fusion reaction that generates more energy than you put in to it. One thing that lets me down about inertial confinement fusion is that the implosion that gets the fusion reaction going also acts to stop the fusion. One idea for improving the fusion reaction that has been floating around for a while is to use magnetic fields in place of lasers to increase the efficiency of the fusion burn. But until recently, no one could figure out how to make it work properly. A crash course in inertial confinement fusion But fusion is not so easy to achieve. Although atoms are electrically neutral, the parts that need to be stuck together—the atomic nuclei—are positively charged and repel each other. The external pressure needs to be high enough that it overcomes the Coulomb forces holding the nuclei apart. In traditional inertial confinement fusion, the compression is driven by lasers (all the really cool stuff involves a laser somewhere). A perfectly spherical droplet of deuterium and tritium (tritium is hydrogen with two neutrons) ice is dropped through a target zone, where it is illuminated from many different directions by a very intense pulse of laser light. The photons are all either reflected or absorbed—either way, they give the deuterium and tritium atoms a kick toward the center of the target area. How hard a kick? The nuclei end up moving at about 30 million meters per second. Right at the center of the target, the pressure is large enough to initiate fusion. Once that begins, the center of the pellet begins expanding, creating a compressed shell that also begins to fuse. Ideally, the chain reaction proceeds outward to completely burn away the deuterium-tritium pellet. But a complete burn is usually prevented by the lasers that initiate the fusion process. There are two critical issues. First, the electrons are stripped away from the nuclei and leave the area. In doing so, they carry away vital energy, reducing the temperature and the initial pressure. This slows down the fusion process, allowing the pressure to drop and preventing the expanding shell of fusion from achieving a complete burn. The second issue is more technical. The pressure that drives the initial compression needs to be evenly applied—the laser pulses all need to have exactly the same energy, same spatial beam profile, and arrive at the target at the same time. If they're not, much of the deuterium and tritium sprays out of the pellet and never undergoes fusion. A magnetic field makes everything better Where the laser meets the hydrogen On a computer, it is very easy to create marvelous laser beams with very narrow effects. But in the laboratory, laser beams have strict limitations. Intensities change relatively smoothly, meaning that there is no sharp boundary between where the laser is heating material and where it is not. In addition, laser beams change diameter as they propagate, so the diameter of the heated zone compared to the unheated zone will change depending on where the pellet is hit by the laser. From what is in the paper, it is hard to say if the initial conditions required for a good burn can be met with a laser. What this really calls for, of course, is a huge experiment where people like me get to blow stuff up. Expand full story You must to comment.
One of the features that the Brown researchers seem most excited about is the device’s power consumption, which is just 100 milliwatts. For a device that might eventually find its way into humans, frugal power consumption is a key factor that will enable all-day, highly mobile usage. Amusingly, though, the research paper notes that the wireless charging does cause significant warming of the device, which was “mitigated by liquid cooling the area with chilled water during the recharge process and did not notably affect the animal’s comfort.” Another important factor is that the researchers were able to extract high-quality, “rich” neural signals from the wireless implant — a good indicator that it will also help human neuroscience, if and when the device is approved...
By Guido Socher HTTP/TCP with an atmega88 microcontroller (AVR web server) This is a continuation of the article An AVR microcontroller based Ethernet device. The hardware is still the same (ENC28J60 + atmega88). The software is now updated to provide also a web-server. That is: instead of using a command line application and send UDP packets to the Ethernet device we can just point our web browser to it. .... and even better: we add only the web server and all the UDP based functionality is still there. Now you can use both! The code is written in C and there is even a lot of space left on the atmega88 microcontroller. All hardware components are available from shop.tuxgraphics.org. _________________ _________________ _________________ A UDP command interface is sufficient for most applications but an integrated web-server is much more universal and easier to use. How to build a web server into an atmega88 chip? Before starting this Ethernet project I did of course some prototyping and then I noticed already that UDP was not a problem with lots of space left on the atmega88. Therefore I was quite confident that TCP + HTTP will work. TCP/IP was invented more than 25 years ago. Todays microcontrollers provide almost the computing power a standard computer had at that time. No java or xml was used at that time. Things were done in smart and efficient ways. So here is a real web-server on an atmega88 AVR microcontroller. TCP is a state machine TCP is a protocol where one establishes a connection. For this a number of packets are first exchanged and both sides of the connection go through several states [see tcp state machine from rfc793]. Once the connection is established a number of data packets can be sent. More than one packet, large amounts of data can be sent. Counters and the state machine ensure that the actual user data arrives in correct order and without data loss. Large web pages will need to send many data packets. Small pages less. How many do we need to send??? Let's take a look at the application introduced in the first article [June 2006, article060601]. In this first article we just switch on and off something. It can be done with a simple web page which might look like this: Output is: ON Switch off Figure 1: The web page needed for the Ethernet Remote Device circuit. Other applications might be measurement of temperature or air pressure. Those are all small web pages with is very little data. In other words we will send less than 100 bytes including all the html tags. How many IP packets with data will be sent for such a page? Just one! The whole point of using TCP is that one can send more than one packet of data but we don't need that functionality. We need TCP only because HTTP is based on it and we want HTTP in order to use our web browser. Under the assumption that you will never need to send more than one packet with data the whole TCP protocol and state handling can be simplified a lot. We can e.g send the FIN immediately together with the data. This makes the state handling for the closing of the connection very simple. Under this assumption it possible to implement a web-server in a atmega88 and have just under 50% of the chip's memory still free for the actual application. The Ethernet remote device with build-in web server: switching something on and off The application that the eth_rem_dev_tcp-2.X software implements is a simple switch. You can switch on or off something. A simple password mechanism provides very basic protection to avoid that unauthorized users toggle the switch. Here is a screen shot of the web-page that the eth_rem_dev_tcp-2.X displays: Figure 2: The atmega88 based web-server, screenshot with mozilla firefox A Single Data Packet TCP/HTTP web-server on a microcontroller The code is available at the end of the article and I will explain it a bit. That way you will hopefully be able to modify it and adapt it also to other applications. The Single Data Packet web-server will go through the following TCP states: 1. receive SYN 2. send SYN,ACK 3. receive ACK (the connection is now established) 4. receive ACK with HTTP GET command 5. send ACK 6. send FIN,ACK with HTTP data (e.g 200 OK) 7. receive FIN,ACK 8. send ACK As you can see this is a quite simple command and action sequence. I have implemented the needed functions for this the file ip_arp_udp_tcp.c The file main.c is where the receive loop for the data is implemented. main.c has in this loop a number of if statements in order to decide what action to take. Here you will also see that the code branches between udp and tcp with port 80 (=web-server). If you want to implement your own application (e.g read temperatures, air pressure, whatever...) the you just need to modify the code above the call to the function print_webpage and modify the function print_webpage in order to print your own webpage. All this is in the file main.c The file enc28j60.c implements the driver to the Ethernet chip. You don't have to worry about the enc28j60.c. The URL format In order to build an interactive web page the HTML code provides "<a href=" for links and HTML Forms for more complicated dialogs. The problem with forms is however that HTML Forms are code intensive and difficult to decode. A much easier solution is to implement virtual folders and files. The password can e.g be one folder. In other words you have to type http://IP_or_HOST/password . Behind this url we can implement a virtual file which is the command. In our case switch on (=1) or swith off (=0). The full URL would then e.g look like this. Switch on: Switch off: See the current status and change nothing: This is very easy to understand and easy to decode in the microcontroller. If you want to implement just a thermometer or present some other readings without password protection then you can just implement the "root" folder: http://IP_or_HOST and delete the /password/command code in main.c The web-server hardware The hardware is exactly the same as described in the previous article An AVR microcontroller based Ethernet device: You get the web-server just by uploading new firmware to the microcontroller. Building and loading the software Unpack the eth_rem_dev_tcp-2.X package (command tar -zxvf eth_rem_dev_tcp-2.X to unpack, software download at the end of this article). Take a look at the included README file it contains detailed instructions. Next you need to set the IP address for your hardware. Edit the file main.c and change the 3 lines: static uint8_t mymac[6] = {0x54,0x55,0x58,0x10,0x00,0x24}; static uint8_t myip[4] = {10,0,0,24}; static char baseurl[]=""; Netmask Network Addresses - - - Example: your WIFI router might have, your PC might have This means you could e.g use and leave some room for more PCs. If you use DHCP from your router then make sure that the address it not double allocated (exclude it from the DHCP range). Now compile the software with the command "make". Load the eth_rem_dev_tcp.hex file into the microcontroller. Open a web browser and point it to http://Ip.Addr.you.assigned/secret Easy ;-) Embedded systems are generally small in size. Not only physically small in size but also small in terms of memory and CPU speed. All embedded TCP/IP stacks have therefore a rather low limit on the number of parallel users (e.g 2-5 parallel http connections). The tuxgraphics stack takes a different approach. The amount of data that we want to display is generally small. Maybe you would want to display the values of attached sensors or you want to switch on/off something as in the above example. To display that on a web page requires just a few bytes of data. We limit the size of the web page to a few hundred bytes. With this limit in place we don't have to have a limit on the number of parallel connection. The avr microcontroller is amazing CPU. Most operations are done in just one CPU clock cycle. With the The tuxgraphics TCP/IP stack on this CPU we can get really top performance out of this web server. There is no hard-coded limit to the number of users and it can serve hundreds of web pages per second. Some small PC based web servers would have trouble to keep up with it. Download and links © Guido Socher, tuxgraphics.org 2009-03-27, generated by tuxgrparser version 2.56
May 28, 2010 Without naming any names, this man I know who brews his own beer would like to see a blog post about what the deal is with yeast. Here are the basics: Yeasts are a type of fungus. Most fungi are multicellular, like mushrooms, but yeasts are unicellular (or single-celled, whichever you want to say is fine). Don't confuse yeasts with bacteria. I know they both are single-celled, but that's pretty much all they have in common. Yeasts have a nucleus and organelles, and bacteria don't. Also, yeasts are around 50 times bigger than bacteria. Yeasts are known for a few things, but I'm going to focus on one in particular: their role in producing alcoholic beverages. When yeasts have oxygen around, they behave much the way that our cells do. They bring in sugar and break it down to get energy and release CO2. For reasons I won't get into, this process is most efficient when oxygen is around (it has to do with oxygen accepting electrons--see? Did you really want to know that?) BUT, when there isn't any oxygen around, the system makes a switch and the process creates ethanol (a type of alcohol) as a side product. Here is the human equivalent: When your muscle cells have a good supply of oxygen from your blood, they can get a lot of energy, and in turn, do great things for you when you are exercising. But if these cells don't get enough oxygen (because you're out of shape and your lungs and heart aren't up to the task), they'll still do what they have to do, but they will switch gears and work without oxygen. This will produce lactic acid (instead of alcohol because, well, we're not yeast) as a waste product, which is what causes muscle cramps. So the process of creating beer or wine (or whatever other alcoholic concoction you want) takes advantage of yeasts' abilities. Beer brewers mix a variety of grains and spices and add a certain variety of yeast (there are hundreds), and the yeast eats all the lovely sugars in the mix and release CO2 (carbonation) and ethanol (alcohol). This whole process is called fermentation, and beer brewers get all starry-eyed when you mention it. They may also drool. A big part of beer brewing involves keeping the yeast happy. You want them to ferment at the right temperature, with the right amount of sugar, and without any unwanted guests. It's important that the beer mixture not be infiltrated by unwanted bacteria, which can ruin the taste of the beer, and generally annoy the yeast that has a job to do. Beer brewers go to great lengths to keep yeast happy because they so appreciate what yeast do, but sometimes I really feel like the yeast are taking advantage. Just a feeling. Artificial Life Don't freak out. Don't freak out. Don't freak out. Okay, scientists have created something. Something artificial. This is real, people. Okay, no. That wasn't real. That was a trailer for Splice. Here is what is really going on: You can click that picture to see the full article, but if you're lazy or if your mouse or finger or both is/are broken, I'll just explain what is going on. These scientists took all the DNA out of a bacterial cell, so they had a blank life slate. Then they placed home-made DNA into the empty bacterial cell, and voila! Synthetic life. So, the whole thing isn't artificial; it's considered "artificial life" because the DNA they added was a sequence that the scientists made up. (Scientists love doing that.) They didn't even assemble all the DNA themselves (how lazy!). They just injected the cell with a bunch of pieces of DNA that they had assembled in the lab, and the pieces joined together to become the bacterium's chromosome. To put this in terms of the human body, it would be like removing someone's brain and replacing it with a brain someone made in a lab. (Wow, I'm really failing at making this sound not scary.) This would be weird if it wasn't just an extra step in a process we've been doing for years. Bacteria love incorporating foreign DNA into their own DNA. They live for it. If two bacteria are next to each other, one can "pass" some DNA to the other. This is how bacteria can become resistant to antibiotics so fast. If one bacterium finds a gene that makes it immune to the drug, he/she/it just says "Hey, everyone. I've found the solution. Come and get it!" And he can distribute the gene to everyone. Cool for them. Not cool for us if they happen to be in our sinuses when they're doing this. But we humans can taken advantage of bacteria's love for accepting random DNA. For example, it's a great way to mass produce insulin for diabetics. We took the gene that has instructions for making insulin from a human cell and just gave it to some bacteria, who said, "Hey thanks, a new gene for me to use. I've been looking everywhere for one of these!" So basically, bacteria are cooperative little friends that make great toys for scientists. I'll admit that the scientists' timing isn't the best--creating "artificial life" so close to the release of Splice. But I suppose they didn't consult imdb when they planned their research proposals. Obvious oversight. But if manipulating bacterial chromosomes is "playing God," we've been God for decades. So I wouldn't really worry about scientists creating angry cross-eyed superhuman mutants. That probably won't happen for at least 5 more years. Sweet dreams! May 11, 2010 Evolution of Fashion vs. Evolution of Life Everything changes over time. Life, fashion, and language are pretty good examples (dost thou agree, dear sir?). Now I present to you an extended comparison of fashion and evolution: May 07, 2010 Hairy Oil Spill I've donated hair to Locks of Love twice--almost 3 feet of hair total. Until today, I thought that was the highest purpose for my hair trimmings, but it turns out you can also rescue baby seals with your lovelocks. I'm definitely making sure my salon sends their hairballs to this nonprofit, Matter of Trust. I had no idea the protein mass spewing out of my skull had so many uses once it's detached from me. Next they'll tell me that hair can replace cotton... and can openers... and plastic bags. I'm waiting. I got a haircut and found out that my hair stylist (who also owns the salon) was way ahead of me, and does indeed send hair trimmings to Matter of Trust. Bravo, Bravo! May 03, 2010 Giraffes and Red-Nosed Reindeer I already got a question about the previous post: "If giraffes don't have long necks because of generations of giraffes stretching their necks, how did they get so long?" In other words, "If you can't give acquired traits to your children, how do species get so well suited to their environment?" Let's stick with the giraffes: (By the way, doesn't it sound like the plural of giraffe should be giravves? Like half and halves? Hm.) Giraffes evolved from a deer-looking ancestor with an average neck length. A few random mutations in a group of them brought about a few individuals with longer necks. These long-neckies could reach leaves on trees that no one else could reach, so they never went hungry. They had long-necked children, and so on and so on until we get very long-necked giraffes (or giravves, if you're with me on this one). I'd like to imagine that the first of the really tall giraffes was mocked much like Rudolph--perhaps they never let him play in any giraffe games. But then when all the other giraffes saw that his long neck made him able to reach all the yummiest of the leaves up high on trees, they shut up about it--the same way that Rudolph's red nose mutation turned out to have a great purpose as well. In fact, that's really how evolution works. It's not that species come up with traits that would serve them well, it's that species find uses for the bizarre traits they have. So when I say that a species can't pass on inherited traits, it's another way of saying that a species can't choose to change or not change. It's not deliberate. You can't control it. Evolution doesn't care about what giraffes want. But giraffes can certainly make the best of it.
Figure 4. Unmasked Repeats. Cylinder Display showing large tandem repeats still remaining recognizable by Skittle, in the Repeat Masked Sequence (Feb. 2009). This section of Human Chromosome Y still displays many large repeats because they were outside of the scope of the masking program settings. A) 61 bp repeat also shown in Figure 1. B) 26 bp repeat. C) A region of unique DNA and sequence masked by N's (gray). D) 55 bp repeat. E) 49 bp repeat. F) 68/81 bp repeat. The alignment on this final repeat is not very clear from the sequence but it is still visible as repeating DNA when visualized in Skittle. Download authors' original image
Jump to Navigation The Death of George V Print this article Email this article The death of King George V, in January 1936, made a public impact which not only allowed Rudyard Kipling to slip into the grave comparatively unnoticed, but after half a century still seems historically remarkable. Eight years earlier, on December 9th, 1928, the King's life had been saved only at the last moment when Sir Bertrand Dawson, as he then was, succeeded in locating and draining the abscess that had gravely complicated an attack of pleurisy. That crisis, and the long months of recovery, had indeed inspired a surge of popular feeling towards the throne and its occupant, who had never courted personal publicity. But by 1935 the nation-wide fervour of the Silver Jubilee (in celebrations promoted by his Government, not himself) not only touched but amazed him, and Queen Mary also. Seven months later the spontaneous participation in his obsequies was hardly less spectacular. Nearly a million mourners filed silently round the bier in Westminster Hall, where it was guarded at one interval by the new monarch and his three brothers; and the final act at Windsor was delayed for an hour by the pressure of the crowds along the entire route. In 1928 the Great War that King George had keenly but privately felt to be 'horrible and unnecessary' had not yet been seen as a subject for books and plays, though the poets had their limited say. By 1936 the apprehensions of a second one were by close observers regarded as hastening his end. The reign of eighteen changing years had effectively become an era, and the very survival of the throne and the Empire had helped to make the King into something of a father-figure: though in a sense very different from that which he seems to have presented to his own family. That none of his sons was completely at ease with him is hardly surprising in the light of his own admission that he had himself feared his father, that his father had feared his, and that he intended to be feared in his turn. That, however, was no part of the generally accepted image. And if respect for a royal dedication to duty had been expanded into demonstrative affection, one significant cause is not far to seek. Please choose one of these options to access this article: Copyright 2012 History Today Ltd. All rights reserved.
Breaking News on Contract Research, Manufacturing & Clinical Trials Headlines > Preclinical Research Enzyme breaks down Alzheimer's plaque component By Wai Lang Chu , 27-Oct-2006 Scientists have uncovered a naturally occurring enzyme that can break down a component of the brain plaques that play a central role in Alzheimer's disease, which could provide researchers with a basis for new therapies to treat this disorder. Alzheimer's disease is the most common cause of dementia, accounting for about 60 per cent of all cases. It's a progressive disease of the brain that causes dementia, gradually destroying a person's memory and ability to learn, reason, make judgements, communicate and carry out normal daily activities. Current drugs to treat this disorder, donepezil, rivastigmine and galantamine, are of some value in certain people with early Alzheimer's disease. Patients only continue this treatment only if the person improves or at least does not become worse, and people must be reviewed every six months. In this latest piece of research researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis showed that the enzyme, matrix metalloproteinase 9 (MMP-9), degrades abnormally aggregated proteins known as amyloid fibrils, a main ingredient of brain plaques. In the brain, support cells known as astrocytes make MMP-9. MMP-9 has already been linked to cancer metastases, vascular disease, arthritis and arthritis and establishing a direct Alzheimer's link is encouraging as previously identified enzymes only degrade a smaller, nonaggregated component of Alzheimer's plaques. The study, led by Jin-Moo Lee, assistant professor of neurology found that disabling the mouse gene for MMP-9 increased levels of amyloid beta (Abeta) in the spaces between brain cells. The finding proves that MMP-9 contributes to clearance of Abeta from extracellular spaces and suggests its dysfunction could potentially contribute to the development of Alzheimer's. "We already knew of three enzymes that break down amyloid beta (Abeta), a protein fragment that clumps together with itself to form the fibrils," said Lee, "But the thinking up until now had been that Abeta might be clumping together so tightly that the fibrils were indestructible." "MMP-9 and other enzymes like it are secreted from brain support cells and active in the spaces outside of cells, and that's where we saw an increase in Abeta levels in the mice that lacked the gene for MMP-9. That's relevant to Alzheimer's because all the amyloid plaques are extracellular, and the formation of the plaques seems to be related to an elevated level of Abeta that accumulates over time in those spaces." However, these genes have been found in only a few hundred families worldwide. Alzheimer's caused by these genes is known as 'familial Alzheimer's disease'. Subscribe to our FREE newsletter
Edit Article • 14 Editors • Edited Three Parts:Germinating Sunflower SeedsPlanting Sunflower SeedsCaring for Sunflower Plants Sunflowers are annual plants that produce large or small yellow flowers in the summer. Sunflowers are very popular because of their beauty, and because they are easy to grow. Planting sunflower seeds in the spring can be a fun activity for adults and children. You can plant sunflower seeds with a minimum of time and preparation. Part 1 of 3: Germinating Sunflower Seeds 1. Plant Sunflower Seeds Step 5.jpg Check the outdoor temperatures. While sunflowers can be started indoors, they work best if they're moved outdoors within a week. They grow best at temperatures between 64 and 91ºF (18–33ºC), but you can give it at lower temperatures, once the last frost has passed.[1] • Sunflowers usually take 80–120 days to mature and produce new seeds, depending on the variety.[2] If the growing season is shorter than this in your area, plant the sunflowers two weeks before the last frost; most seeds will probably survive.[3] 2. Plant Sunflower Seeds Step 1.jpg Select a sunflower variety. There are many sunflower varieties and hybrids, but most gardeners will only need to look at a couple characteristics, usually described on the seed packet or online listing. Be sure to check the sunflower's maximum height, since this ranges from dwarf varieties under 1 foot (30 cm), to giant sunflowers 15 ft (4.6 m) or taller. Also, decide between a sunflower that produces one stalk and flower, or one that branches out into multiple stalks with several smaller blooms. • It is not possible to grow plants from roasted sunflower seeds, but you can grow it from sunflowers in bird seed, as long as the outer shell is present.[4] 3. 3 Fold the seeds in a damp paper towel. Moisten a paper towel slightly, so it is damp but not soaked or dripping. Place the sunflower seeds on one half of the towel, then fold it over to cover them. • If you have a large number of sunflower seeds, and don't mind a lower success rate, you can skip straight to planting. Seeds planted directly in the soil typically take 11 days to emerge.[5] • If you have a long growing season, try germinating seeds in batches 1 or 2 weeks apart, so you'll have blooms in your garden for a longer period of time. 4. 4 Keep the paper towels in a plastic bag. Put the damp paper towels in a plastic bag.[6] Check on them once or twice a day, and continue once the seeds have sprouted. Typically, you'll see sprouts emerge from most of the seeds within 48 hours.[7] Once this happens, move on to planting the seeds. • Keep the paper towels at a temperature above 50ºF (10ºC) for best results.[8] 5. 5 Clip the edge of the seed shells (if necessary). If the seeds don't sprout within two or three days, try using a fingernail clipper to remove the edge of the shell.[9] Be careful not to damage the seed inside. Add a few more drops of water if the paper towels are drying out. Part 2 of 3: Planting Sunflower Seeds 1. Plant Sunflower Seeds Step 2.jpg Choose a sunny location. Sunflowers grow best with 6–8 hours of sunlight a day, when they can get it.[10] Choose a location that receives direct sunlight during most of the day. • Unless your garden receives strong wind, keep the sunflowers away from trees, walls, and other objects that block sunlight. 2. 2 Check for deep soil drainage. Sunflowers grow long taproots, and may rot if the soil is waterlogged. Dig a hole 2 feet (0.6 meters) deep to check for hard, compacted soil.[11] If you find any, try mixing compost into your soil bed to improve the drainage. 3. 3 Consider soil quality. Sunflowers are not too picky, and can grow in average garden soils without extra treatment. If your soil is poor, or you want to put in the extra effort to encourage growth, mix rich, loamy soil into your planting area. There is rarely any need to adjust your soil pH, but if you already own a pH kit, you may adjust it to between 6.0 and 7.2.[12] • Rich soil is recommended for giant varieties, since they require more nutrients.[13] 4. Plant Sunflower Seeds Step 4.jpg Plant seeds 1 inch (2.5 cm) deep and 6 in. (15 cm) apart. Plant the seeds in holes or trenches one in. (2.5 cm) deep, or 2 in. (5 cm) if the soil is loose and sandy.[14] Keep seeds at least 6 in. (15 cm) from each other, to give each one enough space to grow. If you only have a few seeds and don't want to thin out the weaker plants later, plant them 1 ft. (30 cm) apart instead, or up to 1.5 ft. (46 cm) for giant varieties.[15] Cover the seeds with soil after planting. • If you are planting a large sunflower crop, space each trench 30 in (76 cm) apart, or at any distance convenient for your machinery.[16][17] Part 3 of 3: Caring for Sunflower Plants 1. 1 Keep soil around young plants moist. Keep the soil moist, but not damp, until the sprouts emerge from the soil.[18] While the sprouts are still small and fragile, water 3–4 inch (7.5–10 cm) away from the plant, to encourage root growth without washing the plants away.[19] 2. 2 Protect the plants from pests. Birds, squirrels, and snails love sunflower seeds, and may dig them up even before the sprouts have emerged. Cover the ground with netting to make this more difficult without blocking sprouts. Place snail bait or snail repellent in a circle to form a barrier around your planting area.[20] • If deer are in your area, encircle the plants with chicken wire once they start growing leaves, or protect your garden with a fence at least 6 ft. (1.8 m) tall.[21] 3. 3 Water maturing plants less frequently. Once the plants have formed stems and an established root system, reduce the watering frequency to once a week. Water generously during the weekly session, and increase the amount of water in dry weather. Sunflowers require more water than most other annual flowers.[22] 4. 4 Thin the plants (optional). Once the flowers are about 3 in (7.5 cm) tall, remove the smaller, weaker flowers until the remainder are spaced at least 1 ft (30 cm) apart. This will give the larger, healthier sunflowers more space and nutrients, resulting in taller stalks and larger blooms. • Skip this step if you want small blooms to arrange in bouquets, or if you planted at this spacing to begin with. 5. 5 Fertilize sparingly or not at all. If you are growing sunflowers for your own enjoyment, fertilization is not recommended, since they grow well without it and can suffer if overfed. If you are trying to grow extra-tall sunflowers, or growing them as a crop, dilute the fertilizer in water and pour into a "moat" around the plant, well away from the base.[23] A balanced or nitrogen-rich fertilizer are likely the best options.[24] • Another option is a one time application of slow-release fertilizer, worked into the soil. 6. 6 Stake plants if necessary. Plants over 3 ft (0.9 m) may need to be supported with stakes, as do varieties that produce multiple branches.[25] Tie the stalk loosely to the stake using cloth or other soft material. 7. 7 Harvest the seeds (optional). Sunflower blooms often last 30–45 days. Toward the end of this period, the green back of the flower head will begin to turn brown.[26] If you want to gather seeds for roasting, or for next year's planting, cover the flowers with paper bags to protect them from birds. Cut off the flowers once fully dry. • If left alone, the flowers will drop seeds for next year's crop. Harvesting them yourself guarantees protection from pests, however. We could really use your help! Can you tell us about Yes I can how to perform Umrah Can you tell us about Yes I can how to be strange Can you tell us about business writing? Yes I can business writing how to write a business report Can you tell us about social etiquette? Yes I can social etiquette how to get along with people who you don't necessarily like Thanks for helping! Please tell us everything you know about Provide Details. Don't say: Eat more fats. • Sunflowers are annual plants, and will die shortly after the flower withers. • Sunflowers produce chemicals that can inhibit the growth of nearby potatoes and pole beans, and potentially kill grass if allowed to build up. These chemicals are otherwise harmless.[27] • Don't plant it up against brickwork as stalks could grow between bricks and ruin it. Sources and Citations 1. http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/afcm/sunflower.html 2. http://www.burpee.com/flowers/sunflowers/all-about-sunflowers-article10035.html 4. http://www.almanac.com/plant/sunflowers 5. http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/afcm/sunflower.html 6. http://www.almanac.com/plant/sunflowers 7. http://www.sunflowerguide.com/growing-sunflowers.html 8. http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/afcm/sunflower.html 9. http://www.almanac.com/plant/sunflowers 10. http://www.almanac.com/plant/sunflowers 11. http://www.almanac.com/plant/sunflowers 12. http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/afcm/sunflower.html 13. http://www.gardenersnet.com/vegetable/sunflowr.htm 15. http://www.organicgardening.com/learn-and-grow/sunflowers-growing-guide 16. http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/afcm/sunflower.html 17. http://www.almanac.com/plant/sunflowers 18. http://www.reneesgarden.com/articles/grow-sunflower.html 19. http://www.almanac.com/plant/sunflowers 20. http://www.reneesgarden.com/articles/grow-sunflower.html 22. http://www.almanac.com/plant/sunflowers 23. http://www.reneesgarden.com/articles/grow-sunflower.html 24. http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/afcm/sunflower.html 26. http://www.almanac.com/plant/sunflowers Article Info Categories: Growing Flowers Recent edits by: Annabel Lektzian, Stuart73, Lutherus In other languages: Español: Cómo sembrar semillas de girasol, Português: Como Plantar Sementes de Girassol, Italiano: Come Piantare i Semi di Girasole, Русский: посадить семена подсолнуха, Deutsch: Sonnenblumen säen Thanks to all authors for creating a page that has been read 157,850 times. 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Time and Space Across Time and Space Angela Osuji Roosevelt High School, Minneapolis, MN This curriculum module encourages students to think about the concepts of time and space by showing them how they have been viewed at different times in history and in different cultures--including the Igbo culture of Nigeria. Level: Grades 8-9 This curriculum module was developed as part of a project sponsored by SciMath-MN and The Bakken Museum and Library. Click to see other modules using history and philosophy of science. Teaching Time and Space I had just introduced the unit on motion for my class when the school's Hmong (Cambodian) population celebrated their New Year. This celebration offered me an opportunity to introduce the concepts of space, time, motion, and relativity of motion from a different angle--by way of the calendar. The discourse centered around the following questions: This approach to teaching space and time is based on the premise that time and space are particularly suitable as a framework for a general cultural history because they are comprehensive, universal and essential. Everybody knows that time flows, equally without relation to anything external--a view expanded by Issac Newton. Space-time is both objective and subjective but nonetheless universal. A calendar arranges space-time in an orderly manner. The Calendar concept views time-space as continuously moving forward in consonance with Newton's classical theory of irreversibility of space-time. No occurrence in material world could affect the flow of time. Yet space-time is adjusted in the calendar as shown by number of days/months--indications of the interaction between space-time and matter (Einstein's theory of relative space-time). Objectives -- Students should understand/know that: 1. Motion (change in position in time and space) is both relative and absolute. 2. Einstein's theory of relativity and thus the emergence of reference frames of motion does not necessarily invalidate Newton's classical theory of absolute motion but extends and improves our understanding of changes in space and time. 3. The excitment/"magic" in both theories lies in the "ordinariness" of natural phenomena and the process of observation. 4. Without using only mathematical symbols or complex experiments and using the historico- socio-cultural phenomena, we can at the same conclusions Newton and Einstein arrived at. 5. The people involved in the development of scientific theories often operated from cultural view point and therefore are real. Lesson I: Introducing Motion Task 1: A walk in the classroom Make 5 rounds of walk on the marked parts in the class. Describe and explain how you would know: Task 2 Construct a device that will enable you measure the distance, time and speed. Repeat exercise 1 and measure the distance, time and speed with your device. Task 3: Repeat exercise 1 stopping briefly at each turn. Using a stopwatch and a meter stick measure and record the time (in seconds); distance (meters); speed (distance/time) at each stop. What is your average speed and total time? Theme to Highlight: No two walks are quite the same. This individuality is typical of most events occurring in nature. Assessment Product: 1. Students database/computer spreadsheet showing space, time, distance, speed. 2. Original device constructed by students to measure time and distance. Lesson 2: The Historical Development of the Concept of Motion Research and describe the concept of motion at some point in historical development of the concept of motion. Present idea/ideas in form of time lines. Theme to Highlight: Science concepts develop over time. Theories are modified based on prior experience. Assessment Product: Students time lines which must show date, period in history, names of people involved and concept of motion held. Lesson 3: Factors in Scientific Discovery Task: What lessons can we draw from the lives and works of: Present your ideas in form of tables or essay. Theme: Great discoveries begin with processes of observation, patience, hard work, favorable attitude and perseverance. Assessment Product: At least a 2-page typed report either contained in form of a table or paragraphs--each section showing lives and works of the people involved. LESSON 4: New Year in Another Culture Find another culture that does not celebrate the New Year on January 1 of the Gregorian calendar. For example, watch the performance of the school's Hmong New Year. Analyze their time/calendar system in relation to the Western Calendar System. What does their new year signify? How do they measure time? Are there indicators of time being relative or non-relative? Mention some other calendar systems different from the above? Write a report and present to class. Everyone is moving through time/space. We move through time at certain hours per day. Though we may not seem to be moving, we move through space with reference to any point outside the planet. Assessment: A written report. (Special Note: The students could present their report in form of a video report and present the video to class.) Lesson 5: Conceptions of space-time among different cultures with reference to relativity of space-time. The Igbo Calendar: Counting Time in Nigeria The IGBO calendar consists of a week (IZU) made up of four (4) days (Ubochi); a month (Onwa) of 28 days or seven native weeks (IZU asaa); a year or afo made up of 91 weeks (IZUS) or 13 months (Onwa). Incidentally, Onwa means moon in the Igbo language so the month is a lunar month. Below, the Igbo week (Izu), month (Onwa) and year (Afo, or Eye): The Priests of each community are the time keepers, and the process of time keeping is called Igu afo (also called aro or eye). The lunar months dictate major feasts and celebrations in Igboland as it is in most other African ethnic groups. The days (Ubochi) are individually called in Igbo language Eke, Orie (or Oye), Afo and Nkwo (E,O,A and N in the figure below). Markets are associated with these days and derive their names accordingly. What the calendar represents are natural movements. The day, for instance, is determined by the rotation of the earth on its axis; the month represents the time or period the moon takes to revolve around the earth; while the year follows the revolution of the earth around the sun. All time reckoning is based on these natural phenomena since their movements are constant. The resultant Igbo calendar with a 4-day week and 28-day month can be represented as follows: Month = 4 (days) x 7 (weeks) = 28 days Year = 28 (days) x 13 (months) = 364 days. Recently an adjustment is made to add 1 day. Years add together in blocks of five years to make a century: (Some native time keepers got confused with simultaneous use of the Gregorian (or the Egyptian) calendar and substituted the 4-day week with an 8-day week. The 8-day week was derived by adding Ukwu (big) and Nta (small) to the 4 days of Eke, Orie, Afo and Nkwo. Thus the 8-day week named individually becomes Eke Ukwu, Eke nta, Orie Ukwu, Orie Nta, Afo Ukwu, Afo Nta, Nkwo Ukwu and Nkwo nta. With an 8-day week, the data is as follows: Month = 8 (days) x 4 (weeks) = 32 days. Year = 32 (days) x 12 (months) = 384 days. or 32 (days) x 13 (Lunar months) = 416 days. Since the idea of a 384-day year or 416 day year is most unlikely, this calendar is unlikely to be found in Igboland.) The numbers 4 and 7 and the difference (3) arising thereof are sacred in Igbo rituals because of their relations to the calendar. The use of the 4-day week across many countries of West Africa up to the Congo basin suggest a shared historical and cultural experience. Origin of Igbo Calendar There are lots of legends and propositions about the origin of the calendar. From these legends and propositions run a central conception that there are four corners of the earth-represented by 4 days. Eke corresponds to the East; Orie to the West; Afo to the North and Nkwo to the south. The sun and the moon transverse the earth in different directions (across the length and breadth of the earth). The point of intersection between the movement of the sun and the moon symbolizes the center of the earth-the meeting point of all forces (natural and supernatural). This center which is a constant symbolizes cosmic equality. Comparison between the Igbo Calendar and the Gregorian (or Egyptian) Calendar The Egyptians adopted a seven-day week from the names of five planets plus the sun and the moon. The Romans and the rest of Europe used the Egyptian names for their days and week. Thus they have the names strictly based on the planetary names. However, the English made some changes of the names adapting them to those of their local gods. The Spanish and French still maintain these planetary names as we illustrate in the following chart. iSunDomingoSunday, day of the sun, SUNNANNDAEG ii MoonLunesMonday, day of the moon, MONANADAEG iiiMarsMartesTuesday,-TIW, god of war ivMercuryMiercolesWednesday,-from the god WODEN vJupiterJuevesThursday,-Thunderer,-Thor, thunder god viVenus ViernesFriday, FRIGG, wife of the god ODIN viiSaturnSabadoSaturday, SAETERSDAEG So far in the world chronologies, and particularly in Africa, a number of nations and cultures use either the seven-day week or the four-day week; but both paradigms of the calendar have African origins, namely the Egyptians and the Igbo. Until research presents other calendrical paradigms or models, the four-day and seven-day weeks show amazing coincidence. A close look at the Egyptian calendar in it natural stage, coinciding with the natural order, shows that it operates within the frame of the numbers four and seven as is the case in the Igbo four-day week: Igbo Time and Space The Igbo have a linear (and some argue, a cyclic) concept of time. There are evidences in Igbo land to buttress both viewpoints. The Age Grade system and the idea of reincarnation or cyclic agricultural seasons are indications of both linear and cyclic conceptions of time. Within this linear or cyclic framework, it is interesting to note that points in time are regarded as intervals along the linear continuum or the four corners of earth. This conception of time is therefore at variance with the atomistic nature of time made popular by Newton's calculus which conceive of time as a sum of infinitesimally small but discrete units. The Igbo space is associated with continuity, dimensionality, connectedness and orientability. These are especially manifested at cross-roads, market places, and the interaction of the sky (elu), the earth (Ala) and the underworld (Ala Mmuo). Measuring Time and Space The Igbo measure time with motion-the moon phase, the season, night and day, shadows across sundial, ocean tide among others. It is not uncommon for children to use evaporation of drops of water or spit. The motion associated with these events is regular and orderly and therefore constitutes index of time associated with science. Space is measured with foot lengths, strides, landmarks or time of journey (similar to using light year as an estimate of distance). All these are associated with motion. Observations of motion in space and time are certain/absolute (Newtonian motion) and also dependent on who/what is being observed (Einstein's relativity of motion). The Igbo also hold the view that things/events/people move through space-time while space- time remains constant-hence seasons come and go, people live and die, the sun rises and sets but there is Ndudu gandu nile, ebebe ebebe (world without end).
Twin paradox From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - View original article Jump to: navigation, search In physics, the twin paradox is a thought experiment in special relativity involving identical twins, one of whom makes a journey into space in a high-speed rocket and returns home to find that the twin who remained on Earth has aged more. This result appears puzzling because each twin sees the other twin as traveling, and so, according to an incorrect naive application of time dilation, each should paradoxically find the other to have aged more slowly. However, this scenario can be resolved within the standard framework of special relativity (because the twins are not equivalent; the space twin experienced additional, asymmetrical acceleration when switching direction to return home), and therefore is not a paradox in the sense of a logical contradiction. Starting with Paul Langevin in 1911, there have been numerous explanations of this paradox, many based upon there being no contradiction because there is no symmetry—only one twin has undergone acceleration and deceleration, thus differentiating the two cases. Max von Laue argued in 1913 that since the traveling twin must be in two separate inertial frames, one on the way out and another on the way back, this frame switch is the reason for the aging difference, not the acceleration per se.[1] Explanations put forth by Albert Einstein and Max Born invoked gravitational time dilation to explain the aging as a direct effect of acceleration.[2] In his famous work on special relativity in 1905, Albert Einstein predicted that when two clocks were brought together and synchronized, and then one was moved away and brought back, the clock which had undergone the traveling would be found to be lagging behind the clock which had stayed put.[A 4] Einstein considered this to be a natural consequence of special relativity, not a paradox as some suggested, and in 1911, he restated and elaborated on this result as printed below, (with physicist Robert Resnick's comments following Einstein's):[A 5][3] Neither Einstein nor Langevin considered such results to be literally paradoxical: Einstein only called it "peculiar" while Langevin presented it as a consequence of absolute acceleration.[A 10] A paradox in logical and scientific usage refers to results which are inherently contradictory, that is, logically impossible and both men argued that, from the time differential illustrated by the story of the twins, no self-contradiction could be constructed. In other words, neither Einstein nor Langevin saw the story of the twins as constituting a challenge to the self-consistency of relativistic physics. Specific example[edit] (To make the numbers easy, the ship is assumed to attain its full speed immediately upon departure—actually it would take close to a year accelerating at 1 g to get up to speed.) The parties will observe the situation as follows:[5][6] The Earth-based mission control reasons about the journey this way: the round trip will take t = 2d/v = 10 years in Earth time (i.e. everybody on Earth will be 10 years older when the ship returns). The amount of time as measured on the ship's clocks and the aging of the travelers during their trip will be reduced by the factor \scriptstyle {\epsilon ={\sqrt {1-v^{2}/c^{2}}}}, the reciprocal of the Lorentz factor. In this case ε = 0.6 and the travelers will have aged only 0.6 × 10 = 6 years when they return. Resolution of the paradox in special relativity[edit] The standard textbook approach treats the twin paradox as a straightforward application of special relativity. Here the Earth and the ship are not in a symmetrical relationship: regardless of whether we view the situation from the perspective of the Earth or the ship, the ship experiences additional acceleration forces. The ship has a turnaround in which it undergoes non-inertial motion, while the Earth has no such turnaround. Since there is no symmetry, it is not paradoxical if one twin is younger than the other. Nevertheless it is still useful to show that special relativity is self-consistent, and how the calculation is done from the standpoint of the traveling twin. Special relativity does not claim that all observers are equivalent, only that all observers at rest in inertial reference frames are equivalent. But the space ship jumps frames (accelerates) when it performs a U-turn. In contrast, the twin who stays at Earth remains in the same inertial frame for the whole duration of his brother's flight. No accelerating or decelerating forces apply to the twin on Earth. There are indeed not two but three relevant inertial frames: the one in which the Earth-based twin remains at rest, the one in which the traveling twin is at rest on his outward trip, and the one in which he is at rest on his way home. It is during the acceleration at the U-turn that the traveling twin switches frames. That is when he must adjust his calculated age relative to the Earth-based twin. Minkowski diagram of the twin paradox. Time is relative, but both twins are not equivalent (the ship experiences additional acceleration due to changes in the direction of travel). In special relativity there is no concept of absolute present. The present from the point of view of a given observer is defined as the set of events that are simultaneous for that observer. The notion of simultaneity depends on the frame of reference (see relativity of simultaneity), so switching between frames requires an adjustment in the definition of the present. If one imagines a present as a (three-dimensional) simultaneity plane in Minkowski space, then switching frames results in changing the inclination of the plane. The twin paradox illustrates a feature of the special relativistic spacetime model, the Minkowski space. The world lines of the inertially moving bodies are the geodesics of Minkowskian spacetime. In Minkowski geometry the world lines of inertially moving bodies maximize the proper time elapsed between two events. Transfer of clock reading in a twin paradox trip[edit] An "out and back" twin paradox adventure may incorporate the transfer of clock reading from an "outgoing" astronaut to an "incoming" astronaut, thus entirely eliminating the effect of acceleration. Acceleration is not involved in any kinematical effects of special relativity. The time differential between two reunited clocks is deduced through purely uniform linear motion considerations, as seen in Einstein's original paper on the subject,[7] as well as in all subsequent derivations of the Lorentz transformations. Because spacetime diagrams incorporate Einstein's clock synchronization, there will be a requisite "jump in time" in the calculation made by a "suddenly returning astronaut" who inherits a "new meaning of simultaneity" in keeping with that clock synchronization (with its lattice of clocks methodology) as explained in Spacetime Physics by John A. Wheeler.[8] Such clock synchronization makes an absolute frame of reference superfluous for all predictive purposes.[9] If, instead of incorporating Einstein's clock synchronization (lattice of clocks), the astronaut (outgoing and incoming) and the Earth-based party regularly update each other on the status of their clocks by way of sending radio signals (which travel at light speed), then all parties will note an incremental build up of asymmetry in time-keeping, beginning at the "turn around" point. Prior to the "turn around", each party regards the other party's clock to be recording time differently than his own, but the noted difference is symmetrical between the two parties. After the "turn around", the noted differences are not symmetrical, and the asymmetry grows incrementally until the two parties are reunited. Upon finally reuniting, this asymmetry can be seen in the actual difference showing on the two reunited clocks. It would probably be prudent to mention: All processes—chemical, biological, measuring apparatus functioning, human perception involving the eye and brain, the communication of force—everything, is constrained by the speed of light. There is clock functioning at every level, dependent on light speed and the inherent delay at even the atomic level. Thus, we speak of the "twin paradox", involving biological aging. It is in no way different from clock time-keeping. Biological aging is equated to clock time-keeping by John A. Wheeler in Spacetime Physics.[10] What it looks like: the relativistic Doppler shift[edit] f_{{\mathrm {obs}}}=f_{{\mathrm {rest}}}{\sqrt {\left({1-v/c}\right)/\left({1+v/c}\right)}} f_{{\mathrm {obs}}}=f_{{\mathrm {rest}}}{\sqrt {\left({1+v/c}\right)/\left({1-v/c}\right)}} This is fobs = 3frest for v/c = 0.8. Light paths for images exchanged during trip Left: Earth to ship. Right: Ship to Earth. Red lines indicate low frequency images are received Blue lines indicate high frequency images are received The asymmetry in the Doppler shifted images[edit] Calculation of elapsed time from the Doppler diagram[edit] f_{{\mathrm {rest}}}{\sqrt {\left({1+v/c}\right)/\left({1-v/c}\right)}}\times \left(1-v/c\right)=f_{{\mathrm {rest}}}{\sqrt {1-v^{2}/c^{2}}}\equiv \epsilon f_{{\mathrm {rest}}} Simultaneity in the Doppler shift calculation[edit] Viewpoint of the traveling twin[edit] The following paragraph shows several things: \Delta \tau =\int {\sqrt {1-(v(t)/c)^{2}}}\ dt\ v(t)={\frac {at}{{\sqrt {1+\left({\frac {at}{c}}\right)^{2}}}}}. This integral can be calculated for the 6 phases:[13] Phase 1 :\quad c/a\ {\text{arsinh}}(a\ T_{a}/c)\, Phase 2 :\quad T_{c}\ {\sqrt {1-V^{2}/c^{2}}} V=a\ T_{a}/{\sqrt {1+(a\ T_{a}/c)^{2}}} a\ T_{a}=V/{\sqrt {1-V^{2}/c^{2}}} So the traveling clock K' will show an elapsed time of \Delta \tau =2T_{c}{\sqrt {1-V^{2}/c^{2}}}+4c/a\ {\text{arsinh}}(a\ T_{a}/c) which can be expressed as \Delta \tau =2T_{c}/{\sqrt {1+(a\ T_{a}/c)^{2}}}+4c/a\ {\text{arsinh}}(a\ T_{a}/c) whereas the stationary clock K shows an elapsed time of \Delta t=2T_{c}+4T_{a}\, \Delta t>\Delta \tau \, In the standard proper time formula \Delta \tau =\int _{0}^{{\Delta t}}{\sqrt {1-\left({\frac {v(t)}{c}}\right)^{2}}}\ dt,\ \Delta t^{2}=\left[\int _{0}^{{\Delta \tau }}e^{{\int _{0}^{{{\bar {\tau }}}}a(\tau ')d\tau '}}\,d{\bar \tau }\right]\,\left[\int _{0}^{{\Delta \tau }}e^{{-\int _{0}^{{{\bar \tau }}}a(\tau ')d\tau '}}\,d{\bar \tau }\right],\ {\begin{aligned}\Delta t^{2}&=\left[\int _{0}^{{\Delta \tau }}e^{{\int _{0}^{{{\bar {\tau }}}}a(\tau ')d\tau '}}\,d{\bar \tau }\right]\,\left[\int _{0}^{{\Delta \tau }}e^{{-\int _{0}^{{{\bar \tau }}}a(\tau ')d\tau '}}\,d{\bar \tau }\right]\\&>\left[\int _{0}^{{\Delta \tau }}e^{{\int _{0}^{{{\bar {\tau }}}}a(\tau ')d\tau '}}\,e^{{-\int _{0}^{{{\bar \tau }}}a(\tau ')\,d\tau '}}\,d{\bar \tau }\right]^{2}=\left[\int _{0}^{{\Delta \tau }}d{\bar \tau }\right]^{2}=\Delta \tau ^{2}.\end{aligned}} \Delta t={\frac {1}{{\sqrt {1-{\tfrac {v^{2}}{c^{2}}}}}}}\Delta \tau .\ \Delta t=\int _{0}^{{\Delta \tau }}e^{{\pm \int _{0}^{{{\bar {\tau }}}}a(\tau ')d\tau '}}\,d{\bar \tau },\ \Delta t={\tfrac {4}{a}}\sinh({\tfrac {a}{4}}\Delta \tau )\ A rotational version[edit] Twins Bob and Alice inhabit a space station in circular orbit around a massive body in space. Bob departs the station and uses a rocket to hover in the fixed position where he left Alice, while she stays in the station. When the station completes an orbit and returns to Bob, he rejoins Alice. Alice is now younger than Bob.[15] In addition to rotational acceleration, Bob must decelerate to become stationary and then accelerate again to match the orbital speed of the space station. Explanation in terms of Mach's principle[edit] A minority of physicists also favor some version of Mach's principle, which would imply that the difference between accelerated motion and inertial motion can only be defined relative to the rest of the matter in the universe, often referred to as motion relative to the "fixed stars". For example, A.P. French writes, regarding the twin paradox: "Note, though, that we are appealing to the reality of A's acceleration, and to the observability of the inertial forces associated with it. Would such effects as the twin paradox exist if the framework of fixed stars and distant galaxies were not there? Most physicists would say no. Our ultimate definition of an inertial frame may indeed be that it is a frame having zero acceleration with respect to the matter of the universe at large."[16] See also[edit] Primary sources[edit] 3. ^ Bailey, H. et al. (1977). "Measurements of relativistic time dilatation for positive and negative muons in a circular orbit". Nature 268 (5618): 301–305. Bibcode:1977Natur.268..301B. doi:10.1038/268301a0. 4. ^ Einstein, Albert (1905). "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies". Annalen der Physik 17 (10): 891. Bibcode:1905AnP...322..891E. doi:10.1002/andp.19053221004. 5. ^ Einstein, Albert (1911). "Die Relativitäts-Theorie". Naturforschende Gesellschaft, Zürich, Vierteljahresschrift 56: 1–14. 6. ^ Langevin, P. (1911), "The evolution of space and time", Scientia X: 31–54 (translated by J. B. Sykes, 1973). 7. ^ von Laue, Max (1911). "Zwei Einwände gegen die Relativitätstheorie und ihre Widerlegung (Two Objections Against the Theory of Relativity and their Refutation)". Physikalische Zeitschrift 13: 118–120. 9. ^ von Laue, Max (1913). "Das Relativitätsprinzip (The Principle of Relativity)". Jahrbücher der Philosophie 1: 99–128. Secondary sources[edit] 4. ^ Debs, Talal A.; Redhead, Michael L.G. (1996). "The twin "paradox" and the conventionality of simultaneity". American Journal of Physics 64 (4): 384–392. Bibcode:1996AmJPh..64..384D. doi:10.1119/1.18252. 5. ^ Jain, Mahesh C. (2009). Textbook Of Engineering Physics, Part I. PHI Learning Pvt. p. 74. ISBN 8120338626. , Extract of page 74 6. ^ Sardesai, P. L. (2004). Introduction to Relativity. New Age Internationa. p. 27-28. ISBN 8122415202. , Extract of page 27 10. ^ Wheeler, J., Taylor, E. (1992). Spacetime Physics, second edition. W.H. Freeman: New York, p. 150. 11. ^ Jones, Preston; Wanex, L.F. (February 2006). "The clock paradox in a static homogeneous gravitational field". Foundations of Physics Letters 19 (1): 75–85. arXiv:physics/0604025. Bibcode:2006FoPhL..19...75J. doi:10.1007/s10702-006-1850-3. 12. ^ Dolby, Carl E. and Gull, Stephen F (2001). "On Radar Time and the Twin 'Paradox'". American Journal of Physics 69 (12): 1257–1261. arXiv:gr-qc/0104077. Bibcode:2001AmJPh..69.1257D. doi:10.1119/1.1407254. 16. ^ French, A.P. (1968). Special relativity. W.W. Norton, New York. p. 156. ISBN 0-393-09804-4. Further reading[edit] The ideal clock Gravitational time dilation; time dilation in circular motion External links[edit]
Analysing intraspecific genetic variation: A practical guide using mitochondrial DNA and microsatellites Edit Item Edit Item General Information: Leese, F. and Held, C. (2011): Analysing intraspecific genetic variation: A practical guide using mitochondrial DNA and microsatellites / C. Held , S. Koenemann and C. Schubart (editors) , In: Phylogeography and Population Genetics in Crustacea, Held,C., S. Koenemann, C.D.Schubart (eds): Phylogeography and Population Genetics in Crustacea, Crustacean Issues Vol 19, CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL, CRC Press, 28 p., ISBN: 9781439840733 . Cite this page as: Contact Email: Supplementary Information: Population geneticists and phylogeographers are interested in understanding the processes that have shaped the present distribution and diversity of organisms and the genetic variation they contain. In this context, the analysis of spatial patterns of molecular variation within a species has a long- standing tradition. Recently, as a by-product of the rise of DNA barcoding efforts and technological progress, the availability of datasets on intraspecific variability has increased significantly. Re- searchers with many different backgrounds are therefore increasingly being faced with the need to carry out a meaningful analysis in the context of population genetics and phylogeography. A central limitation present in many studies today is that either a single or few mitochondrial gene fragments are being studied as a basis for reconstructing the genetic structure of species and inferring their evolutionary history, even though evidence is mounting that analyses based on a single marker in general, and on a single mitochondrial marker in particular, may be severely biased and may even lead to false conclusions. In this chapter, we emphasize that an independent class of markers should be chosen to com- plement a mitochondrial dataset. Accordingly, we outline a workflow based on several independent microsatellites in addition to mitochondrial DNA. This guideline builds upon earlier synopses and adds new perspectives afforded by novel laboratory and bioinformatic microsatellite screening pro- cedures. Finally, we summarize basic analytic concepts and common problems associated with their application and highlight the utility of different programs in a workflow towards a hypothesis-driven analysis of intraspecific variation. Where possible, we chose studies on crustaceans as examples. Further Details: read more OAI 2.0: ePIC is powered by: EPrints 3
How to Prune Bushes After Cold Weather by Angela Ryczkowski Late fall pruning or fertilizing can stimulate a flush of new growth especially susceptible to cold injury. Even in mild, Mediterranean-type climates an occasional frost or freeze can occur, potentially damaging tender herbaceous plants, trees and shrubs. Above-freezing cold temperatures can also injure particularly vulnerable or poorly acclimated specimens. Measures that include moving container specimens to protected areas, covering shrubs correctly and providing supplemental heat can help to prevent or minimize cold weather injury. However, where cold damage does occur, corrective pruning is necessary to remove injured or dead parts of the plant, which are both unsightly and vulnerable to invasion by diseases and pests. Monitor the bushes for several days or weeks following cold weather, as the extent of the damage will often not be immediately clear. Damage to the leaves and tender shoots is usually apparent within a few days and often appears as discolored or dried areas. On larger branches, there may be obvious discoloration, depending on the shrub species. Scrape a thin layer of bark gently off of potentially damaged branches in multiple, small spots until you determine where dead tissue ends and living, healthy tissue begins. When you peel off bark, the cambium layer immediately under the bark will look black, brown or dry if it is damaged and green if it is healthy. Prune off injured portions of the bush, making each cut into healthy tissue at least a few inches below where cold damage ends and just above a bud or junction with another branch. To encourage a more natural appearance, cut the branch back to just above a bud facing towards the exterior of the bush or in the desired direction. Things You Will Need • Sharp knife • Sharp, sterile pruning shears, loppers or other pruning tool • Wait until all possibility of another spell of cold weather or frost has passed before pruning off damaged tissue. Leaving the dead parts in place helps to protect the still-living tissue from cold injury and prevents the emergence of vulnerable new growth while there is still potential for cold injury. About the Author Photo Credits • Thinkstock Images/Comstock/Getty Images Suggest a Correction Have Feedback?
sea squirtalso called ascidianany member of the invertebrate class Ascidiacea (subphylum Urochordata, also called Tunicata), marine animals with some primitive vertebrate features. Sea squirts are fixed growing organisms resembling potatoes more than animalssessile (that is, permanently fixed to a surface), potato-shaped organisms found in all seas; they are found in all seas, from the intertidal zone to the greatest depths. All adult forms are sessile (permanently fixed to a surface). They are commonly found Sea squirts commonly reside on pier pilings, ships’ hulls, rocks, large seashells, and the backs of large crabs. Some species live individually; others live in groups or colonies. The body has an outer protective covering, the tunic. There are two large pores, one to take guide water into the body cavity, the other to expel it. serving as an exit. Water is propelled through the animal by pharyngeal cilia. Food and oxygen are taken from the water current as water passes through gill slits in the pharynx. Near the shore, debris from dead plants and animals constitutes an important part of the diet; in deeper water, plankton (microscopic plants and animals) is a more important food. Although all adults have are simultaneous hermaphrodites (that is, they possess both functional male and female reproductive organs), eggs shed into the water are fertilized by sperm from another individualother individuals. The tadpole-like larvae are free-swimming. Behind a sucker on the front of the head is the mouth. A The muscular tail contains a notochord (a flexible, rodlike structure common to all vertebrates) and a nerve cord are in the tail. When the larva finds a place to settlemetamorphose, it attaches itself by the a sucker ; the located at the anterior end of the body. Later, the tail, with its notochord and nerve cord, is absorbed and disappears. Reproduction also occurs by budding: near the base of the sea squirt fingerlike projections (stolons) break off and settle elsewhere to become new individuals.
Crop circle discovered at Alton Barnes in England in June 2004. Photo courtesy Introduction to How Crop Circles Work The sun sets on a field in southern England. When it rises again the following morning, that field has been transformed into an enormous work of art. A large section of the crop has been tamped into a pattern of circles, rings and other intricate geometric shapes. But who created it? Are crop circles the work of alien visitors? Are they a natural phenomenon, created by electrically charged currents of air? Or are they elaborate hoaxes perpetrated by savvy, talented and very determined circlemakers? Believers and naysayers each have their own theories, but the truth remains elusive. In this article, we'll look into the phenomenon of crop circles -- what they are, where they can be found, how they are made (from the people who claim to create them), and how researchers are studying them in an effort to separate the supernatural from the scientific. This "optical labyrinth" formation, located near Savernake Forest in Wiltshire, consists of 180 separate standing and flattened elements and is approximately 200 feet (60 meters) across. Photo courtesy What are Crop Circles? Sometimes, the patterns are simple circles. In other instances, they are elaborate designs consisting of several interconnecting geometric shapes. Farmers have reported finding strange circles in their fields for centuries. The earliest mention of a crop circle dates back to the 1500s. A 17th-century English woodcut shows a devilish creature making a crop circle. People who lived in the area called the creature the "mowing devil." Mentions of crop circles were sporadic until the 20th century, when circles began appearing in the 1960s and '70s in England and the United States. But the phenomenon didn't gain attention until 1980, when a farmer in Wiltshire County, England, discovered three circles, each about 60 feet (18 meters) across, in his oat crops. UFO researchers and media descended on the farm, and the world first began to learn about crop circles. Formation at Ogbourne St. George in Wiltshire Photo courtesy Crop Circle Designs Crop circles are not just circles -- they can come in many different shapes. The most basic (and the most common) crop circle is the single circle. Circles may also come in sets of two (doublets), three (triplets) or four (quadruplets). Circles also may be enclosed in a thin outer ring. The stalks inside a crop circle are typically bent into what is known as a swirl pattern, and the circles may spin clockwise or counterclockwise. In patterns with several circles, one circle may spin clockwise and another counterclockwise. Even a single circle may contain two "layers" of stalks, each spinning in a different direction. A crop circle near Silbury Hill in Wiltshire, England, that resembles an Aztec Sun Stone Photo courtesy A formation at West Kennett in Wiltshire that looks like a Celtic symbol called the Triskell Photo courtesy Crop circles can range in size from a few inches to a few hundred feet across. Most early crop circles were simple circular designs. But after 1990, the circles became more elaborate. More complex crop patterns, called pictograms, emerged. Crops can be made to look like just about anything -- smiling faces, flowers or even words. Crop circles are sometimes unique designs, but they can also be based on ancient motifs. Some of the more sophisticated patterns are based on mathematical equations. Astronomer and former Boston University professor Gerald S. Hawkins studied several crop circles and found that the positions of the circles, triangles and other shapes were placed based on specific numerical relationships. In one crop circle that had an outer and an inner circle, the area of the outer circle was exactly four times that of the inner circle. The specific placement of the shapes indicates that, whoever the circlemakers are, they have an intricate knowledge of Euclidean geometry (the geometry of a flat surface introduced by the mathematician Euclid of Alexandria). Some circles have thin lines leading away from them. These lines, called spurs, are not actually a part of the circle. They are created by the farmer's tractor. Formation at Avebury Trusloe in Wiltshire Photo courtesy Crop Circle Locations The "season" for crop circles runs from April to September, which coincides with the growing season. Circles tend to be created at night, hiding their creators (human or otherwise) from curious eyes. Crop circles can be found in many different types of fields -- wheat, corn, oats, rice, oil-seed rape, barley, rye, tobacco -- even weeds. Most circles are found in low-lying areas close to steep hills, which may explain the wind theory of their creation. Now, let's get into some of the crop circle theories. Doug and Dave, in Doug's Southampton studio in 1992 Photo courtesy Who Makes Crop Circles? The answer of who or what is creating these crop formations is not an easy one to answer. Some people claim they are the work of UFOs. Others say they are a natural phenomenon. Still others say they are elaborate hoaxes perpetrated by teams of circlemakers. The Theories UFOs and Aliens Possibly the most controversial theory is that crop circles are the work of visitors from other planets -- sort of like alien calling cards. People who agree with this theory say that the circles are either the imprint left by landing spacecraft or messages brought from afar for us earthlings. Some eyewitnesses claim to have seen UFO-like lights and strange noises emanating from crop circle sites. Dr. Terence Meaden of the Tornado and Storm Research Organization (TORRO) in Wiltshire, England, says the vortices that create crop circles are charged with energy (his idea is called the Plasma Vortex Theory). When dust particles get caught up in the spinning, charged air, they can appear to glow, which may explain the UFO-like glowing lights many witnesses have seen near crop circles. A few researchers have theorized that small airplanes or helicopters stir up downdrafts that push the crops down into patterns. Recreation attempts so far have not been able to produce the types of downdrafts necessary to make the perfectly round edges seen in most crop circles. Earth Energy Other researchers say that the energy comes from under the ground or in the soil. Either the energy is natural, such as a fungus that attacks the crops and causes their stems to bend over, or it is a byproduct of something man-made, such as bombs that exploded during World War II. The easiest explanation for crop circles is that they are man-made hoaxes, created either for fun or to stump the scientists. Among the most famous hoaxers are the British team of Doug Bower and Dave Chorley, known as "Doug and Dave." In 1991, the duo came out and announced that they had made hundreds of crop circles since 1978. To prove that they were responsible, they filmed themselves for the BBC making a circle with a rope-and-plank contraption in a Wiltshire field (see the next section for information on making a crop circle). Joe Nickell, Senior Research Fellow of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP) says that crop circles have all the hallmarks of hoaxes: They are concentrated primarily in southern England; they've become more elaborate over the years (indicating that hoaxers are getting better at their craft); and their creators never allow themselves to be seen. But even with crop circlemakers claiming responsibility for hundreds of designs, hoaxes can't account for all of the thousands of crop circles created. Colin Andrews, cereologist and author of the book, Circular Evidence, admits that about 80 percent of crop circles are probably man-made, but says that the other 20 percent are probably the work of some "higher force." Circlemaker John Lundberg displaying one of the 'stalk stompers' (and standing in front of the combine) his team will use to create the formation. Photo courtesy How Do You Make a Crop Circle? Crop circles appear to be very intricate formations, with many geometric shapes linked in sophisticated patterns. But the basics of crop-circle creation and the tools involved are actually fairly simple. In general, circlemakers follow the following steps: 1. Choose a location. 2. Create a diagram of the design (although some circlemakers decide to come up with an idea spontaneously when they arrive at their intended site). 3. Once they arrive at the field, they use ropes and poles to measure out the circle. 4. One circlemaker stands in the middle of the proposed circle and turns on one foot while pushing the crop down with the other foot to make a center. 5. The team makes the radius of the circle using a long piece of rope tied at both ends to an approximately 4-foot-long (1.2-meter) board called a stalk stomper (a garden roller can also be used). One member of the team stands at the center of the circle while the other walks around the edge of the circle, putting one foot in the middle of the board to stomp down the circle's outline. Photos courtesy Circlemakers Rod Dickinson and Wil Russell in action This is the resulting formation. Created in a field opposite Silbury Hill in Wiltshire, it took the team five hours to create. Photo courtesy In August 2004, National Geographic contacted a team including circlemakers John Lundberg, Rod Dickinson and Wil Russell and requested a daylight demonstration in Wiltshire in support of a crop-circle documentary. These are the plans they worked from: Circlemakers avoid getting caught by working under cover of night and by hiding their tracks in existing tractor-tire ruts. This formation was discovered in Eastfield, England, in June 2004. An article in the Western Daily Press called the design "uncannily similar to plans for one of Nikola Tesla's early pieces of equipment." Photo courtesy How Do Researchers Study Crop Circles? When researchers come to the scene of a crop circle, they conduct a thorough investigation, including the following methods: • Talking to possible eyewitnesses and residents living nearby • Examining the location and the weather where circles have formed • Examining the affected crops and the surrounding soil with sophisticated techniques such as X-ray diffraction analysis (firing X-rays at a sample to determine its composition materials) • Taking electromagnetic energy readings inside and near the crop circles • Analyzing the circle patterns (Some complex patterns are compared with hieroglyphics or other ancient symbols.) To find out more about crop circles and related topics, check out the links on the next page. Lots More Information Related ArticlesMore Great LinksBooksSources • Anderson, Alun. "Britain's Crop Circles: Reaping by Whirlwind?" Science, Volume 253 (August 30, 1991): pgs. 961-962. • Beginners Guide, Circlemakers. • The Crop Circle Connector • Crop Circles Mystify Russian Farmers, BBC News, June 24, 2000. • "Crop Circles: Theorems in Wheat Fields," Science News, Volume 150, Number 15 (October 12, 1996): page 239. • Earth Energies, Alexandria, Virginia: Time-Life Books, 1991. • Fuller, Paul.Rand in Circles, Circlemakers. • Harrison, David. The Fellowship of the Rings, The Telegraph, July 25, 2004. • Nickel, Joe. Circular Reasoning: The 'Mystery' of Crop Circles and Their 'Orbs' of Light, Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, Special Report. • Other Facts, BLT Research Team, Inc. • Oxlade, Chris. The Mystery of Crop Circles, Reed Educational and Professional Publishing: Des Plaines, IL, 1999. • Randles, Jenny and Peter Hough. The Complete Book of UFOs, New York, NY: Sterling Publishing Co., Inc., 1996. • UFO: The Continuing Enigma, Pleasantville, New York: Reader's Digest, 1991.
The Magnoliaceae are woody trees and shrubs comprising 12 genera and about 220 species. The leaves are simple, and alternate, usually with deciduous stipules that enclose the bud. The flowers are bisexual, actinomorphic, and usually large, generally with 3 sepals and 6 to many petals. The androecium consists of many helically disposed stamens, each with generally large microsporangia and usually a short, poorly differentiated filament. The gynoecium is apocarpous, consisting of many helically disposed simple pistils. Each pistil has a superior ovary with a single locule and one to several marginal ovules. All of the floral parts are distinct and are attached to an elongated receptacle. The pistils mature into follicles or less often berries or samaras. Magnolia grandiflora. Note the large, bowl-shaped flower consisting of undifferentiated perianth segments. The elongated receptacle also bears many separate stamens and pistils. In the lower photo the perianth segments and most of the stamens have abscised from the floral axis. The pistils remain and are developing into follicles. Magnolia liliflora. In the 4th photo some of the perianth segments have been removed to reveal the androecium and gynoecium. Magnolia stellata, Corvallis, OR, 2003. Magnolia sp., Corvallis, OR, 2003. Liriodendron tulipifera, tulip tree. This longitudinal section of the flower shows the greatly elongated floral axis, distally bearing many closely appressed, yet distinct pistils. In this case the pistils will develop into samaras. Michelia champaca, orange champak. Note the elongated receptacle with many separate stamens and pistils and the development of each pistil into a follicle. This species has strongly scented flowers that are used for perfume. Michelia alba, white champak. Plant Family Access Page Home Page
Don't give infants or toddlers cold or cough medicines If your child is less than two years old and has a cold, don't give him or her over-the-counter cold or cough medicines. So says the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which has issued a Public Health Advisory for parents and caregivers, recommending that such cough and cold products not be used to treat infants and toddlers because serious and potentially life-threatening side effects can occur from such use. There are a wide variety of rare, serious adverse events reported with cough and cold products, including death, convulsions, rapid heart rates, and decreased levels of consciousness. "The FDA strongly recommends to parents and caregivers that OTC cough and cold medicines not be used for children younger than two," said Charles Ganley, M.D., director of the FDA's Office of Nonprescription Products. "These medicines, which treat symptoms and not the underlying condition, have not been shown to be safe or effective in children under two." The agency plans to issue its recommendations on use of the products in children ages two to 11 years as soon as its review is complete. Pending completion of the FDA's ongoing review, parents and caregivers that choose to use OTC cough and cold medicines to children ages two to 11 years should: * Follow the dosing directions on the label of any OTC medication and understand that these drugs will not cure or shorten the duration of the common cold, * Check the "Drug Facts" label to learn what active ingredients are in the products because many OTC cough and cold products contain multiple active ingredients, and only use measuring spoons or cups that come with the medicine or those made specially for measuring drugs.
a homeopath... Dr. Bela Homeopathy Doctor A scanty menstrual period is one in which the duration of flow is less than two days or the amount of blood flow is less than normal. Medically it is known as hypomenorrhoea. • Uterine: Scanty loss sometimes means that the bleeding surface is smaller than normal, and is occasionally seen when the endomaterial cavity has been reduced in size during myomectomy or other plastic operation on the uterus. However, it rarely indicates uterine hypoplasia because the presence of this condition in a uterus which is responsive to hormones betokens ovarian under activity, and this manifests itself by infrequent rather than scanty menstruation. • Hormonal: Scanty menses or periods can occur normally at the extremes of the reproductive life that is, just after puberty and just before menopause. This is because ovulation is irregular at this time, and the endomaterial lining fails to develop normally. But normal problems at other times can also cause scanty blood flow. Anovulation due to a low thyroid hormone level, high prolactin level, high insulin level, high androgen level and problems with other hormone can also cause scanty periods. Scanty menses can also occur after long-term use of oral contraceptive as a result of progressive endometrial atrophy. • Nervous and emotional: Psychogenic factors like stress due to exams, or excessive excitement about an upcoming event may cause hypomenorrhea. Such factors suppress the activity of those centers in the brain that stimulate ovaries during the ovarian cycle (to secrete hormone like estrogen and progesterone), and may result in low production of these hormones. • Other causes: Excessive exercise and crash dieting can cause scanty periods. One of the causes of hypomenorrhea is Asherman's syndrome (intra uterine adhesions), of which hypomenorrhea may be the only apparent sign. 1.Blood test- Tests for the level of hormones like FSH, LH, estrogen, progesterone, thyroid hormones, prolactin, insulin and androgen are important. 2.Ultrasound of lower abdomen. 3.MRI and D&C. Unless a significant causal abnormality is found no treatment other than reassurance is necessary. Treatment is a per cause in case of significant causal abnormality. Role of homoeopathy Homeopathic remedies often bring relief. Menstrual problems that are chronic or severe are best addressed with the guidance of an experienced practitioner: a constitutional remedy can help to bring balance to a person's system on many levels. Dr. Bela's homeopathic clinic Designed by Quick Contact
What is an ETF? What are exchange-traded funds? And when should investors use them? We examine how to buy ETFs and what the risks are Emma Wall 10 March, 2014 \| 10:38AM ETFs are funds that are traded on a stock exchange like shares. They are a pooled investment fund, where an individual can gain exposure to a particular index or commodity, providing the investor with the same returns as the underlying market. There is an extremely wide range of ETFs available to the investor, who can invest in things as diverse as soy beans, forestry and timber, as well as a FTSE 100 tracker or corporate bond fund ETF. They are a type of passive investment, meaning there is no asset-selecting fund manager supported by an active management team. Instead, as the process is highly automated ETF fees are very low – less than 0.5% in most cases. If you want to invest in the overall FTSE 100 Index, you can buy an ETF that will mimic the movements of the FTSE 100. When the FTSE 100 goes up, your ETF will increase in value. When the FTSE 100 goes down, your ETF will decrease in value. There are two types of ETFs, physically backed and synthetically backed. Physically backed ETFs mean that you actually hold assets within your fund, for example, the iShares FTSE 100 UCITS ETF (ISF) would hold actual shares in the companies within the FTSE 100. The largest holding in the physically backed ETF would be the largest company in the FTSE 100. A synthetically backed ETF portfolio does not exactly mirror the index it is tracking. It may hold stocks or bonds found in the index but weighted differently, and part of the portfolio may be managed by a third party. Synthetically backed ETFs are more complex than physically backed ETFs and for this reason physically backed ETFs have been favoured by investors in recent years. Although your investment will never underperform the market with an ETF, it will also never beat it. For this reason ETFs are ideal in highly-transparent markets such as the S&P 500, but less suitable for highly volatile opaque markets such as those found in emerging economies where active stock picking can add value. ETFs trade on the stock market so their prices fluctuate throughout the trading day. You can short them, buy them on margin, or use stop-loss orders to sell them. In brief, anything you can do with a stock, you can do with an ETF. As with stocks, investors also pay commissions to buy and sell ETFs. Securities Mentioned in Article Security NamePriceChange (%)Morningstar iShares FTSE 100 UCITS ETF (Inc)638.80 GBX0.42 About Author Emma Wall Emma Wall is Web Editor for
Skip over navigation Socrates returns to the question of justice now that the value of temperance has been established according to the separation of pleasure from the good, a distinction that is further emphasized with examples such as a coward (bad) and a brave (good) man each feeling equal pleasure upon the termination of a battle. Even though a man with courage is more in possession (in a state of) good than the coward since it is more virtuous to be brave, there exists no difference in the pleasure these two types of men may feel corresponding to their respective possession of the good. The coward, though 'worse,' feels pleasure and plain to at least a similar degree to the brave, 'better' man. Along these same lines, a sensible man experiences pain and pleasure to an extent resembling that undergone by a silly man, to which point Callicles assents. Or again, the wise and fools alike experience pleasure and pain in a like amount, despite their differences in other aspects. From this, the good and the bad are distributed in ways that are not connected to the distribution of pleasure and pain. Socrates therefore declares once more that the good is not the pleasant, for surely otherwise these alternately good and bad men would not share in equal amounts of pleasure. Since good and bad occur in quantities differing from the simultaneous levels of pleasure and pain in a given body in certain circumstances (such as the example of a brave man and coward after battle mentioned immediately above), the two variables are independent of one another. He moves on to state that the good is the goal of all our actions, and that all else should be done for its sake. Moreover, he maintains that the true focus of this discussion lies in "what kind of life one should live—proper existence." With this formulation a fundamental feature of the Gorgias' argument takes root: proper existence (most abstractly) consists of, at the very least, performing all actions for the sake of the good. How more specifically to do so remains to be articulated. Socrates's next move towards answering this question is to refer back to his distinction of art from flattery. Both he and Callicles now agree on this conception, and their consensus leads them to press on even further towards the answers they seek. The two consider skills such as painting and building, arriving at the conclusion that all crafts involve a certain establishment of harmony through order and regulation within the particular realm. In this way, then, physical trainers and doctors provide order and discipline to the body, and all objects, bodies, and entities derive benefit from regulation and suffering from disorder. Finally, Socrates offers the clearest statement of the features of good living contained within the dialogue. Order and discipline of the body lead to its health and strength. Order and regularity of the soul mean justice and temperance. Health, strength, justice, and temperance constitute proper existence as defined by Socrates (and therefore, of course, by Plato). By this point in Gorgias Socrates has all but shouted out the theme of the dialogue for those who will listen. It seems no mistake on Plato's part that the strains of such a unifying undercurrent should arise into a more complete picture by this point in the dialogue. He repeatedly has attempted to seek the nature of the good life in terms of a wide range of specific human pursuits such as health and politics. Most of the key components have been comprehensively established and all that remains is their integration and actual application to life through a combination of the abstract values and goals discovered here with the specific choices and actions of which all humans are capable and with which all humans are faced. And, with his placement of the good as the driving purpose of all actions within a proper existence, Plato provides the reader with the necessary vehicle for such a unification. This is the case because every significant inquiry within the text easily can be construed in terms of the relation between its conclusions and the good. In fact, with the benefit of hindsight this common thread appears undeniable. Such is the case with Socrates's discussions of rhetoric, art, routine, the pleasant, power, justice and temperance: he undertakes each investigation in terms of how and to what degree the given arena interacts with and attains the good. Furthermore, the order and harmony of philosophical treatment of this conception closely mirror that of the framework itself. In other words, a person must work to establish health, strength, justice, and temperance each on their own. Only with the eventual augmentation and subsequent integration of these attributes, though, do order and harmony arise, in the form of a proper existence. Good living is nothing but the combination of these various features for the sake of the good. Similarly, Socrates's exploration and definition of these matters requires much careful thought and deliberation. The qualities must first be examined independently. However, only with the eventual interaction between the investigations of these various notions (e.g. justice through temperance) does a harmony of the terrain arise, in the form of an inquiry into good living. The important larger question derives its substance entirely from an integration of the smaller ones. Such a pattern of emergence in a certain sense reveals just how significant this formula of harmony through order and regulation was for Plato. It not only constitutes the appropriate ordering of body and soul in the quest for a proper existence. It also serves to dictate a harmonious structure for this most crucial of philosophical inquiries. In light of the close proximity of Gorgias to Socrates's death and its importance to Plato both in terms of this proximity and in terms of his overall life pursuit of a system of objective virtue, this emergent pattern hardly seems accidental. Quite the contrary, it appears to present a model in its form for what the proper human inquiry into and pursuit of virtue should resemble in actuality. More Help Previous Next Follow Us
Essay by HonkeyHigh School, 11th gradeA+, May 2003 download word file, 5 pages 4.6 1 reviews Many men died on their first day in the trenches as a consequence of a precisely aimed sniper's bullet. It has been estimated that up to one third of allied casualties on the Western Front were actually sustained in the trenches. Aside from enemy injuries, disease wrought a heavy toll. The trenches were also a place full of disease, a part played largely by the rats. Rats in their millions infested trenches. There were two main types, the brown and the black rat. Both were despised but the brown rat was especially feared. Gorging themselves on human remains, they could grow to the size of a cat. Men, exasperated and afraid of these rats, would attempt to rid the trenches of them by various methods: gunfire, with the bayonet, and even by clubbing them to death. Rats were...
Make your own free website on Blacks in the 1930's Report done by Devan and Chris Period 2 The times for black people weren't very easy at all back in the 1930's The 1930's were a turbulent time for race relations in America. Besides the increase of organizations like the Ku Klux Klan racism was as strong as ever in the Southern states. Furthermore, increased presence of Black Americans in Southern cities resulted in increased tension between the black and white races there as well. What the lived threw there entire live's! A Chronology of Events Date:08/05/20 Four black men in McClenny are removed from the local jail and hung for the alleged rape of a white woman. 2/12/21 A black man in Wauchula is hung for an alleged attack on a white woman. 12/31/22 On New Year's Eve a large Ku Klux Klan Parade is held in Gainesville. 01/02/23 Armed whites begin gathering in Sumner. 01/04/23 Late evening: White vigilantes attack the Carrier house. Two white men are killed, and several others wounded. A black woman, Sarah Carrier is killed and others inside the Carrier house are either killed or wounded. Rosewood's black residents flee into the swamps. One black church is burned, and several unprotected homes. Lexie Gordon is murdered. 01/05/23 Approximately 200-300 whites from surrounding areasbegin to converge on Rosewood. Mingo Williams is murdered. Governor Cary Hardee is notified, and Sheriff Walker reports that he fears "no further disorder." The Sheriff of Alachua County arrives in Rosewood to assist Sheriff Walker.James Carrier is murdered. 01/06/23 A train evacuates refugees to Gainesville. 01/17/23 A black man in Newberry is convicted of stealing cattle. He is removed from his cell and hung by local whites. A lote of these prosecutions went through without anybody standing up for the blacks, because if the did they would be beat or even killed.
What is Big Think? We are Big Idea Hunters… Big Think Features: 12,000+ Expert Videos Watch videos World Renowned Bloggers Go to blogs Big Think Edge Find out more False Necessity The Big Idea for Monday, June 02, 2014 It's safe to say that there are technologies that have yet to be imagined. We may put a lot of faith in science fiction giants like Jules Verne and Philip K. Dick who seemed to have the gift of seeing into the future. But we should take comfort in the fact that there will one day be technologies that human's today cannot even imagine--yet. The same concept can be applied to social structures. We are not limited by laws of change that govern history. There are not natural laws that control how society can and cannot evolve. There are no limits on human potential. False necessity is a theory, often discussed by renowned philosopher and Brazilian politician Roberto Unger, that rejects any attempts to confine the forces of society into structures. Unger explains: "What then is the task? The task is to recover the central revolutionary insight of classical social theory and to liberate this insight from the illusions of false necessity. And if we were to take that task seriously we would then have to contest the orthodoxies that now prevail across the whole field of social sciences and humanities. In the positive social sciences, the hard social sciences, economics first among them what we find are rationalizing tendencies that explain the established arrangements in a way that vindicates their necessity and their authority." 1. 1 We Create Society Big Think Editors Think Tank 2. 2 Buddhist Ethics Slavoj Žižek Postcards from Žižek 3. 3 In the Shadow of Hegel Megan Erickson Postcards from Žižek 4. 4 How to Develop a Subversive Mindset Big Think Editors Big Think Mentor False Necessity Newsletter: Share:
It's time for the proverbial classroom rhyme, Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492 and discovered America. But there is more to the story of the explorer we celebrate since President Nixon declared the second Monday of every October a national holiday in 1971. The Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria set out from Spain on a historic journey on August 3. But why? Contrary to popular belief Columbus' trip was not a journey to prove that the world was round. In fact, money was the main motivator for this ultimate voyage. Columbus wanted to become the first person to plot a course westward toward Asia and enjoy the riches of trade with that continent. Spain's Queen Isabella gave the go ahead --and funding-- for the trip. Columbus took a southwestern course but, 10,000 miles short of Asia, Columbus landed on what he would call the the Indies. Columbus thought he was in Asia, and returned to Spain to proclaim his discovery. The riches --not from Asia, but America -- soon began to flow, but not to Columbus himself. The man who helped join the world's two hemispheres and changed global history, died on May 20, 1506. According to the Capitulations of Santa Fe, Columbus had demanded that the Spanish Crown give him 10% of all profits made in the new lands. Spain did not comply. As a result the "Pleitos Colombinos" or "Columbian Lawsuits" took place between 1508 to 1536 when the Colombus heirs would finally get compensation. Avoiding Mutiny Over 60 days into the voyage Columbus' sailors begin to organize a mutiny. The sailors believed they should have landed by then and were growing increasingly frustrated with the living conditions onboard the ships. In a desperate act to keep his crew in line, Columbus asked the sailors to give him three more days before turning back to Spain. On day 3, Friday October 11, 1492 Columbus sees land and on October 12, 1492 they stepped foot on what he believed was the Far East. Did you know? The first official commemoration of Columbus Day in the United States was proclaimed by Colorado governor Jesse F. McDonald in 1905 and made a statutory holiday in 1907. The Biggest Columbus Day Parade New York- Manhattan's Fifth Avenue was transformed into a celebration of Italian-American culture on Monday. The 67th annual Columbus Day Parade steps off at 11:30 a.m. at 44th Street. The parade route followed Fifth Avenue to 72nd Street. More than 35,000 marchers and more than 100 bands and floats participate in the parade each year. The parade is organized by the Columbus Citizens Foundation.
Calories in, calories out How do we lose (or gain) weight? Is it really as simple as “calories in, calories out” (i.e., eat less than you burn), or is what you eat more important than how much? Is “3500 calories equals one pound” a useful rule of thumb, or just a myth? I don’t think I would normally find these to be terribly interesting questions, except for the fact that there seems to be a lot of conflicting, confusing, and at times downright misleading information out there. That can be frustrating, but I suppose it’s not surprising, since there is money to be made in weight loss programs– whether they are effective or not– particularly here in the United States. Following is a description of my attempt to answer some of these questions, using a relatively simple mathematical model, in an experiment involving daily measurement of weight, caloric intake, and exercise over 75 days. The results suggest that you can not only measure, but predict future weight loss– or gain– with surprising accuracy. But they also raise some interesting open questions about how all this relates to the effectiveness of some currently popular diet programs. The model and the experiment Here was my basic idea: given just my measured starting weight w_0, and a sequence (c_n) of measurements of subsequent daily caloric intake, how accurately could I estimate my resulting final weight, weeks or even months later? More precisely, consider the sequence (\hat{w}_n) of predicted daily weights given by the following recurrence relation: \hat{w}_0 = w_0 \hat{w}_{n+1} = \hat{w}_n + \frac{c_n - \alpha \hat{w}_n - 0.63 \hat{w}_n d_n}{3500} Intuitively, my weight tomorrow morning \hat{w}_{n+1} should be my weight this morning \hat{w}_n, plus the effect of my net intake of calories that day, assuming 3500 calories per pound. Net calorie intake is modeled with three components: • c_n is the number of calories consumed. • -\alpha\hat{w}_n is the number of calories burned due to normal daily activity. Note that this is a function of current weight, with typical values for \alpha of 12 to 13 calories per pound for men, or 10 to 11 for women; I used 12.5 (more on this later). • -0.63 \hat{w}_n d_n is the number of additional calories burned while running (my favorite form of exercise), where d_n is the number of miles run that day. Note that we don’t really have to account for exercise separately like this; especially if duration and intensity don’t change much over time, we could skip this term altogether and just roll up all daily activity into the (larger) value for \alpha. (Aside: I am intentionally sticking with U. S. customary units of pounds, miles, etc., to be consistent with much of the related literature.) So, at the start of my experiment, my initial weight was w_0=251.8 pounds (for reference, I am a little over 6’4″ tall, 40-ish years old). Over each of the next 75 days, I recorded: • My actual weight w_n, first thing in the morning after rolling out of bed, using a digital scale with a display resolution of 0.1 pound. • My total calories consumed for the day c_n. • My running mileage for the day d_n. Plugging in c_n and d_n to the recurrence relation above, I computed the sequence of predicted weights (\hat{w}_n), and compared with the sequence of my actual weights (w_n). The following figure shows the resulting comparison of predicted weight \hat{w}_n (in blue) with measured actual weight w_n (in red). See the appendix at the end of this post for all of the raw data. Predicted and actual weight over 75 days. Predicted and actual weight over 75 days. I was surprised at just how well this worked. Two and a half months and nearly 30 pounds later, the final predicted weight differed from the actual weight by less than a pound! There are a couple of useful observations at this point. First, the “3500 calories per pound” rule of thumb is perfectly valid… as long as it is applied correctly. Zoë Harcombe, a “qualified nutritionist,” does a great job of demonstrating how to apply it incorrectly: “Every person who didn’t have that [55-calorie] biscuit every day should have lost 141 pounds over the past 25 years.” This seems to be a common argument– professor of exercise science Gregory Hand makes a similar but slightly more vivid claim using the same reasoning about a hypothetical dieter, that “if she will lose 1 lb for every 3,500 calorie deficit [my emphasis], our individual will completely disappear from the face of the earth in 300 days.” The problem in both cases is the incorrect assumption that an initial calorie deficit, due to skipping a biscuit, for example, persists as the same deficit over time, causing a linear reduction in weight. But that’s not how it works: as weight decreases, calorie expenditure also decreases, so that an initial reduced diet, continued over time, causes an asymptotic reduction in weight. (In the context of the recurrence relation above, Harcombe and Hand’s calculation effectively replaces the varying \alpha \hat{w}_n in the numerator with the constant \alpha w_0.) Estimating \alpha The second– and, I think, most important– observation is that I arguably “got lucky” with my initial choice of \alpha=12.5 calories burned per pound of body weight. If I had instead chosen 12, or 13, the resulting predictions would not agree nearly as well. And your value of \alpha is likely not 12.5, but something different. This seems to be one of the stronger common arguments against calorie-counting: even if you go to the trouble of religiously measuring calories in, you can never know calories out exactly, so why bother? The Harris-Benedict equation is often used in an attempt to remedy this, by incorporating not only weight, but also height, age, gender, and activity level into a more complex calculation to estimate total daily calorie expenditure. But I think the problem with this approach is that the more complex formula is merely a regression fit of a population of varying individuals, none of whom are you. That is, even two different people of exactly the same weight, height, age, gender, and activity level do not necessarily burn calories at the same rate. But even if you don’t know your personal value of \alpha ahead of time, you can estimate it, by measuring calories in (c_n) and actual weight (w_n) for a few weeks, and then finding the corresponding \alpha that yields a sequence of predicted weights (\hat{w}_n) that best fits the actual weights over that same time period, in a least-squares sense. The following figure shows how this works: as time progresses along the x-axis, and we collect more and more data points, the y-axis indicates the corresponding best estimate of \alpha so far. Estimating burn rate (alpha) over time. Early estimates are overwhelmed by the noisy weight measurements. Here we can see the effect of the noisiness of the measured actual weights; it can take several weeks just to get a reasonably settled estimate. But keep in mind that we don’t necessarily need to be trying to lose weight during this time. This estimation approach should still work just as well whether we are losing, maintaining, or even gaining weight. But once we have a reasonably accurate “personal” value for \alpha, then we can predict future weight changes assuming any particular planned diet and exercise schedule. (One final note: recall the constant 0.63 multiplier in the calculation of calories burned per mile run. I had hoped that I could estimate this value as well using the same approach… but the measured weights turned out to be simply too noisy. That is, the variability in the weights outweighs the relatively small contribution of running to the weight loss on any given day.) Conclusions and open questions A couple of questions occur to me. First, how robust is this sort of prediction to abrupt changes in diet and/or exercise? That is, if you suddenly start eating 2500 calories a day when you usually eat 2000, what happens? What about larger, more radical changes? I am continuing to collect data in an attempt to answer this, so far with positive results. Also, how much does the burn rate \alpha vary over the population… and even more interesting, how much control does an individual have over changing his or her own value of \alpha? For example, I intentionally paid zero attention to the composition of fat, carbohydrates, and protein in the calories that I consumed during this experiment. I ate cereal, eggs, sausage, toast, tuna, steak (tenderloins and ribeyes), cheeseburgers, peanut butter, bananas, pizza, ice cream, chicken, turkey, crab cakes, etc. There is even one Chipotle burrito in there. But what if I ate a strict low-carbohydrate, high-fat “keto” diet, for example? Would this have the effect of increasing \alpha, so that even for the same amount of calories consumed, I would lose more weight than if my diet were more balanced? Or is it simply hard to choke down that much meat and butter, so that I would tend to decrease c_n, without any effect on \alpha, but with the same end result? These are interesting questions, and it would be useful to see experiments similar to this one to answer them. Appendix: Data collection The following table shows my measured actual weight in pounds over the course of the experiment: Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun 251.8 251.6 250.6 249.8 248.4 249.8 249.0 250.4 249.0 247.8 246.6 246.6 247.8 246.2 246.6 244.0 244.6 243.6 243.6 244.0 244.8 242.0 240.6 240.4 240.2 240.2 239.4 238.6 238.0 238.0 237.6 238.0 238.0 238.6 238.6 237.4 239.0 237.6 235.8 236.0 235.0 236.0 233.8 232.4 232.6 233.4 233.4 232.0 233.2 232.6 231.6 232.2 232.2 231.2 231.2 229.6 229.6 229.6 230.6 230.4 229.8 228.0 227.4 227.6 226.2 226.4 225.6 225.8 225.8 226.0 228.0 225.8 225.4 224.6 223.8 The following table shows my daily calorie intake: Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun 1630 1730 1670 1640 2110 2240 1980 1630 1560 1690 1700 2010 1990 2030 1620 1710 1590 1710 2180 2620 2100 1580 1610 1610 1620 1690 2080 1930 1620 1680 1610 1610 1810 2550 2430 1710 1660 1630 1710 1930 2470 1970 1660 1750 1710 1740 2020 2680 2100 1740 1750 1750 1610 1990 2290 1940 1950 1700 1730 1640 1820 2230 2280 1740 1760 1780 1650 1900 2470 1910 1570 1740 1740 1750 And finally, the following table shows the number of miles run on each day: Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun 2.5 0.0 2.5 0.0 0.0 2.5 0.0 2.5 0.0 2.5 0.0 0.0 2.5 0.0 2.5 0.0 2.5 0.0 0.0 3.0 0.0 2.5 0.0 2.5 0.0 0.0 3.0 0.0 2.5 0.0 3.0 0.0 0.0 3.0 0.0 2.5 0.0 3.0 0.0 0.0 3.0 0.0 3.0 0.0 3.0 0.0 0.0 3.0 0.0 3.0 0.0 3.0 0.0 0.0 3.0 0.0 3.0 0.0 3.0 0.0 0.0 3.5 0.0 3.0 0.0 3.0 0.0 0.0 3.5 0.0 3.0 0.0 3.5 0.0 Posted in Uncategorized \| 8 Comments No, diversity does not generally trump ability I am pretty sure that my motivation for this post is simply sufficient annoyance. I admittedly have a rather harsh view of social “science” in general. But this particular study seems to have enough visibility and momentum that I think it’s worth calling attention to a recent rebuttal. Where by “rebuttal” I mean “brutal takedown.” At issue is a claim by Lu Hong and Scott Page, including empirical evidence from computer simulation and even a mathematical “proof,” that “diversity trumps ability.” The idea is that when comparing performance of groups of agents working together to solve a problem, groups selected randomly from a “diverse” pool of agents of varying ability can perform better than groups comprised solely of the “best” individuals. “Diversity” is a fun word. It’s a magnet for controversy, particularly when, as in this case, it is conveniently poorly defined. But the notion that diversity might actually provably yield better results is certainly tantalizing, and is worth a close look. Unfortunately, upon such closer inspection, Abigail Thompson in the recent AMS Notices shows that not only is the mathematics in the paper incorrect, but even when reasonably corrected, the result is essentially just a tautology, with little if any actual “real world” interpretation or application. And the computer simulation, that ostensibly provides backing empirical evidence, ends up having no relevance to the accompanying mathematical theorem. The result is that Hong and Page’s central claim enjoys none of the rigorous mathematical justification that distinguished it from most of the literature on diversity research in the first place. And this is what annoys me: trying to make an overly simple-to-state claim– that is tenuous to begin with– about incredibly complex human behavior, and dressing it up with impressive-sounding mathematics. Which turns out to be wrong. 1. Hong, L. and Page, S., Groups of diverse problem solvers can outperform groups of high-ability problem solvers, Proc. Nat. Acad. of Sciences, 101(46) 2004 [PDF] 2. Thompson, Abigail, Does Diversity Trump Ability? An Example of the Misuse of Mathematics in the Social Sciences, Notices of the AMS, 61(9) 2014, p. 1024-1030 [PDF] Posted in Uncategorized \| Leave a comment The discreet hotel manager The following puzzle deals with storage and search strategies for querying membership of elements in a table. Like the light bulb puzzle, it’s an example of a situation where binary search is only optimal in the limiting case. I will try to present the problem in the same weirdly racy context in which I first encountered it: You are the manager of a hotel that, once a year, hosts members of a secretive private club in n=10 numbered suites on a dedicated floor of the hotel. There are m=18 club members, known to you only by numbers 1 through m. Each year, some subset of 10 of the 18 club members come to the hotel for a weekend, each staying in his own suite. To preserve secrecy, you assign each man to a suite… but then destroy your records, including the list of the particular members staying that weekend. It may be necessary to determine whether a particular member is staying at the hotel (say, upon receiving a call from his wife asking if her husband is there). But the club has asked that in such cases you must only knock on the door of a single suite to find out who is residing there. For a given subset of 10 club members, how should you assign them to suites, and what is your “single-query” search strategy for determining whether any given club member is staying at your hotel? This problem is interesting because, for a sufficiently large universe m of possible key values, we can minimize the maximum number of queries needed in a table of size n by storing the n keys in sorted order, and using binary search, requiring \lceil lg(n+1) \rceil queries in the worst case. But for small m, as in this problem, we can do better. For example, if m=n, then we don’t need any queries, since every key is always in the table. If m=n+1, then we can store in a designated position the key immediately preceding (cyclically if necessary) the missing one, requiring just a single query to determine membership. (Hint: The problem is setup to realize a known tight bound: if m \leq 2(n-1), then there is a strategy requiring just a single query in the worst case.) Posted in Uncategorized \| Leave a comment Probabilistic Tic-Tac-Toe solution This is a follow-up to the previous post about a Hollywood Squares-style game of probabilistic Tic-Tac-Toe, where a selected square is marked with the player’s symbol (say, X) with some fixed probability p, but with the opponent’s symbol (O) with probability 1-p. When p=1 this reduces to the standard game of Tic-Tac-Toe, in which neither player has an advantage; that is, optimal strategy by both players results in a draw. But what if p<1? Without any additional rules, analysis of this simplest form of the game is pretty straightforward. The green curve in the figure below shows the first player’s advantage as a function of p (assuming the loser pays the winner a dollar). First player's advantage vs. probability p of "success" of any given move. First player’s advantage vs. probability p of “success” of any given move. Recall that the parameter p effectively models the level of difficulty of the trivia questions asked in the television versions of the game. Interestingly, hard questions seem to be significantly more beneficial for the second player than easy questions are for the first player. As mentioned last week, the television games prevent ties with the additional rule that a player can win by either getting three in a row, or being the first to get any five squares. The black curve above shows the effect of this incremental modification, which behaves about like we would expect. Finally, the most interesting additional rule is that a player can’t “lose” the game by missing a question; he or she must “win” by answering correctly. If a miss would result in a win for the opponent, the selected square remains empty and the player simply loses his turn. In this case, we must be careful to handle potentially repeating game states: for example, suppose that the board looks like this: On either player's turn, he or she must answer correctly to win; a miss is simply a lost turn. On either player’s turn, he or she must answer correctly to win; a miss is simply a lost turn. If player X misses on his turn, and player O also misses on her turn, then we are right back where we started. We can eliminate this “infinite recursion” by expressing the value of the board for a given player in terms of itself, and solving: v = p + (1-p)(-p + (1-p)v) v = \frac{p}{2-p} The blue and red curves show the effect of this rule, with and without the “first to five” tie-breaker rule; the blue curve represents the television version of the game. The first player has an advantage for all but the most difficult questions, and has a huge advantage for relatively easy questions– it would be interesting to see an estimate of the “actual” value of p based on the historical fraction of questions answered correctly in episodes of the show. Posted in Uncategorized \| Leave a comment Probabilistic Tic-Tac-Toe This past week, I was presented with what I thought was a very interesting problem: what is the optimal strategy in the game Tic-Tac-Toe? Okay, so maybe that’s not actually a very interesting problem. Although I think it can be a great first “game AI” programming exercise for students, it is well known that the game is “fair” in the sense that optimal play by both players results in a draw. But motivated by the recent revival of the British television game show Celebrity Squares (which is in turn based on the original American show Hollywood Squares), let’s incrementally add a few twists to Tic-Tac-Toe that do make things more interesting: Probabilistic moves First, make moves “probabilistically.” That is, when a player chooses a square in which to place his marker (say X), then with probability p the move is actually successful, but with probability 1-p he “loses” the square and his opponent places her marker (O) in that square instead. This models the situation on the television game show, where a player must essentially know the correct answer to a trivia question to successfully place his mark in a chosen square. By fixing p we are effectively assuming that the two players are evenly matched, and that all questions are of equal difficulty, with larger values of p corresponding to easier questions (so that when p=1 the game reduces to the original deterministic Tic-Tac-Toe). How fair is this game? That is, as a function of p, what is the optimal strategy and resulting expected value for each player (assuming the loser pays the winner a dollar)? Forbidden “stolen” wins An additional rule in the television game show is that a player can only win while “in control” of the board. That is, for example, if player X answers a question incorrectly, then an O is placed in the square… unless the result would be an immediate win for player O, in which case the square remains unmarked, and player X merely loses his turn. This rule is interesting not only because of the effect it has on the fairness of the game, but also because it introduces a tricky wrinkle in computing strategies and expected values. The problem is that it is now possible for game states to repeat; for example, if both players can win on their next move with the same square, and player X answers incorrectly, followed by player O also answering incorrectly, then we are right back where we started. First to five squares Finally, note that so far it has still been possible for a game to end in a draw. To prevent the uncomfortable awkward silence that I imagine resulting from a tie at the end of a game show (Jeopardy! being an exception), there is one additional rule that guarantees an outright winner: a player can win by either getting three in a row, or by being the first to mark any five squares. (For completeness, we can also consider a slight variation of this rule that was in effect in the early episodes of the American show, where a player could only win with five or more squares once the board was full– or equivalently, only once his opponent had no potential three in a row opportunities.) Taking all of these rules together– or considering various combinations of them– what is the resulting optimal strategy and expected value for this game? I’m not sure yet… but it seems like a fun problem to try to solve. Posted in Uncategorized \| 1 Comment Solving a corn maze Every fall for the last several years, my wife and I have walked through a corn maze with our nephews. It’s a lot of fun; the kids get a paper copy of the maze to help them navigate, and there are a series of numbered checkpoints to find, each with a themed quiz question to answer. (I thought this was a pretty good idea, giving a clear sense of continuing progress, rather than just wandering through a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.) But what if you don’t have a map of the maze? There are many algorithms for “solving” a maze, with various requirements on the structure of the maze and the assumed ability of the solver to “record” information about parts of the maze already explored. Some only work on a grid, while others, such as wall-following, are only guaranteed to work if the maze is simply connected– or in graph-theoretic terms, the graph representing the rooms (vertices) and passages (edges) of the maze must not contain any cycles. Suppose instead that you find yourself in a maze of rooms and connecting passages like the one shown below, whose corresponding graph is neither a grid, nor acyclic. A maze with 20 rooms and 30 connecting passages. A maze with 20 rooms and 30 connecting passages. In fact, the maze need not even be planar (think catacombs with passages running over/under each other), and it may contain loops (passages that lead you back to the room you just left) or multiple passages between the same pair of rooms. The only requirement is that each passage has two ends– imagine a door at each end leading into a room… although as in the case of a loop, both doors may lead into the same room. Now imagine exploring the maze by following these rules: 1. If you are in a room with an unmarked door (as you will be at the start), pick one, mark an X on it, and traverse the corresponding passage. 2. When first entering a room with all doors unmarked, mark a Y on the door of entry. 3. If you are in a room with all doors marked, exit via the door marked Y if there is one, otherwise stop. This algorithm, due to Tarry (see reference below), will visit every room in the (connected) maze, traversing every passage exactly twice, once in each direction… ending in the same room where you started! Proving this is a nice problem involving induction. And the doors marked with a Y have the nice property of essentially marking a path from any room back to the starting point. (As an interesting side effect, suppose that we modify rule 3 slightly, so that before exiting a door marked Y, we remove or erase all of the marks on the doors in that room. The result is that, at the end, we have still visited every room in the maze, but erased any trace that we were there!) Tarry’s algorithm has a lot in common with Trémaux’s algorithm, although I think this version is more explicitly “local,” in the sense that I can imagine actually executing Tarry’s algorithm in, say, a corn maze, with appropriate markings on the “doors” at intersections, as opposed to needing to mark the passages between intersections. 1. Tarry G., Le problème des labyrinthes. Nouv. Ann. Math., 14 (1895), 187-190 Posted in Uncategorized \| 2 Comments Projectile motion puzzle solution x(t) = v t \cos \theta a = g + a_D + a_L • Coefficient of drag C_D = 0.35 (see Reference 3) Posted in Uncategorized \| 2 Comments
Frequently Asked Questions about Adult ADHDThis article is about adult attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The childhood ADHD FAQ is here. Is ADHD even a real disorder? Yes, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder has over three decades’ worth of research supporting its diagnosis in adults and children. There is no longer any legitimate debate about whether ADHD really “exists” or not. Hundreds of ADHD researchers around the world agree that ADHD exists. Can an adult have an attention deficit disorder and not be hyperactive? Yes. This is known as ADHD, Predominantly Inattentive presentation. Adults with this presentation will often daydream and have a hard time focusing. How does ADHD affect an adult’s work or job? Adults with ADHD are at increased risk for lower job performance and social problems (including problems with co-workers and conflicts with their boss or supervisor). They have a greater chance of changing jobs more frequently due to these problems. A typical problem is an employee who doesn’t turn in work (such as a presentation or report), even though it has been completed. Many have “chaotic” desks, offices or briefcases. Is there a specific test to diagnose ADHD? No, there is not one magic test. But a mental health professional will conduct a comprehensive assessment to ascertain whether the individual does indeed have the disorder. ADHD among adults is most commonly diagnosed and treated by a family physician or general practitioner. Where should I go to get a diagnostic evaluation? Where you seek an evaluation depends on your community and on the insurance plan the individual is covered by. The person conducting the evaluation should be a professional trained in assessing ADHD. Preferably the professional should specialize in the assessment and treatment of ADHD — ideally a mental health professional such as a psychologist or psychiatrist. Are the medications recommended for ADHD safe? Is Ritalin overprescribed? How effective are medication-free treatments? Non-medication treatments have shown to be proven just as, or even more, effective than stimulant medications. There are a wide variety of psychological treatments and psychotherapy that are used to treat ADHD in adults effectively. Seek out a psychologist or therapist who has specific experience and training in the use of these techniques for the treatment of adult ADHD. What could the workplace or my employer do to help with my ADHD? It is illegal for an employer to discriminate against any individual on the basis of a health or mental health concern. Employers who follow the law should make accommodations based upon your specific needs (such as giving you more time to complete an assignment, ensuring your workplace is free from distractions, etc.). APA Reference Grohol, J. (2014). Frequently Asked Questions about Adult ADHD. Psych Central. Retrieved on October 23, 2014, from http://psychcentral.com/lib/frequently-asked-questions-about-adult-adhd/00018886 Scientifically Reviewed Last reviewed: By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on 20 Feb 2014 Published on PsychCentral.com. All rights reserved.
Skip to navigation \| Skip to content Video games are good for you Video games can be good for you: is research revealing what teenage boys have known for years? (Source: iStockphoto) Video games have been blamed for everything from causing aggression to giving you square eyes and a soft brain. But what if video games are good for you? Physio and occupational therapists started using simple video games in the late 1980s to treat people with a whole range of conditions from physical, learning or emotional disorders to cognitive problems following stroke and brain injury. Today, a growing area of brain research suggests modern fast-paced action video games — in particular first-person shooter games — may sharpen your vision, improve your attention and working memory, and develop your fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination. What's more, these skills aren't just virtual: they can help you do better in real-life situations, like driving your car or juggling more than one task at a time. So what is it about blasting away your virtual enemies that's so good for your head? ^ to top Video games and plastic brains Daphne Bavelier, professor of brain and cognitive sciences at the University of Rochester in the United States, has every teenage boy's dream job. She and her team study fast-paced action video games like Medal of Honor, Unreal Tournament and Call of Duty. They're looking for ways of training people's brains for use in rehabilitation programs, and to slow or even reverse the visual and cognitive decline that comes with ageing. The problem they face is that most training is 'specific' — it helps you get better at the task at hand, but doesn't necessarily translate to general improvement in other areas of your life. "When the environment changes a little bit, when the task changes a little bit, all your knowledge goes away. It's as if you were never trained," says Bavelier. So Bavelier's team are looking for types of training that leads to more general learning. These methods tend to tap into something called brain 'plasticity', the capacity of your brain to learn and change by increasing the number of connections between neurons and reorganising neural pathways. Plasticity is essential to improving your cognitive abilities and maintaining mental fitness — and surprisingly, playing action video games seems to unlock this capacity. "It seems that there is a lot more plasticity you can induce by playing video games than by training people with more classical methods," says Bavelier. ^ to top Gamers versus non-gamers Specifically, video games seem to induce plasticity in the visual cortex — an area of the brain which influences how well you see and pay attention to objects in your visual field. Bavelier and her colleagues have found that gamers are faster and more effective at filtering out irrelevant information and spotting targets in a cluttered scene. The size of their field of vision and their ability to track different moving objects in it is greater. "This also links into working memory, so how many objects you can keep in your mind and work on at the same time, and how fast your attention works," says Bavelier. Gamers beat non-gamers hands down when it comes to everyday eyesight — specifically, the ability to distinguish between different shades of grey, called contrast sensitivity. Gamers are also quicker at shifting between different visual and attention tasks. The big question is, do gamers have naturally superior skills in these areas, and are drawn to playing video games as a result? Or are their skills a result of their playing? In other words, if non-gamers picked up a console, would they benefit too? Bavelier's studies show that if you put non-gamers on a diet of regular video game playing (50 hours over nine weeks for the vision experiment, and 10 hours over 10 days for the visual attention experiment) their attention and visual skills will improve. What's more, she says, these skills seem to last months, if not years. Other researchers trying to replicate Bavelier's results found that 20 hours of game playing was not enough to see improvements, so it remains to be seen how long you need to play before you improve. ^ to top Gaming in the real world While being able to spot an enemy in your peripheral vision is useful when you're playing Call of Duty, these skills also come in handy in the real world. "When you drive, you need to monitor a very large visual field, so you can see the dog that's about to cross on the right, and the kid on the left who is running after a ball," says Bavelier. Contrast sensitivity affects everyday activities like reading the newspaper and is essential in low light conditions, for example seeing at night or in fog. Both your contrast sensitivity and the size of your useful field of view degrade with age and lack of use. But playing action video games could potentially counteract this. "You could train your brain to make better use of the info it receives from the retina," says Bavelier. "[By playing video games] you are correcting how well your brain computes in general." ^ to top What about Tetris? Despite its popularity over the last 25 years playing Tetris may not improve your abilities in other areas of your life, say researchers (Source: iStockphoto) "Not all video games are created equal," says Bavelier. "It's probably only the worst type of video games you can think of, the fast-paced action games that give you benefits in term of vision, attention, and so on." The secret to action video games seems to be in complexity of the task — you have pay attention to many different moving objects, use your memory to recall what weapons you have or the way into your enemy's lair, and use your eyes and hands to aim and shoot, all at the same time. In Bavelier's opinion, you can't just take just one of these elements and use it as a brain training exercise. That's why she believes that the more simple video games — like Tetris, or even the new 'brain fitness' games on the market — don't lead to general learning. It's the way these cognitive tasks are combined in an action video game that's key. "Each of these factors contributes, and each time you remove one, you [respond] a little bit less… You really need to put them together, and video games are very good at doing that." But this is a contentious area, according to Nick Burns, associate professor in the school of psychology at the University of Adelaide. He says some research claims fairly simple, computerised cognitive tasks help people improve in more general areas such as driving a car, or sharpen their brain's visual system and working memory. Several small studies have shown that simple computer games may help improve your performance on the trained task, but more independent research is needed to decisively demonstrate that the benefits of these tasks translate to other everyday activities, he says. ^ to top Use it or lose it But what's important to remember, says Burns, is that anything that gets people to use their brains is going to be good for them. "If you don't exercise your brain, it's likely to be at your disadvantage. So in that sense, I think that those games have a useful function." So does this mean we should all be plugging into the nearest action video console? Not necessarily, says Burns. "I think it's entirely plausible that you can improve cognitive function by playing complex computer games, but I think that any form of complex cognitive exercise is going to be good for you." Other researchers have found that musical and athletic training — both complex activities, like playing action video games — can also lead to benefits that translate to other parts of your life. And according to Burns, your very willingness to accept new challenges — be it learning to play action video games or learn a language — is important to maintaining and even improving your cognitive functioning throughout life. "Whether you're prepared to do new things is going to predict whether you age successfully." ^ to top Published 24 June 2009
The Plural Society and Its Enemies The Economist, August 2, 2014 In Mandalay in central Myanmar, another bout of bloody sectarian violence between Buddhists and Muslims recently left two dead and many injured. The riot was sparked by rumours that two Muslims had raped a Buddhist woman. The deaths brought to about 240 the number killed in sectarian clashes over the past two years. Most of the victims were Muslims. Myanmar is just one of several South-East Asian countries recently forced to confront old questions of race and religion. In Malaysia, a prominent Malay Muslim leader, Abdullah Zaik Abdul Rahman, has been charged with sedition for accusing ethnic Chinese, a minority in Malaysia, of being “trespassers”. And in Indonesia the winner of the presidential election, Joko Widodo, or Jokowi, squeaked home after a huge early lead over his rival evaporated, in part because of unfounded rumours that he was a Christian Chinese rather than in fact a good Javanese Muslim. These events may appear disparate, but they reflect a common thread running through the history of race and religion in South-East Asia. Specifically, they reflect the legacy of those colonial territories which one British academic and colonial administrator, John Furnivall, first characterised as “plural societies”. The British and Dutch Asian empires that gave rise to such societies have long gone, but the consequences of their creation remain. Indeed, the concept of the plural society is more relevant than ever for understanding and even predicting the course of events in the region, and especially in Myanmar–or Burma, as it was when Furnivall lived and worked there. Furnivall was a Fabian socialist who arrived as an administrator in 1902 and married a local Burmese. Though he left the colony in 1931, he returned in 1948 to advise the first post-independence governments as well. Furnivall’s original description of the plural society is very different from the way “pluralism” has come to be understood in the West. Rather than referring approvingly to a rainbow of ethnicities choosing freely to live together, Furnivall coined the term to criticise the imposition of immigrant races on indigenous societies in the name of commerce and free trade. {snip} For the most part, the immigrants, often destitute, who poured into these territories under European rule were Chinese. But millions of South Asians, many of them Muslims, migrated as well, especially to Burma, then administered by Britain as part of its Indian empire. Indians migrated in large numbers throughout the Malay world. The immigrants often provided manual labour, in Malaya’s copper mines and rubber plantations, for instance. But they also contributed to the entrepreneurial zest and trading connections that helped to create the wealth and vitality of imperial entrepots such as Rangoon and Singapore. Colonial Rangoon was a majority-Indian city by the 1920s. It boasted Armenian, Jewish and Chinese communities. The Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, who was consul there at the time, described Rangoon as “a city of blood, dreams and gold”. But as Furnivall saw it, the wealth came mostly at the expense of the indigenous Burmans in Burma, the Malays in Malaysia, the Javanese in Java and so on. Indeed, many such groups felt themselves to be elbowed aside by foreigners who came in under colonial protection. For all that the plural society produced wealth, for Furnivall it was essentially brittle and unstable, lacking in any “social will” or shared sense of community. “It is in the strictest sense a medley”, he wrote; the different races “mix but do not combine. Each group holds by its own religion, its own culture and language, its own ideas and ways. As individuals they meet, but only in the market-place, in buying and selling.” He worried, therefore, about what would happen once the coercive power of the colonial authority was gone. Colonial protection was the chief impediment to immigrants being attacked by resentful indigenous peoples, or even clashing among themselves. Post-colonial societies have been dealing with this worry ever since. Race riots in Malaysia and Singapore in 1969 pitted Malay against Chinese. They seemed to confirm Furnivall’s worst fears about “the whole society relapsing into anarchy” once the colonial power had gone. Topics: , , , Share This • propagandaoftruth Buddhism is no more perfect than the Mona Lisa, but it does involve copious dousing with Truth, even ugly Truth. Some morbid sects meditated in charnel houses, staring at the decomposing bodies and remembering the implications. Islam is a charnel house of twisted and deadly ideology. Buddhists who stare at death fear not Islam, but deal with it as they must. Real Buddhists, of course, not Eloi poseurs, of course. • bigone4u But I thought we were all one race–the human race. That’s the stock answer pushed out in comments sections in HuffPo and similar places. Somehow, the evil white race is behind ethnic clashes. It’s whitey’s fault. It always is in the minds of libtards. • Augustus3709 White people don’t exist! …unless you can blame ‘em. • Michael Christopher Scott It requires some curious mental gymnastics on libtards’ part to claim that race is just a social construct while simultaneously also blaming whites for everything. • MekongDelta69 Multiculturalism has never worked any time in history, anywhere on earth. The reasons are too obvious to even waste keystrokes mentioning all of them… • IstvanIN It works under a very powerful government boot. • WR_the_realist Which is why the Democrats want a very powerful government boot. • Sloppo I see it the other way around. I think democrats/communists want multiculturalism because they know it can be used to “justify” an oppressive government with absolute power. Multiculturalism is part of the means … absolute power is the goal. • Strider73 So do the Republicans. A GOP Congresscritter recently spoke the truth about why both parties lust after illegal aliens — the Democrats want their votes, the Republicans want their cheap labor. • rightrightright Our governing caste knows full well that multiculturalism degrades and obliterates the host culture which is exactly why third world hordes are being imported into the West. The “reward” is two-fold: the White creators of civilisation are marginalised and out-bred; the ruined, identityless geographical result can be more easily forced under world government domination, all without our masters being seen to stain their hands with our blood. • Ed Amy Chua’s, “The World on Fire” is a great read on this topic. • IKUredux Blaming European colonialism for the problems that current countries have is bullshit. First of all, show me an African country that is is better off now after imperialism is gone, and African nationalism is supreme? Ummm, I’m waiting. Seriously, what fu@#$%^ African country is better off now? O.K.., now prove to me that Africa would have been better off if it had never been colonized by Europeans. You know who would have been better off if Africa had never been colonized by Europeans? EUROPEANS!!!! • Michael Christopher Scott White colonial powers also did things like build railroads and ports, explore for minerals and develop mines and dig canals (the Suez Canal was a joint French-British project and the Panama Canal was a US project after the French gave up in 1881). They also introduced valuable cash crops. Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia today produce 72% of the world’s natural rubber, but rubber trees are native to South America, and were introduced to Southeast Asia by the British. Tea, native to China was introduced to India by the British, who wanted to break the Chinese monopoly on the product. India is the world’s largest banana producer; this plant was native to South America and was also introduced by the British. Coffee was native to Ethiopia, but Brazil and Vietnam are now by far the top two producers. The chinchona tree, native to Bolivia and Chile, produces quinine in its bark, a useful anti-malaria drug, but by the 1930’s Dutch plantations in Java were producing 97% of the world’s quinine. Sugar cane was native to India, but Brazil now produces over twice as much of it as India. • LHathaway And yet Thailand, which was never ‘colonized’ is faring worst of all? • rightrightright Thailand is made up of many different cultures and tribes even though never a European colony. LH, perhaps its situation would not be so dire if only it had been subjected to the colonial experience? • Usually Much Calmer Thank you, Mr. Wolff, for your deft curation. This was a subtle and relevant piece. • Augustus3709 See, it is always White people’s fault. What did you expect, non-White accountability? Pff. • none of your business The Economist envisions billions of highly trained, competent, employees roaming the earth at their own expense looking for the lowest wages and worst working conditions and the Holy Grail of capitalism, the 20 hour work day. I read the Economist sometimes. The Economist and global low wage capitalism or whatever its ideology calls itself is anti White and most of all anti nationalism in favor of a global wage slave state. I remember 1 year. Thousands of English well qualified applicants were turned down for UK medical schools in favor of browns and blacks from all over the world. The Economist still ran articles claiming there were no native English and Scots capable of being MDs and advocating importing brown and black muslims and pagans to replace Whites in UK medical professions. • none of your business Excellent summary of contributions of the European colonial powers to world prosperity, Michael Scott • jayvbellis Got to go with the Buddhists here. And of all the low class, unemployed Muslim men accused of rape… Many are guilty. Their defense is that their victims dared showed their arm or heaven forbid, their face. • jayvbellis Please provide the name, photo, contact information of this Iman. We can have women getting in his face.
Felice Matteucci Born in Lucca on February 12 1808 His father, Luigi Matteucci was a lawyer and Minister of Justice under Prince Felice Baciocchi and his mother was the noblewoman Angiola Tomei-Albiani of Pietrasanta. Since he was a child, Felice showed a great entusiasm distinguishing himself in his studies, so much that at the age of eleven he had written some greatly appreciated poetry. It is known that during the 1823-24 school year, he appeared among the students of the Royal High School of Lucca (the University of Lucca at that time). His interest in science became clear when he was studying at the Royal Bourbon College of Paris where his father, then the Grand Duke's representative at the court of the king of France, had enrolled him in 1824. It was at Paris that he began studying hydraulics and mechanics for which he showed a marked inclination. Felice Matteucci had to return to Italy with his father in December of 1825 because his brother, Francesco, had contracted a serious illness and therefore completed his formal education at Florence in there subjects. Once he terminated his studies, while his father had been nominated counselor to he High Court of Justice of Leopold II employed his time writing the Tuscan Codex and his mother looked after the household, Felice continued his scientific researches and looked after his family's agricultural property: they possessed landed properties with two country homes, or villas, at Vorno and at Colle di Compito. It is without a doubt that during his stay at the villa of Colle di Compito that, observing day after day the movement of the water of the Sesto Lake that he drafted at the age of twenty-seven, a plan for the draining of the Bientina marshland. It was to this project, which is without a doubt his most diligent and skilled hydraulic study, that Matteucci became very attached to for all his life like a sweet magical juvenile dream. Others, like Ximenes, Larga and Nottolini, had devoted themselves to the draining of the Bientina marshlands, but they had never held in consideration the natural slope of the countryside of Lucca which is inclined towards the Arno river on the left side of the Serchio river, and therefore wanted, so a popular phrase says, to send the water upwards, when trying to drain the water from the Sesto Lake to the Serchio river. Boscovich, Tommaso Perelli and Giuseppe Manetti noticed the error but they only left some vague notes that were insufficient for demonstrating the way to do it in their projects. With meticulous diligence, Matteucci took all the measurements necessary, weighed up the pros and cons, took the precise measurements of the height of the lake and the slope of the land, and examinated all the difficulties that could be encountered. With all this, he concluded that in order to drain the water to the sea. a canal that followed the natural slope of the land towards the Arno river, "the Matteucci Canal", was needed. It was a marvelous project, rich with great works like rectifying the course of the Arno near San Giovanni alla Vena and Uliveto; a difficult task that was foreseen and deemed surmountable but rendered the draining certain. Matteucci asked Giuseppe Venturoli, an expert of the subject at the time, for his opinion and besides revealing the projects value concluded saying: ...My opinion is that Mr. Matteucci's project, because it aims towards a utilizible goal, and because it chooses the most fit methods to attain the draining, is worthy of consideration and encouragement; and I consider it superior to the others I know of until now, because it works towards a more extensive and perfect draining of Lake Bientina. The project caused a sensation, so much so that Prince Demidoff was induced into setting up a society for the realization of forecasted work; the documents were ready but the Prince withdrew from the society and it it went bankrupt before it was founded. Matteucci presented the project to the Gran-ducal Government which had the Bientina marshland reclamation at heart, but the Commission, in which Father Eugenio Barsanti took part, chose the project of Commendatore Alessandro Manetti, director of water and roadway works. Matteucci, who was convinced that his project was better and moreover would have given profit to the community, received such a great delusion because of the Commision's decision that it conditioned forever his life. Manett's project, after many years of work and incalculable costs ,was a failure and this increased Matteucci's regret. Mattuecci, who in the meantime became friends with Father Eugenio Barsanti, abandoned hydraulics and he dedicated himself to mechanics, by entering a partnership with him. From this moment, Matteucci's life is bound to that of the internal combustion engine that, along with Barsanti, he projected, developed and tested. Along with his friend he shared the vicissitudes, the hopes, the joyful moments and the delusions. The association soon became a Society, from which Matteucci, some years later in 1862, resigned after a nervous breakdown. Two years later, in 1864, his friend died and, except in some episodes which have been reported in the text, Matteucci's adventure with the internal combustion engine came to an end. Matteucci's life on earth ended some years later, on September 13 1887, after he fell ill once again. He was an unhappy person, with great talent and a weak character. Matteucci is buried in Campi Bisenzio in a noble crypt in his family's villa, which was once property of his wife, Giulia Ramirez of Montalvo. A tombstone, set in place in 1932 on the facade of Palazzo Matteucci in Lucca commemorates instead his birthplace. Fondazione Barsanti & Matteucci cf - 92032040468 Copyright © 2009
Unix Tools Overview of the Tools Determining How Much is in a File Cutting a File Into Pieces Several utilities allow one to cut a file into pieces. head -20 \| tail -5 extracts lines 16 through 20. Extracting Selected Lines from a File Combining Files Rearranging a File Comparing Two Files Transforming a File Breaks long input lines. The primary use is formatting, but fold is sometimes useful in linguistic text processing. For example, suppose that you need to get each character onto a line by itself. The command fold -w 1 will do the job. It sets the line length to one character. GNU fold understands Unicode. awk '{print $3,$1}' Using Tools Together In some cases it is possible to accomplish a task using a single tool, but often it is necessary, or at any rate easier and more efficient, to divide the task up among different tools. One of the strengths of Unix is the fact that it provides unusually good support for using tools together. I/O Redirection Some programs read and write files named on the command line. In this case, if you want one program to read the output of another, you have no choice but to have the second program read from the file created by the first program. However, many programs read from the standard input, abbreviated stdin and write to the standard output, abbreviated stdout. By default, these are associated with the terminal. A program that reads from the standard input will read what the user types at the keyboard; what a program writes on its standard output will appear on the terminal. Every process has three i/o streams opened for it automatically when it is created. Two of these are stdin and stdout; the third, which we will not discuss here, is the standard error output, abbreviated stderr. stderr is a second output stream. It is provided so that a program's main output can be kept separate from error messages or other commentary. It is possible to redirect the three default i/o streams. The less than sign reassociates stdin with a file; the greater than sign redirects stdout. Thus, a program like wc that reads from stdin and writes on stdout will read its input from file a and write on file b if we use the following command line: wc < a > b Shell Scripts simple shell scripts - just a sequence of commands like one might type on the command line command line arguments $1, $2 etc. shift more complex shell scripts make use of the shell as a programming language loops conditionals variable setting choice of shells: tcsh vs. bash If your work involves several stages, some of which take a significant amount of time, it is desirable not to have to redo more than necessary. If you just run your commands from the command line or assemble them into a shell script, whenever you change something you either have to rerun the entire process or you have to figure out which parts must be rerun and edit these out so that you can run them separately. This is tedious and error-prone. Fortunately, there is an alternative, the make program. make executes the commands necessary to generate specified targets from the files on which they depend. make obtains its instructions from files known as makefiles. If you don't specify what file to use, make looks for a file named makefile in the current directory, then for a file named Makefile. A makefile may also be specified on the command line. The makefile expresses dependencies among files and indicates how to generate each file from those it depends on. Here is a simple makefile: text.u: text.can WeirdFont2Unicode < text.can > text.u text.can: text ReorderWeirdFont < text > text.can This might be used to obtain Unicode text from text in a font with a proprietary encoding. In some cases, it is necessary to reorder the codes before performing the rest of the conversion, and it is often easiest to separate the reordering from the main part of the conversion. If the conversions are not complex and the amount of text to be processed is not large, we might not need to use make, but this will serve as an example. For some real projects, the makefile is very complex. The makefile that controls the generation of the Jonathan Amith's printed dictionary of Oapan and Ameyaltepec Nahuatl from the database is 36 lines long. The makefile that controls the generation of the Carrier dictionaries that I work on is 428 lines long. This makefile contains two rules. The first rule says that the target text.u depends on text.can and that the former can be generated from the latter by executing the command WeirdFont2Unicode < text.can > text.u. The second rule says that the target text.can depends on the target text and that text.can can be generated from text by executing the command ReorderWeirdFont < text > text.can. If we execute make with this makefile in a directory containing the file text but neither text.can nor text.u, make will automatically execute the necessary commands to create text.u. It does this by observing that in order to generate text.u it needs text.can. Since this does not exist, it looks to see if it knows how to create it. In fact, it does, since the second rule tells it how. So make first executes the command ReorderWeirdFont < text > text.can to create text.can, and then executes the command WeirdFont2Unicode < text.can > text.u to create text.u. Now, suppose that text.can already existed when we ran make. We might think that make would use the existing text.can and just execute the command WeirdFont2Unicode < text.can > text.u to create text.u. In fact, this will happen only if text.can is more up to date than the files it depends on, namely text. If the modification time of text is more recent than that of text.can, make will decide that text.can is out of date and should be replaced. As a result, whenever you modify a file, you need only run make and it will rerun precisely those commands necessary to update the target. A similar system that offers some advantages over make is makepp, which at present runs only on Unix systems. makepp is backwards compatible with make in the sense that it can use makefiles created for make, but it has additional capabilities. One difference that is particularly useful for linguistic work is that makepp rebuilds when the build rules are changed as well as when files change. When one is writing computer programs, it is typically the case that the relationship between the components is easy to set up and does not change very often. Most of the changes during the development process are in the programs themselves, that is, in the files that must be processed. So for the purposes for which make was originally developed, rebuilding only when files change makes sense. On the other hand, in linguistic data processing, the underlying files are typically data sources that do not change. What changes during development are the commands that process the data sources. Rebuilding automatically when these commands change is therefore a great convenience. make homepage The make hompage, with links to documentation, source, etc. make manual The on-line reference manual, as hypertext. make tutorial This is a very clear, elementary, and nicely illustrated tutorial. It uses the compilation of C programs as examples, but this shouldn't put off those who don't know anything about C programming. make tutorial Long and detailed. Not for beginners. A good introduction to the more advanced features. Good to read after you understand the basics. makepp homepage The homepage, with links to documentation, source, etc. makepp tutorial A nice, clear tutorial, suitable for those with no background. Executing Other Programs as Child Processes Another way in which separate programs can be made to work together is for one program to execute another. The first program is said to be the parent, the second to be a child of the first. Only some programs can do this, essentially those like awk and python that are programming languages. How to do this depends on the programming language and is not appropriate for discussion here. But you should keep this possibility in mind when using a programming language. To take a simple example, suppose that you need to sort some data. It is possible to write a sorting subroutine in awk, but it is much easier and more efficient to use sort or another specialized sorting program. If you need this sort in the midst of an awk program, you can run the sorting program as a child of awk. Revised 2004/04/25.
Problem 2: Continuity Let f(x) be the function defined below: This sine curve is a "damped" function; it is already zoomed in quite far, but feel free to zoom in to your heart's content. The function will wriggle its way to a height of 0 as you approach the y-axis from the right and from the left. Therefore, the general limit exists, and it is equal to 0. According to the piecewise-defined function, f(0) = 0. (It's a good thing, too, because substituting 0 into x2sin(1/x) would have been a deal-breaker. You're not allowed to have a 0 in a denominator.) Back to Problems Home Page
Color Channels in Photoshop Elements 10 Although you can’t see the individual channels in Elements, you still need to understand just a little about color channels. When you see a color pixel (a tiny square), the color is represented as different levels of gray in each channel. This may sound confusing at first, but stay with us for just a minute. When you have a color channel, such as the red channel, and you let all light pass through the channel, you end up with a bright red. If you screen that light a little with a gray filter, you let less light pass through, thereby diluting the red color. This is how channels work. Individually, they all use different levels of gray that permit up to 256 levels of light to pass through them. When you change the intensity of light in the different channels, you ultimately change the color. This is all well and good as far as theory goes, but what does that mean in practical terms? Actually, you see some of this information in Elements’ tools and dialog boxes. As an experiment, open a file in Elements and choose Enhance→Adjust Lighting→Levels; the dialog box shown here opens. Notice that the Channel drop-down menu shows you Red, Green, and Blue as individual channels, as well as a composite RGB selection. Furthermore, the Output Levels area shows you values ranging from 0 on the left to 255 on the right. Considering that 0 is a number, you have a total of 256 different levels of gray. blog comments powered by Disqus
Advantages of having your child assessed 1. Homeschool Assessment Tests (also referred to as The Private Examination Board) provides a good measuring tape for individuals who do not form part of a formal school group. 2. It helps to create a valid set of records of the child’s achievement over a period of time. 3. Having children assessed provides standardised testing for parents who would like to test their children but do not have the know-how. 4. An assessment test will indicate how well a child has progressed in a given subject, in terms of a standardised average. 5. Homeschool assessment tests could be a powerful tool in motivating the child to work harder and improve his/her grades. 6. An assessment showing poor results could be an early indication that the child is experiencing difficulty in a specific area and that intervention is necessary. 7. It helps parents to gauge whether or not their child is ready to go on to the next step/standard/grade. 8. Regular homeschool assessments and tests helps to prepare the child for later on when exams are a must (but still allows him/her to grow into this gently by doing it in the comfort and security of their own home). 9. It encourages the child to consolidate all he/she has learned over a specific period of time. 10. Having children assessed provides a perfect opportunity to teach them how to study and retain their work. 11. Assessing children helps develop skills at reading questions and answering exactly what is asked (processing their information). 12. Having children sit an exam/test teaches child to process information so that he can express it accurately. 13. Assessing children appeases the parents, in-laws and anyone else who questions the validity of homeschooling. 14. Having children assessed makes homeschooling “fit in” to a society that enjoys measuring and comparing. 15. It provides a standardised set of “norms” (for example most kids sit at 6/7 months, walk at 13 months, read at 7 years etc.) against which a homeschooled child can be measured or compared should the parents so wish. Home l What is PEB? l Contact us l About Assessments l National Curriculum l Application Procedure l FAQ l About Us l
Slide 8 Cerebellum H&E Slide. At low power, the cerebellum in distinguished by its three visible layers. The inner layer (blue arrow) is white matter on the inside compared to its "outer" spinal cord position. The outer layers are gray matter: granular layer (red arrow), molecular layer (green arrow), and Purkinje cell layer between those two layers. Bar = 1 mm Expanded View
When Bertha, the massive drill worming through the waterfront, came to a halt last December, speculation took a turn for the surreal. What stopped the world’s largest tunnel-boring machine just 1,000 feet into its 1.7-mile journey? A locomotive buried 60 feet below the surface for a century had blocked progress on the $4 billion Alaska Way Viaduct replacement project, suggested one historian. Bertha bit into a submarine, a steamship, suggested others. It looked to be the latest episode in a long-running series: Seattle, where progress and the past collide. Take, for example, just three years earlier, when crews digging near Paramount Theatre for another tunnel project—Sound Transit’s University Link Light Rail enterprise—exhumed an exquisitely preserved 115-year-old boxed sewer line, along with shoes, a beer bottle, a silver-plated spoon, and a ceramic cup. All were buried during the Denny Regrade, which ended in the early 1900s. Or 1992, when work on a $579 million sewage-treatment plant in Magnolia stopped after surveyors unearthed two middens—ancient trash heaps that included decorative beads, bones, and stone tools—dating back some 3,600 years. “People have lived in the Seattle area for thousands and thousands of years,” says Laura Phillips, archaeology collections manager at the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, which now possesses many of the above artifacts. “So these issues come up frequently.” In a city growing as fast as ours—The Seattle Times recently reported that developers opened more apartments here in 2013 than in any of the preceding 20 years—we may never know how much has been lost. Despite laws protecting objects of archaeological import, our means of preserving the past before a Starbucks is built on top of it are hardly fool proof. Methods range from the sophisticated (archaeologists insert long auger probes into the ground, and construction crews work around any significant findings) to the seemingly chaotic (a hard-hatted archaeologist watches for historic swag as the backhoe bucket claws at the earth). The method employed depends on a number of political and economic factors, says Phillips, who cut her teeth as an archaeological consultant for the private sector and has personally eyeballed many a backhoe job. “The archaeology that goes on here is a compromise. It’s mitigation. It’s ‘Well, we’re going to destroy this archaeological site to put in this tunnel, so what do we do to offset that?’ ” The state law protecting artifacts has only existed since 1975. Obviously major construction projects predate those protections, including the Alaskan Way Viaduct, which opened in 1953. “But really by then it wouldn’t have likely mattered,” says Scott Williams, an archaeologist with the Washington State Department of Transportation, which oversees the tunnel project. “Most of the [Native American] artifacts would have been lost when the city was originally formed” in the late 1800s, when settlers carted in sawdust and dirt—or fill—which covered the ancient tide flats. What does often emerge are the things people left behind after Seattle became a city, like those recovered next to the Paramount and via initial surveys—in 2010—in the leadup to the Alaskan Way tunnel endeavor. On a recent afternoon, Phillips stood before some of those objects in the basement of the Burke. She pointed to a metal wheel from a toy buggy, a horse comb, and a bottle that once contained dye for gray whiskers. The people who lived where the objects were found rarely show up in history books—prostitutes, longshoremen, immigrant laborers. And lately the things those people left behind have been overshadowed by the museum’s latest acquisition: the 20,000- to 60,000-year-old mammoth tusk found amid construction near South Lake Union in February. (Because it was a paleontological rather than archaeological find—and on private land—the developer who owns the site was under no obligation to report the fossil. The company could have chucked it in a Dumpster or used it for skeet-shooting practice, for all state law is concerned; it alerted the Burke out of a sense of civic responsibility.) Phillips had an idea of what blocked Bertha in December. Or rather she had an idea of what it wasn’t. “I had to go look and see how deep it was”: 60 feet down, inconceivably deep for human artifacts in that area. (Her paleontologist friends suggested a glacial boulder.) “So I didn’t think it was going to be a human object.” Then, there in the basement, before all those trinkets, she laughed—at herself, reminded of what had in fact stopped the giant drill. Crews eventually discovered a length of steel pipe left by contractors in 2002. “It really was human in the end.”
American Ebola Survivor A Minnesota doctor believes he may be the first non-African to survive ebola. In 1972, Tom Cairns spent time as a missionary doctor in Zaire and got sick,, with a high fever, vomiting and body aches. Ebola virus wouldn't get its name until four years later and cairns says that's when a test from the c-d-c showed he'd survived it. Cairns says his blood is currently stored in Atlanta to help fight the virus.
Language Learning Apps Números ordinales en inglés Reglas de los números ordignales en inglés. 1st the first 2nd the second 3rd the third 4th the fourth 5th the fifth 6th the sixth 7th the seventh 8th the eighth 9th the ninth 10th the tenth 11th the eleventh 12th the twelfth 13th the thirteenth 14th the fourteenth 15th the fifteenth 16th the sixteenth 17th the seventeenth 18th the eighteenth 19th the nineteenth 20th the twentieth 21st the twenty-first 22nd the twenty-second 23rd the twenty-third 24th the twenty-fourth 25th the twenty-fifth 26th the twenty-sixth 27th the twenty-seventh 28th the twenty-eighth 29th the twenty-ninth 30th the thirtieth 40th the fortieth 50th the fiftieth 60th the sixtieth 70th the seventieth 80th the eightieth 90th the ninetieth 100th the hundredth 101st the hundred and first 1000th the thousandth
earth Next post: Earth Day: a world of words Poetry quiz Previous Post: Poetry quiz: can you match these first lines to their poem titles? Wild West From cottage-garden to Wild West: Charlotte Brontë and the OED Charlotte Brontë is renowned around the world for her 1847 novel Jane Eyre. With an intelligent and impassioned heroine, a handsome and ruthless hero, and (spoiler alert) something unexpected in the attic, the book has captured the imagination of readers for generation after generation. Less widely known, but still much-loved by many readers, are her three other novels The Professor, Shirley, and Villette. With these books under her belt, it’s perhaps unsurprising that Charlotte Brontë had a way with words. Her writings currently appear as the earliest supporting evidence for 150 words and senses in the Oxford English Dictionary, from the unprogressive ‘men’s work’ to the surprising ‘Wild West’. Here are some of the most interesting… cottage-garden raised eyebrow panther-like men's work lightning-swiftnow now kitchen chair wild west
America: Still independent after all these years Self-reliance must be nurtured. Photo: National Park Service RENO, July 10, 2013—All societies reach an apex at some point; often defined by material wealth or military power. The United States was founded on neither. Rather, America is a nation based on the independence from obnoxious government. “That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States” followed a list of grievances that, together, made life in the colonies less fulfilling than it could have been. Adopted by the Continental Congress, Jefferson’s declaration was a creed against King George III, but it culminated the antagonism against the British Parliament, who enacted sundry cumbersome laws that were a nuisance to the colonists. The British government did not set out to oppress its people in North America. The Stamp Act, the Sugar Act, and the Tea Act were designed to streamline colonial governance and make things easier for British North America. After all, the frontier had to be protected, and that took revenue. British regulars were best suited to do the job, so Parliament merely had to raise money from Americans to fund their service. As we know from recent Fourth of July celebrations, the rest is history. SEE RELATED: PRISM and the NSA raise larger questions about the War on Terror That desire for independence from a patronizing government endured. In 1893, Frederick Jackson Turner propounded his “Frontier Thesis” to a group of historians in Chicago. His theory was that the frontier essentially defined Americanism. Independence, self-reliance, hard work, and prosperity were forged where man met nature. On the frontier, where land was free and vast, people had to work. They shed their old forms and assumed new American ones. In 1890 the U.S. government declared the frontier closed and conquered. Since then, many have feared that American independence has been at risk. A short example with which we might all be familiar. During an Independence-Day vacation out West, I came across some construction on a two-lane highway. Though no workers were on duty, presumably because of the holiday, a temporary signal moved the traffic. Small sorties of automobiles went one way on the lone open lane, then groups of cars heading the other direction went their way once the lane was clear. It all depended on the light functioning properly. It wasn’t. For 25 minutes I sat in a long line of cars, waiting for a red light to turn green so we could make our way safely down the highway. We sat and watched several iterations of cars come the other way, making it obvious that we could have been given a green light. SEE RELATED: House Democrats side with IRS, support whitewash Eventually, several of us drivers got out to inspect the traffic signal. The semi in the pole position had missed the sensor. He backed up and it reset the light. But for too long we waited, assuming that the system would take care of us. We had forgotten how to be self-reliant. Government naturally wants to do more. But when it does, the citizen does less. Over time, an independent people can lose the skills and the capacity to act independently. Turner wrote in 1920, We are at war that the history of the United States, rich with the record of high human purposes, and of faith in the destiny of the common man under freedom, filled with the promises of a better world, may not become the lost and tragic story of a futile dream. More than two centuries after the bold assertion of independence from their British overseers, and more than 100 years after the physical frontier disappeared in the United States, we are at war. It will not be military power that saves the United States, but the ability to remain independent, self-reliant, and pioneering. More from Rich Like Me blog comments powered by Disqus Rich Stowell Contact Rich Stowell Question of the Day Photo Galleries Popular Threads Powered by Disqus
Intermodal or Multimodal What's the difference between intermodal and multimodal? I've been reading a lot and it almost seems like the two are interchangable? Good question, Susan. Both multimodal and intermodal are methods of moving goods and products that use more than one method of transportation. For example: truck > ship > train. Intermodal freight means that to (container/pallet/cargo) requires individual documentation for each method of transport (or mode). Multimodal, on the other hand, only requires one set of documentation to get it from the origination point to the destination. A good example of intermodal transporation is a container of plastic widgets going from China to the United States. One party, most times the manufaturer, will arrange a truck to carry the widgets to the port. When they arrive at the port and are inspected, the trucking company passes responsibility of the goods on to the shipping company. The shipping company then moves the widgets to America, where they become the responsibility of another trucking or rail company. With multimodal transportation one company would be responsible for the widgets from door step to door step. This would most likely happen in the US when goods are made domestically and shipped to another part of the country by train, truck, or ship.
Encyclopedia of Trotskyism On-Line: Revolutionary History Ukrainian Marxism Dear Comrades, The foremost place in this discussion must belong to the Ukrainian revolutionary Marxists. We shall listen with the greatest attention to their voices. (Trotsky, The Ukrainian Question, 1939) The Ukrainian question is one of the most important national questions in Europe, and has assumed a growing significance in the current struggle in the USSR. The tragedy of the question, however, is that its importance is coupled with a constant refusal of a large number of Socialists to make even an attempt to understand it. To mention the Ukrainian question is commonly met with the raising of spectres of ‘Ukrainian Bourgeois Nationalism’ and ‘Nazi collaborators’. Sadly, such prejudices run deep, and have a tradition within Marxism as far back as Engels and Luxemburg. With the rise of Stalinism things have worsened to such a scale that it is at times difficult to get a rational and thoughtful discussion on the subject. The Ukrainian question, to quote Trotsky, is being placed on the “order of the day and this time with redoubled force”. It is therefore vital for Socialists to make a re-examination and to grasp its history and roots. In this sense Revolutionary History could make an important contribution. With this in mind I joined the Editorial Board with the aim of contributing to Volume 3 no.1 covering Stalinism and Communism in Eastern Europe. When I, with the support of a number of others, presented three articles by leading Ukrainian Marxists on the conflict in the Ukraine in the 1940s, unfortunately, the proposal was met with a response as outlined above from a section of the Board, most vocally the Spartacist League. A number of phantoms were raised against publishing the materials of the emigre Ukrainian Revolutionary Democratic Party (URDP) of the 1940s and 1950s, and despite the fact that no credible evidence was presented, their publication was blocked. Since then, seeing no scope to make a further contribution to the journal, I have not participated further. There were also threats made that if the materials were published the Spartacists would withdraw or cut their order. Either way this would cause serious financial problems, which I was not going to provoke. The controversy has, however, continued along another road with the same result. The slanders against the Ukrainian Marxist tradition have continued and been published in Volume 3, no.2, and more clearly in an official letter of the Spartacist League to be published. It is therefore a point of principle on the part of Revolutionary History that this reply be published, and the true history of the Ukraine and its revolutionary movement are made known to readers. As the allegations made are common misconceptions, the dispute, therefore has wider importance than a mere reply to the Spartacists. The allegations made are that the three articles were by “protagonists of a Fascistic Ukrainian nationalist group” and a number of quotations are presented to justify this. The URDP is itself accused of apologising for “Fascism in Poland” and crediting it with providing the organisational “nucleus of their own group”. To top that it was stated that the URDP had CIA connections, which the Workers Party (USA) on discovering broke off relations. Since the articles themselves cannot be published in the journal, I will state the facts as best I can. It is the oldest trick in the Stalinist book to label opponents, especially Socialists, as CIA-backed in an attempt to discredit them. There are, of course, CIA-backed groups, but for Socialists to repeat such slanders without the slightest evidence is to take a dangerous road. Not only was no evidence presented against the URDP, but all the evidence shows otherwise. Little is known amongst Marxists these days about the URDP. The group survived for only 20 years. Formed in the DP camps in Germany, its members were predominantly from the Soviet Ukraine and had not been members of the nationalist movement, the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists under Polish occupation. Formed in 1945 the URDP split in 1947 over “defence of the gains of October (1917), collectivisation, and the method of party building”. The left faction published the paper Vpered (Forward) until 1959. [1] In its short life they attempted to continue the Ukrainian Socialist tradition destroyed under Stalin. Whilst holding a theory of state capitalism, they stated in Vpered that: “We exclude now and forever the restoration of private property and private capitalism which is as unacceptable to the Soviet peoples as the restoration of feudalism would be for Western Europe.” [2] As most of the Ukrainian emigration swung to the right, identifying Socialism with Stalinism, Vpered continued to put forward revolutionary Socialist positions on the key questions of the period. In their paper they republished extensively materials of the revolutionary left in the Ukrainian language. This included writings of Trotsky, Shachtman, Rosdolsky, Cliff and Hal Draper. The URDP held friendly relations with a number of Socialist organisations, most notably the Fourth International, the Workers Party, the Socialist Review Group and the ILP. Both the journals Fourth International and New International published URDP materials. Ivan Majstrenko was invited, amongst others, to the 1950 congress of the International Secretariat of the F1 as the URDP representative, and is described neither by Mandel nor Lambert as some kind of Fascist. [3] In terms of CIA connections there is no evidence of any Socialist organisations breaking off relations. Up until the late 1950s, when Vpered ceased publication, it still carried the Labor Action address as its contact point in the USA. In one of the last issues published, Hal Draper, a leading Shachtmanite, can be found writing a special contribution to Vpered. The fact is that Ukrainian Marxists of the 1940s and 1950s had no CIA backing for one simple reason. The CIA was backing up the right wing leadership of the Ukrainian diaspora along with other governments to consolidate their grip on the emigre community. During the McCarthy years the right wing, with overt CIA support, had URDP supporters harassed, blacklisted and arrested. Vpered subscribers were threatened in order to weaken the paper. Isolated from the Ukrainian community, Vpered was forced to cease publication. The only backing Vpered got appears to be from the ILP, who helped print the paper. The group members later gave their support to the Socialist publications Dialoh and Meta, which appeared in the late 1970s. The other accusation being thrown at the Ukrainian Marxism of this period is that it was pro-Fascist. The Spartacists state that Vepered writers “apologised for Fascism in Poland” and supported the “Fascistic” Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) partisans then active in Ukraine. It is furthermore argued that the URDP saw their roots in such “Fascistic” movements. For so-called opponents of Stalinism this has a lot in common with their methodology. A number of quotations are made to justify this assertion, but again an examination of the materials put to the Editorial Board of Revolutionary History tells another story about both the URDP and its attitude to what are in fact practically two different revolutionary movements in Ukrainian history. Amongst the articles proposed was an article in Ukrainian from Vpered (May 1949) entitled Nationalism in a Subjugated Nation by Ivan Majstrenko. Now it has to be noted that no translation of the article was supplied, and all that appeared was an English summary from the same issue of Vpered. The article was an analysis of the Ukrainian nationalism from the pre-war OUN in West Ukraine to the later UPA partisans who existed from 1943 to 1956. In examining the OUN the summary states that: In the conditions of the struggle of this organisation against Polish occupation it was for some time, under Fascistic, at that time ‘admissible’, influences. But Fascism with its ideology of power and rule over others is not specific for the nature of a subjugated nation. Therefore the merit of this organisation was that it reared outside the boundaries of the USSR, cadres of underground fighters. Note that in the summary the word admissible is a quotation itself, either a bad translation, or is a quote from a rightist justifying the OUN position. But more importantly, it is not in Majstrenko’s article in Ukrainian, which translates as: Ukrainian nationalism initiated as a defensive progressive movement of an oppressed nation, but because the Ukraine was oppressed not by capitalist imperialism but by the degenerated Russian revolution, and because Ukrainian nationalism began its activity at a time when in Europe the reactionary nationalism of ruling nations (Italy, Germany, Spain, Denmark, Mosley) became fashionable, Ukrainian nationalism fell under its ideological influence. In this way Ukrainian nationalism of the 1930s borrowed an aggressiveness from western ruling nations which was not at all typical of itself ... During the war this ideology was proven completely bankrupt. It was smashed by all of humanity. [4] In this article Majstrenko at no time apologises for the OUN’s 1930s’ ideology. He is merely explaining it. URDP writers made clear their attitude to this movement. Majstrenko, writing in the New International, argues that: At any rate, up to the war there were two tendencies within Ukrainian nationalism under Poland: one standing on the platform of the reactionary nationalism of the master nation (Fascism) and seeking support from Nazi Germany, and the other standing on the platform of progressive nationalism of oppressed nations, and approaching the ideology of revolutionary Socialism. Boris Lewytskyj, another URDP writer, describes the OUN as being unable to “distinguish Russian imperialism from the revolution. It not only did not know, but even consciously assumed a counterrevolutionary position on all questions, programmatic, ideological, and political”. [5] The URDP at no time gave support to the rightist leadership of OUN, which they described as “reactionary”, and says that with the onset of Nazi occupation their “entire arsenal of ideals was proved to be worthless”. In the split that occurred between the left and right of OUN in 1940, the URDP identified with the left, which moved steadily to take on Socialist politics injected into it by the working class, in particular from the Soviet Ukraine. It is this process of transformation that was being described and has been so distorted into appearing as a justification for the rightist positions of the 1930s nationalists. The period of the unification of the Western Ukraine and the Soviet Ukraine under Nazi occupation saw the massive growth of the nationalist movement, bringing in many Soviet Ukrainian workers. The experience of Soviet reality saw a transformation of the West Ukrainian-based movement to the left with the emergence in 1942 of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA). In the article by Holobnychy, which was not published, he states: “Thus we see that nationalism no sooner encountered Soviet realities than it capitulated. Its place was taken by the new ideology of the construction of a true Socialist society, based on true popular, political democracy.” [6] In the statements and letter in Revolutionary History the UPA is accused of being “Fascistic” for the reason that during the war it waged an armed struggle against not only German occupation but Russian Stalinism. The UPA remains one of the most unknown revolutionary movements in Soviet history, deliberately portrayed by the Stalinists as collaborators, a misconception taken on by many Marxists. Now it has to be pointed out that I never at any time, nor did anyone else, propose publishing UPA material, but that of the analysis of the two Ukrainian Marxists of this movement. In terms of the UPA itself we need only quote from two of its publications. In the Position of the Ukrainian Liberation Movement it states that: “The Soviet order is not a Socialist order, since classes of exploited and exploiters exist in it. The workers of the USSR want neither capitalism nor Stalinist pseudo-Socialism. They aspire to a truly classless society, to a truly popular democracy.” In another UPA publication, Oborona Ukrainy (No.1, 1943), we can read: “Only in an independent Ukrainian state can the social gains of the October Revolution be deepened and strengthened.” Petro Poltava, a leader of this movement, stated clearly that a “return to capitalism in all respects would be a step backwards, a regression”. [7] These are clearly not the views of Fascists. It is clear from even a slight examination of the views of the URDP and of the nature of the movements in the Ukraine that they were writing about, the allegations brought against them merely repeat the Stalinist falsifications. William Cazenave and Alastair Green go further by attempting to discredit Ivan Majstrenko by insinuating that he held some kind of “Fascistic” views, taking as the evidence his statement: “Will Europe find herself the strength and wisdom to defend her right of primogeniture and her priority against semi-Asiatic Moscow?” This is taken from Majstrenko's pamphlet Bolshevist Bonapartism, which is an analysis of Stalinism outlining a theory of state capitalism [8], notably one of the first versions of this theory from a Marxist who participated in the revolution. On its own it could appear that Majstrenko is calling for the west to launch a war on the USSR, etc., as a whole. However the pamphlet is arguing clearly the opposite: “This was a formation of state capitalism, led by an anonymous society variable in its composition, but unalterable in its essence, called the USSR. And it is no more in the power of anybody to change such a state of things except through a new national revolution.” More clearly the editors state: “We are convinced that our enemy can never be defeated by the forces of bourgeois democracy.” The fact is that Majstrenko was not the first to describe Russia as “semi-Asiatic”. Both Marx and Engels did. Marx argued “there have been in reality but two powers on the continent of Europe – Russia and Absolutism, the Revolution and Democracy”. And again: “The bloody mire of Mongolian slavery, not the rude glory of the Norman epoch, forms the cradle of Muscovy, and modern Russia is but a metamorphosis of Muscovy.” [9] Majstrenko was applying positions held by many Marxists of pre-Stalinist Russia to Stalinist Russia: “Russia was always the land where Asiatic and European influences clashed”, the European being the revolutionary democracy with whose defeat “the victory of Stalinism signified for Russia the victory of Asiatic influences ... During 20 years of Stalinist rule Marxist teaching became an empty ritual and the Russian imperialist doctrine became predominant. It revived the spirit of Asiatic traditions, in particular unlimited absolutism.” [10] The fact is that neither the URDP’s politics nor Majstrenko’s have anything in common with ‘Fascism’, but everything in common with revolutionary Marxism. Majstrenko spent his life as a dedicated revolutionary, a member of the Ukrainian Communist Party (Borotbisty and Ukapisty) and later joined the CP Ukraine (Bolshevik) in the fusion. Throughout the Civil War he was a Red Army fighter against Denikin and the Poles. He was a Communist journalist in the Ukrainian Soviet Government, and was repressed as an oppositionist, spending the years 1936 to 1940 in the gulag. He came to the west via a German slave labour camp where he set about reorganising Ukrainian Marxism, the URDP. It is not a question of “distinguishing between a Russian Fascist from a Communist” but a Ukrainian revolutionary resisting his Russian chauvinist oppressors. Majstrenko is but one of a generation who survived the Stalinist terror in the Ukraine. They deserve recognition for maintaining Marxism, not vilification. Chris Ford Supporter of Republican Marxist Bulletin 1. Weta, Volume 2 no.1. 2. Fourth International, September-October 1951. 3. Documents of the Third Congress of the Fourth International. 4. Translation thanks to Marco Bocjun of Ukraine Today. 5. Boris Lewytskyj in Vypered, translated in Meta, Summer 1978. 6. Vsevelod Holubnychy, The Russian Underground, New International, April 1949. 7. Ibid. 8. A. Babenko (pseudonym), Bolshevist Bonapartism, Geneva 1948. 9. Bolshevist Bonapartism. 10. cf. Ian Cummins, Marx and National Movements. Updated by ETOL: 19.7.2003
rePost :: Solar salamanders have algae in their cells \| Not Exactly Rocket Science \| Discover Magazine Damn this actually tingled my spine, I need a symbiote, hehe. The spotted salamander isn’t the only animal to form partnerships with algae. The emerald green sea slug steals the genes and photosynthetic factories from a type of algae that it eats. Coral reefs are built upon a partnership between corals – a type of animal – and algae that provide them with energy. Many other animals, from sponges to worms have developed similar alliances. But the spotted salamander is the only back-boned animal (vertebrate) to have done so. Since Orr’s discovery, several scientists have teased apart the details of this relationship. With algae in their eggs, the salamanders are more likely to hatch, they do so earlier, and they’re bigger and more developed when they emerge. All of this depends on light – the algae need it to photosynthesise and provide nutrients and oxygen to the embryos. If the eggs are kept in darkness, they never accumulate algae. In return for their services, the algae feast upon the salmanaders’ waste; if they are presented with eggs that have no embryos inside them, they hardly grow. via Solar salamanders have algae in their cells \| Not Exactly Rocket Science \| Discover Magazine.
Take the 2-minute tour × In the following question, what is meant by linear probability density function? Is it a uniformly distributed variable or triangularly distributed? Thanks in advance. The kinetic energy of any object in motion is given by the $E(v)=\frac{1}{2}mv^2$, where $v$ is the velocity in m/s. Someone measures the speed of students walking along Symonds St. to the Engineering buildings, and notices that the speed can be described by a linear probability density function in the range 0-1m/s. (a) Write an equation for the probability distribution and sketch the probability density function. Make sure to label values on both axes. share\|improve this question 3 Answers 3 To me, it seems like it means the probability density, $\sigma(v)$, a function from the interval $[0,1]$ to the reals, is a linear function. So you simply have $\sigma=a v+b$ (linearity), $\int_{[0,1]}\sigma dv=1$ (real probability distribution), and $\sigma\ge 0$ (real probability distribution). You can use these conditions to eliminate one of $a$ or $b$ and put constraints on their magnitudes to ensure sigma is always positive. share\|improve this answer If the speed is random but constrained to 0-1 m/s, you have to guess what is meant. I'm guessing it is any distribution with linear shape, and of course area 1. It could go from 0 to 2, from 2 to 0, from 0.5 to 1.5, or simply be the uniform distribution from 1 to 1. In any case, it's got a Y-intercept (the pdf of speed 0) and a slope. If it has a non-zero pdf for speed 0, that means it's possible to see some students walking at a speed near zero, so they might take a long time to travel one meter. That leads me to suspect the distribution wanted is the one with intercept 0 and slope 2, but really it is not a well-worded question. share\|improve this answer In other words, the probability distribution is some linear function: $ax+b$. The condition that the total area under this line, between 0 and 1, is 1 (so that the total probability is 1), gives you: $a/2 + b = 1$ but without more information we can't constrain these variables further --- in other words, we've got two unknowns, $a$ and $b$, and only have one piece of information (that the total probability is 1). You might be expected to set $a = 0$, although there's no reason for that. – gj255 Apr 13 at 19:07 @gj255: What you would do is take your sample of n velocities and sort them to get an empirical distribution. Then see which $av+b$ line fits it best. – Mike Dunlavey Apr 14 at 0:49 In this case, linear refers to the axis for speed being linear (not exponential or logarithmic). A probability density function is described as the normal distribution of an event. See the wiki page. share\|improve this answer Thank you for the reply. Can you please clarify/explain how you know that the probability distribution is defined as the normal distribution? – Ganan Apr 13 at 4:44 @Ganan With the example above, it is unlikely that enough data points were collected to state that the probability density function is a normal distribution. It is likely that the distribution is a normal distribution since the speed of the walkers have a continuous range and that the average speed would be 0.5 m/s. Also, since the question did not specify the data was skewed, it is easier to assume the data has a normal distribution. – LDC3 Apr 13 at 5:00 Your Answer
Thursday, August 13, 2009 Sign the Petition: "Justice for Victims of Agent Orange". Dear Friends, Pls, visit Website and sign in it if you feel that you are on the side of the Vietnamese Victims of Agent Orange. Further, could you share this with your friends in order to demand Justice for the Victims. Thank you very much in anticipation of your good will. Don't let tears drop Agent orange and its effect Vietnam - Agent Orange Dioxin in Vietnam Dioxin, the toxic compound chemically known as 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin, or TCDD, is the most studied member of the dioxin category of chemical substances. Dioxin became publicly known after the Vietnam War due to its presence in Agent Orange, an herbicide used to defoliate the jungles of Southeast Asia. Use of Agent Orange was banned in the U.S. in 1970. Exposure to dioxin comes from breathing particles that enter the air or from eating foods contaminated with the compound. During the Vietnam War, soldiers were exposed to dioxin in the air, water and food; more than 90 percent of all dioxin exposure comes through diet. It has been reported that the equivalent of 600 kg of dioxin was spilled on Vietnam during the decade between 1961 and 1971. This number is four times greater than the original amount reported by the U.S. after the war. For decades, it has been known that dioxin was dangerous to the body, but it has not been until recent years that environmental and government groups have acknowledged the compound as a known carcinogen. Aside from causing cancer, dioxin has been linked to numerous other health problems, including diabetes, birth defects, learning disabilities, skin rashes, liver and reproductive system disorders and immune system abnormalities. The risk of these side effects is high in the population of Vietnam War veterans who were exposed to dioxin overseas, as well as populations of Vietnamese citizens who continue to be exposed through their ecosystem. Studies of Vietnam veterans exposed to dioxin show that their children have a higher risk of being born with spina bifida, a birth defect that occurs when the neural tube fails to close during gestation. This often leads to mental retardation, paralysis, bowel and bladder problems. The research linking dioxin in Vietnam to the incidence of spina bifida in veterans'' children is so strong that the U.S. government compensates veterans whose children are born with the birth defect. There is still a high rate of birth defects among children born in Vietnam today. Dioxin exposure in Vietnam also appears to increase risk of diabetes. Air Force troops whose responsibility it was to spray Agent Orange in Vietnam have been found to have higher dioxin levels than those not exposed to the Agent Orange. The troops with the higher dioxin levels were found to have a higher risk of diabetes than those with exposure levels similar to those of average Americans. Wednesday, August 12, 2009 Viet Nam to try its best to ensure justice for Agent Orange victims The war in Vietnam finished over 30 years but its wounds have never been healed yet, particularly the effects of the toxic chemical/dioxin sprayed by the U.S. Army. Recently, Vietnamese and foreign scientists have implemented studies in this issue. They have seen that effects of the Agent Orange/Dioxin heavily multi-face influenced on economic-social life, people’s health, and environment. Therefore, the requirements for resolving this issue are comprehensive, huge, urgent and can not be delayed. The Vietnamese State, social organizations, community have implemented some positive policies and acts to assist Agent Orange victims, cleaning environment. However, problems, which need to be resolved, are still huge and complicated. Vietnam, US discuss Agent Orange/dioxin issues Vietnam, US discuss Agent Orange/dioxin issues A conference of the Vietnamese and US Pressure Group on Agent Orange/dioxin was held in Da Nang city on April 21 to review new progress in dealing with the consequences of Agent Orange/dioxin used by the US army during the war in Vietnam. Present at the meeting were representatives of the Ford Foundation, UNICEF, the Office of the national steering board for overcoming the consequences of toxic chemicals used by the US during the Vietnam war (Office 33), the Vietnam Association for Victims of AO/dioxin (VAVA), Da Nang city, Quang Tri and Dong Nai provinces and a number of non-governmental organisations. The participants help strong opinions about an agreement on the group’s forthcoming action plan and presented various solutions to resolve all the problems that have arisen during the process of dealing with the effects of the AO/dioxin. Representatives of Office 33 delivered a comprehensive report on the AO/ dioxin issue in Vietnam and the progress of detoxification work being done at Da Nang and Bien Hoa airports. Da Nang city and Quang Tri and Dong Nai provinces reported on the effects of AO/dioxin in their localities and possible cooperation programmes in the future. According to Ton Nu Thi Ninh, who is the initiator and former co-chair of the Vietnam-US Pressure Group on AO/dioxin, the group is the most effective way of ensuring a concentrated approach by Vietnam and the US in the AO/dioxin matter. Dr. Charles Bailey, Director of the Ford Foundation’s Special Initiative on AO/dioxin, said that in the 1960s, US troops used AO and other defoliants to destroy about 10 percent of forests and trees in Vietnam’s central and southern regions. Chemicals containing dioxin are very harmful to people, he said, adding that even though the AO/dioxin was used by the US during the war, it remains an outstanding matter as exposure to AO/dioxin and chronic diseases are closely related to the increasing number of children being born with deformities. AO/dioxin victims in Vietnam include soldiers and civilians who were present in the areas that were sprayed with AO/dioxin in the 1060s, their descendants and those who live near the former demilitarized zones contaminated by the dioxin.
The History of the Ecosystem Concept Part 1. Nature in Equilibrium and then Not! The history of ecosystem ecology can be extended back to the mid 1800's to the time of Charles Darwin. According to Joel Hagen (An Entangled Bank, 1992) Darwin was faced with contradictory viewpoints about nature. On the one hand, he viewed life as "an entangled bank", full of life forms interacting, yet somehow the bank persisted, it was stable from all outward appearances. This was the deterministic Victorian viewpoint, of a clockwork universe, that despite all the interactions among the organisms, the basic big picture was one of order and persistence, nature operating as it was intended. The opposing idea was that nature was, as Alfred Lord Tennyson put it, "nature, red in tooth and claw"(In Memoriam, 1850: see verse LVI for quote). That is, organisms fought and competed with one another, with the victors leaving their offspring to the next generation, and with little or no compassion for either the winners or losers. But if such apparent chaos was going on within the seemingly placid bank, how could the entire community of organisms give off the appearance of stability? And how could it persist through time? Thus one of ecologies first dichotomies was set up: was the ecology controlled by forces acting up from smaller parts, i.e., a bottoms-up approach, or, were there factors at work imposing order on all the parts, factors not apparent from studying the individual organisms, i.e., a top-down approach? This set the intellectual framework upon which much later research was based. The move from a view that nature was stable and in equilibrium to a realization that, in fact, much of nature is always in dis-equilibrium, and constantly changing, set up intellectual tensions (Hagen, pg. 3) and pre-determined the research agenda for future generations of ecologists. The Influence of Herbert Spencer Shortly after the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species, a social philosopher in America, Herbert Spencer, began to write that the law of natural selection might act on many levels, from physiological to social. As Hagen (pg. 4) writes, Spencer saw a close parallel between the physiological body and the body politic. His famous 1860 essay on human society (The Social Organism) owed its origins to a mode of thought called organic analogy, which by use of analogies, attempted to show how higher level phenomena could be explained by referencing how individual organisms behaved. For example, organisms were born, grew and increased in complexity through differentiation, the latter factor distinguishing living from non-living things, i.e., crystals. Organisms also exhibited division of labor among the parts, and they showed part/whole relationships, that is, each part had its functions, while together all the parts imparted properties not easily predicted from the study of the individual parts themselves. This is the so-called emergent properties schema that Eugene Odum, one of this century's foremost ecologists promulgated in his influential textbook, Fundamentals of Ecology, which came out in the early 1950s. Institutions, even social ones, showed what Spencer considered similar modes of behavior - societies were born, they developed, and they often died. This way of thinking, by use of analogy, was very common in the 1800s. Whether correct or not (and most argue today that these analogies are fatally flawed) historians are quick to suggest that Spencer had an enormous influence on future ecologists, and the way they framed their theories, many of which had organic references and analogies in them. Thus was formed the first glimmerings of the conceptual framework in which ecology was to develop. Spencer's organic analogy became a framework for framing questions about ecology - interdependence of parts, part/whole relationships, development through time, and so on. And in this sense, some people think Spencer's ideas were crucial to how ecology itself developed over the next several decades, and in fact, through this century. As an example of some of his analogies, he compared telegraph lines to nerves, railroad systems to arteries, and money to red blood cells. But even he was smart enough to know that the analogy was not perfect. Wrote Spencer, in criticism of Plato and Hobbes: "Both thinkers assume that the organization of a society is comparable, not simply to the organization of a living body in general, but to the organization of the human body in particular. There is no warrant whatever for assuming this." Another problem, alluded to in Spencer's, The Social Organism, was the ambiguous relationship (as Hagen puts it, pg. 6) between competition and stability. Spencer felt that strong competition bred stability in society, by weeding out weak and poor companies and ideas, and this in turn, strengthened society as a whole. But of course, this did not turn out to be the case all the time. Unregulated competition sometimes led to economic strife (railroads, communications) and thus the analogy broke down. But its import for ecology held sway for many years, resurfacing in the middle to later decade of this century as the great debate between diversity and stability - did species diversity enhance stability, or reduce it, or did stability permit diversity? What was the immediate legacy of Spencer's writings? To see that we need to turn to one of the more influential papers published in ecology, by a natural historian named Stephen A. Forbes. The Legacy of the Little Mentioned Stephen A. Forbes Stephen Forbes was a broadly trained naturalist, one of the last in the tradition of Darwin and Huxley, Gray and Agassiz. In 1887, he published a classic paper entitled, "The Lake as a Microcosm", which is generally recognized as one of the first statements of the ecosystem concept. This was a very popular essay, and was reprinted in 1925, and has been continually read by subsequent generations of ecologists. What is interesting is that he grew up during the Civil War period, and his training was primarily in entomology, although he had strong interests in botany. After a period of scientific investigation, he was named as a professor at Illinois State Normal University in 1875, and finally made chair of zoology in 1884. At that time, he was given an honorary doctorate, since he had no college degrees up to that time. Forbes' contribution was that the lake had two primary characteristics: the concept of a community (organisms interacting with each other, predator-prey, etc.) and second, that the community had evolved to achieve the order seen at the whole lake level. Although the language today is antiquated, it represented the standard literary style for that period. It had strong influences on subsequent ecologists. For example, Forbes used such terms as "fearful slaughter", and a "scramble for food". Forbes also envisioned the lake as both mechanical and organic. It's parts worked together like a machine, but the parts were living organisms. Forbes analyzed stomach contents of bass, and knew what was prey, and what was predator, and that the survival of the bass was directly dependent on its food sources, which were highly varied. In addition, he appreciated the fact that these myriad interactions served to regulate populations within the lake so that the lake appeared in equilibrium. But equilibrium did not mean that all was peaceful, and that populations never increased, or decreased, but rather, that the panoply of species interactions, however chaotic they might have seemed, balanced one another, so that at the level of the lake, the ecosystem, it appeared that nature was in equilibrium. The choice of the term "community" probably came out of Forbes' thoughts that these organisms interacted much like a community of people, and the term became standard ecological terminology. So, in conclusion, Forbes anticipated some trends and analogies that would become standard place in future generations of ecologists, namely the interdependence of species on one another, the metaphor of the lake as machine, and the nature of stability and instability as a function of individual species interactions. But Forbes was careful not to view the lake as a superorganism, as a later ecologist would, but rather a system of interacting species that could be modeled as a whole. But the lake was not an organism unto itself. However, as we shall see, there was one ecologists who took the superorganism concept far beyond what Forbes envisioned. His name was Frederick Edward Clements. Frederick Edward Clements and the SuperOrganismal Concept Perhaps no single ecologist has had the lasting imprint of F.E. Clements. While his ideas regarding the community as an organism have been discredited this century, his impact on the development of ecology as a scientific discipline and his concentration on the process of succession have endured until this day. Clements was a skilled botanist, somewhat aloof and diffident, but of keen intellect. He saw a need for ecology to get away from simply describing communities (a lasting residue from the Victorian age and the 19th century model of the naturalist) to investigating them using the scientific method, much like physicists investigated their discipline, or chemists theirs. Clements wanted ecology to be a rigorous, experimental science, and his approach was to try to understand community processes by understanding the physiology of its constituent parts, the plants and animals: "...a rational field physiology." Much of the inspiration Clements and other budding ecologists had came in no small part from their location in the midwest of the United States. At that time, as the frontiers were closing in, there were still abundant natural communities to study, including forests, lakes, and prairies. Also, new institutions of higher learning were springing up, most notably the University of Chicago, which attracted some of the best and brightest minds in this newly emerging field. Here, the new scientists could form new departments and research groups, essentially starting de novo, and freed from the traditional trappings that constrained more conservative eastern universities. Thus, many of the early advances in ecology, and in particular, ecosystem ecology, first appeared in the midwestern universities and research institutions. But first a digression. One of the most influential of the early ecologists was the botanist Henry Chandler Cowles. Cowles did his graduate work at the University of Chicago, and then stayed there as a professor the rest of his career. He worked on succesional changes in plant communities on the sand dunes surrounding Lake Michigan. His research was characterized by careful observation, and speculative theorizing (Hagen pg. 17). He grouped plants into communities, such as perennial herbs, heath, coniferous forest, and deciduous forest, and then, importantly, arranged them into a developmental sequence as he thought occurred as dunes were colonized by plants. His inspiration for studying dunes came from the work of a Danish ecologist who studied dunes in Europe, Eugenius Warming. Both men shared a desire to work with plant communities, and to attribute their existence and persistence to the physiological characteristics of the plants contained therein. Cowles added one aspect that was perhaps underemphasized by Warming, and that was the strong influence of the underlying geology, a love of Cowles since his school days. He showed that the soil type could be influenced by the bedrock, and that the soil type often altered the type of community one might expect in an area. In addition, the research tradition of geology offered a scenario by which Cowles could conduct his investigations. As he wrote: "Such a study is to structural botany what dynamical geology is to structural geology. Just as modern geologists interpret the structure of the rocks by seeking to find how and under what conditions similar rocks are formed today, so ecologists seek to study those plant structures which are changing at the present time, and thus to throw light on the origin of plant structures themselves." We should make it clear that although Cowles used organic analogies throughout his writings, as did most other ecologists, he did not believe that the community was in and of itself, a living superorganism. One of the important contributions Cowles made to ecology was to show how important competition could be in structuring plant communities. He showed, for example, that pine forests were replaced by oak forests not because pines were poorly adapted to the underlying soils, but simply because the oaks were superior competitors on that site. These studies of Cowles became classic examples of the successional process, and had a strong influence on future ecologists also. Some fifty years later, Jerry Olson did contemporary studies on those same dunes, and his research won awards. Eugene Odum, the dean of 20th century ecologists, has said that Cowles' research had the same relative impact on ecology as did Mendel's research in genetics. Odum considered the study of succession central to understanding ecosystems. But Cowles never was able to outgrow his natural history upbringing, and aside from his successional studies, and some speculative theorizing, he never achieved a synthesis beyond the community level. That was left for subsequent generations. Now, back to F.E. Clements. The Philosophy of Clements Clements spent most of his active career life outside of traditional academia. After obtaining a post at the University of Nebraska (where he studied under Bessey, the great botanist), he was offered a position at the new established Carnegie Institute of Washington, where he spent the rest of his career. His diffident personality did not endear him to either his colleagues at Nebraska, or to his students, in contrast to that of Cowles, who was a much loved teacher. Because of this, Cowles left a long legacy of students who eventually became ecologists, whereas Clements did not. Clements' influence came from his keen intellect, and his writings, which were voluminous, and less so from his legacy as a great teacher. Clements extended and developed the concept of the community as an organism, using explicit organic analogies. He often referred to the community as a "complex organism" and succession was its life cycle (Hagen pg. 22). Clements, according to Hagen, did not mean to imply that communities were similar to higher organisms literally, but perhaps, more closely resembled the life cycles of protists and other smaller organisms. But Clements was not naive, and never intended that a community was the exact same thing as a living organism. But he grounded his analogy in physiology, and viewed the study of communities as essentially the study of physiological processes. His call to ecologists was to get out of the lab, and into the field. However, Clements was also a neo-Lamarckian, who thought that environmental cues to plants could be passed onto to future generations. This may sound heretical, but in fact, at the turn of the century, just when Mendel's laws were being rediscovered, it was not all that unusual. Of course those ideas were wrong, but it influenced his writings and persisted well past the point where most ecologists and biologists had dismissed Lamarckism in favor of Darwin's theory of natural selection. When he died in 1945, his Lamarckian ideas were totally out of favor in the scientific community. His lasting reputation was made with his studies of succession, beginning in his early book Research Methods in Ecology (1905), and culminating in his most important contribution, Plant Succession (1916). It immediately became a focus of attention in the ecological community, and even today scientists refer to it for introspect and historical purposes. Clements philosophy was simple, according to Hagen (pg. 25): "...plants invaded an area, they competed, they reacted to the physical environment, and they modified it. Each process could be understood in terms of simple stimulus-response mechanisms." Wrote Clements: "Competition is purely a physical process. With few actual struggle between competing plants never occurs. Competition arises from the reaction of one plant upon the physical factors about it and the effect of these modified factors upon its competitors." For example, water absorbed by one plant is not available to another plant, and light absorbed by a taller plant prevents a lower one from getting it. Clements built on these ideas to explain the successional process as one in which the results of competition change the species composition of an area, which then compete, and further change the community, until a final, climax stage is reached, in which those plants still remaining co-exist indefinitely in the absence of disturbance. "...a climax", wrote Clements "is permanent because of its entire harmony with a stable habitat. It will persist just as long as the climate remains unchanged, always providing that migration does not bring in a new dominant from another region." The idea of stable climaxes have proven the most controversial of all of Clements' statements. While later ecologists criticized the idea of a monoclimax in any one region, according to Hagen (pg. 27) they also failed to appreciate that Clements himself had some reservations about the stability of climax vegetation. He wrote "The most stable association is never in complete equilibrium." He knew, from his extensive field work, that communities changed with time, and that climaxes were not static entities, but shifted depending on the climate and other exogenous factors. What upset ecologists about Clements' views was his insistence that communities were co-evolved complexes, that given enough time, would re-appear in the landscape, as long as the climate was the same. His critics viewed the community not as a co-evolved collection of adapted species, but a random mixture of species which co-existed because of their similar physiological and ecological adaptations. The most foremost proponent of this individualistic concept was Henry A. Gleason, a botanist affiliated with the New York Botanical Garden. Attacks on the Clementsian Doctrine Gleason vehemently disagreed that communities represented co-evolved sets of species, and published several articles against the concept. He based his ideas on three premises: environmental factors vary in space and time, each plant species has its own tolerance of these factors, and plants tend to disperse their seeds randomly. Together, these all added up to the idea that communities were random collections of species that were able to tolerate each other and the environment, and thus, co-exist. This meant that communities had no set boundaries, or that communities changed en masse as one moved along an environmental gradient. Gleason even wrote that communities were "...merely abstractions of the ecologist's mind." It is interesting though, that in his two main articles, Gleason never directly mentioned Clements' work directly. And Clements, who held Gleason in low regard, never rebutted the attacks. But Gleason's ideas never took hold until after WWII, in part because other ecologists did not know much about Gleason, and were reluctant to side with an unknown, and partly because he was not at a university setting, which might have hurt his prestige with other academics. More importantly, Gleason's papers were theoretical constructs, and he never personally collected data to back up his claims. That rested with later ecologists, most notably John T. Curtis and Robert H. Whittaker, whose extensive studies of environmental gradients, labeled gradient analyses by the Curtis school at Wisconsin, finally confirmed much of what Gleason had postulated. But there were valid criticisms of Gleason's reasoning. For example, as Hagen (pg. 30) points out, the idea "...that communities are not organisms because they lack distinct boundaries is an obvious non sequitur. Humans and some other animals may have rather definite external boundaries, but many other types of organisms do not; this distinction was pointed out by organismal thinkers both before and after Gleason's day." Gleason's heavy dependence on randomness upset ecologists, because it seemed to preclude any possibility of general laws for succession, the question of which was still much in debate. The studies by Curtis and Whittaker clearly demonstrated that the transition between communities occurs without sharp lines of demarcation, clearly vindicating some of the ideas of Gleason. Whittaker's study of the community transitions in the Smokies (1956) is a classic, and still used by ecologists today, including me! Whittaker suggested that climaxes came in all sorts of types, and proposed the concept of the shifting climax, wherein late successional vegetation moves around in the landscape depending on the vagaries of the climate, soil, and weather. A true climax is a mosaic of vegetation stages. The Legacy of Clements Although many of Clements ideas did not survive him, such as his Lamarckian views, his insistence that succession was always linear and progressive (Watt, in 1947, wrote a classic paper on cyclic succession, wherein the vegetation goes from state A->B->C->D and then back again to state A. This contradicted Clements' view that once a climax was reached, it persisted). And Clements' mechanistic ideas for how plants succeeded each other was viewed by physiologists as hopelessly simplistic, and his thoughts on climaxes have been superceded by more sophisticated ones. But the enduring legacy of Clements is that he caused to ecologists to think about the "big picture", to integrate both abiotic and biotic factors in their analysis of community dynamics, and to begin to devise experimental methods to deal with community problems. His emphasis on process studies, rather than 19th century descriptive studies was perhaps his greatest contribution to ecology. References for Origins Part 1 Clements, Frederick E. 1905. Research Methods in Ecology. University Printing Co., Lincoln. Clements, Frederick E. 1916. Plant Succession: An Analysis of the Development of Vegetation. Carnegie Institution of Washington, Washington, DC. Cowles, Henry C. 1899. The ecological relations of the vegetation on the sand dunes of Lake Michigan. Botanical Gazette 27:95-117. See also pgs. 167-202, 281-308, 361-391. Forbes, Stephen A. 1925. The lake as a microcosm, Bulletin of the Illinois Natural History Survey 15:537-550 (originally published in 1887 in the Bull. Peoria Scientific Association). Gleason, Henry A. 1926. The individualistic concept of the plant association. Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club 53:7-26. Also see revised article with same title in American Midland Naturalist 21:92-110. Olson, Jerry S. 1958. Rates of succession and soil changes on southern Lake Michigan sand dunes. Botanical Gazette 119:125-170. This paper won the prestigious Mercer Award for young ecologists from the Ecological Society of America. Spencer, Herbert. 1860. The Social Organism, in his The Man Versus the State, edited by Donald MacRae (The Westminster Review, January 1860), Penguin Books, 1969.
As we begin to address global challenges such as climate change, peak oil and over-population it is becoming apparent that we must re-orientate our society towards lower energy availability. This means that in the future, we will need to live in a world where our resources are produced and accounted for much closer to home. We will need to begin to live within the long term carrying capacity of our landscapes. A prototype Carrying Capacity Dashboard has been developed to estimate the productive capacity of the Australian landscape at various scales: national, state and regional. The Dashboard allows you to test how many people the resources of a certain area may support as well as determining how various lifestyle choices can influence land-use requirements. You can assess options such as a population’s diet, agricultural techniques, energy usage and recycling practices to gain real-time results. This form of modelling can help determine optimal placement, size and configuration of future human settlement as well as promoting societal behaviour consistent with the limits imposed by the natural environment. The Carrying Capacity Dashboard is a prototype only and is currently being developed by Murray Lane as part of his PhD at Queensland University of Technology. We value your feedback on the Dashboard, and also your contribution to the Carrying Capacity Blog below. Global Models - Limits to Growth Carrying capacity assessment estimates the maximum number of people that an area of land can support. A satisfactory carrying capacity model would thus need to encapsulate sufficient aspects of land-usage that impinge on population maximums. This section looks at various carrying capacity assessment models and considers their scale of analysis as well as the insights that they have provided. Within carrying capacity literature, minor variations exist in the manner to best arrange the physical and sociological components of a carrying capacity model, but generally, they encapsulate similar fundamentals. For example, Fearnside[5] cites population, a particular area, environmental degradation plus a combination of technology and consumptive habits; House and Williams[6] propose resource production, environmental assimilation, infrastructure delivery and quality of life concerns; Thurow[7] profers production, consumption, egalitarianism and social discipline; while Hardin[8] reduces resources and lifestyle to a concept of cultural carrying capacity. Despite these differences, most authors define the limits to population by either their required inputs or subsequent outputs. Whether these inputs and outputs are culturally, technologically, economically or physically determined, they still form the basic determinants of carrying capacity. So, in essence, resources form the limiting factor on the input or supply side of the equation while environmental impacts form the opposing carrying capacity barrier on the output side. The population is wedged between these barriers but can alter the demands of each by collectively altering its behaviour. An assessment of current carrying capacity literature suggests that methodologies can be categorised into approaches that focus more or less on the various components of a basic carrying capacity model (Figure 11). These elements include global boundaries, local boundaries, resources, population and impacts. Ultimately global limits form the outermost boundary for humanity’s carrying capacity. However, this level of analysis may not be the most appropriate scale for measuring population carrying capacity. Many authors subscribe to more localised boundary delineation within which to define smaller populations. Figure 11. Carrying capacity modelling can be encapsulated in a simple input-output diagram. Resource inputs and impact outputs are positioned both within local and global boundaries as they can potentially occur at both scales. As Durham[10] points out, “[l]imits exist in both the resource and sink functions of the environment.” Carrying capacity and vertical farming I recently received a query from one of my architecture students who intended integrating vertical farming into their design proposition. He says: I've been looking at vertical farming and have been basing my calculations on this document ( which says that 930 square metres (10,000 square feet) will provide a 2000 calorie diet for 330 people. Does this seem realistic? The document referred to was a speculative proposal put forward by a New York architect, and the claims relating to the productivity of vertical farming were not referenced to any background documents to explain how such a small area might feed so many people. This was my response: There is certainly a big discrepancy between what this American author is saying and the calculations for Australia based on my Carrying Capacity Dashboard. They state that it is possible to feed a population 2000 kilojoules a day on what amounts to 28m2 (300 square feet) of hydroponic production while at the moment, in Southeast Queensland, according to the Dashboard modelling, it takes roughly about 1.1 hectares per person (with 100% irrigation) for 1746 kilojoules. That’s 28m2 versus 11,000m2: about a 40,000% difference! Localising the Dashboard How to apply Carrying Capacity Dashboard calculations to smaller areas... Modelling for the Carrying Capacity Dashboard is offered at three different geographic scales within the Australian context – national, state and regional. However, it is also possible to use this modelling to make estimates for even smaller areas. It is important to note, however, that if using the following procedures to model local area carrying capacities, the agricultural yield data will be reflective of the larger region rather than of the local area. In some cases local conditions may be very similar to the regional context, but this might not always be so. The following instructions apply to two potential approaches: firstly for those who have an area of land in mind and wish to know how many people it can support and secondly, for those wondering how much land would be required to support a certain number of people. Scenario 1: How many people can my local area support? 1. Open the Dashboard ( and choose the region in which your local area falls (ie. choose the state, then the region). For example, if you wished to test the carrying capacity of say, the Noosa Biosphere, then choose the South East Qld region. Global Models - Ecological Footprint Authors such as Meadows et al.[i] and Catton[ii] described global carrying capacity overshoot in the 1970s and 1980s in theoretical terms without the ability to adequately measure it. The problem they faced included the sheer size of the exercise on a global scale together with the complication of incalculable amounts of imports and exports of resources and environmental impacts flowing between regions. To combat this challenge, Mathis Wackernagel, and his thesis supervisor William Rees, developed an approach in the early 1990s known as Ecological Footprint analysis[iii] which converted human activity into land requirements with the aim of establishing its ecological impact.[iv] Ecological Footprint is an inversion of the carrying capacity approach. While carrying capacity assessment begins with a specific landscape and derives a population per area outcome, Ecological Footprint takes a population and estimates a land requirement per person result.[v] Accordingly, it first determines the demands of the population, either at a global or local scale and then calculates the amount of land that this set of lifestyle parameters would require. The land requirement however, could be drawn from anywhere on the planet,[vi] is consequently usually measured in global hectares, and illustrates the condition of ecological overshoot when exceeding the actual land available. Given the globalised nature of modern trade, proponents of this approach argue that Ecological Footprint analysis is thus an accurate representation of existing circumstances.[vii] Global Footprint Network’s online Footprint Calculator. The user takes on an avatar who inhabits a suburban scene which is progressively illustrated while lifestyle choices are made. Then, at the end of the process, the user is informed of their global footprint and the proportion of land-uses required such as land for food, shelter, mobility, goods and services. Carrying capacity by numbers The application of mathematics to the prediction of population dynamics has challenged demographers for at least two hundred years. Various proponents have developed formulae for both the calculation of population growth as well as the potential limits to such growth. While these formulae on their own have not always been able to accurately predict human carrying capacity limits, in many cases they have contributed to the development of more complex carrying capacity models.[i] As such, they have often been theoretic in nature, rather than having direct applicability to a particular landscape. One of the earliest known equations relating to population dynamics was Thomas Malthus’ exponential growth theory of 1798. According to Malthus,[ii] “[p]opulation, when unchecked, increases in a geometric ratio,” while its means of subsistence, namely its food supply, increases only in a linear or arithmetic manner. The exponential growth formula is relatively simple and can be given as; P(t) = Po ert, where P(t) is the population at a point in time, Po is the initial population, e is the base of natural logarithms (2.718...), r is the growth rate and t is time. This formula generates a j-shaped curve with population reaching to infinity (figure 1a). However, according to Malthus, this infinite growth is inevitably halted by the inability of food production to keep up with the population’s exponential expansion (figure 1b). Figure 1a. (left): Malthusian exponential growth curve showing how the population increases infinitely. Figure 1b. (right): Malthus’ exponential population growth curve limited by the linearly increasing food supply. The assumed carrying capacity is the point at which the population projection intersects with the food supply projection. The carrying capacity is assumed in this instance because Malthus did not refer to it as carrying capacity. The meaning of carrying capacity The first known use of the term carrying capacity occurred in 1845 in a report by the U.S. Secretary of State declaring that a new tax would differentiate between cargos transported on sailing- and steam-boats because of their differing carrying capacities.[i] While probably initially used just as two discrete words to best describe a ship’s maximum payload, the term carrying capacity subsequently gained its own unique meaning through increasingly frequent use. Firstly applied to just ships, then to other modes of transport such as trains, the term began to take on a broader meaning by the late 1800s. Sayre[ii] explains that eventually, “the term shed its connection to the levying of duties” and, “refers to the amount of X that Y was designed to carry.” Aims of the Carrying Capacity Dashboard In its broadest sense, research around the Carrying Capacity Dashboard aims to highlight how society’s understanding of constraints to the productive capacity of its resource base is vital to its long-term survival. A growing mainstream awareness in the importance of linking a population to the carrying capacity of its landscape has to date, largely been rhetorically rather than empirically tackled. For instance, while both the Redlands City[i] and Sunshine Coast Regional Councils[ii] have publicly committed to living within their carrying capacities, they don’t currently have the tools to determine the actual extent of these limits. This research aims to identify, examine and compare existing approaches to carrying capacity assessment and consider their relevance to future spatial and infrastructure planning. It raises the following questions: Which carrying capacity assessment models are best suited for determining future sustainable land-use and community infrastructure? What gaps in existing research need to be addressed? Is it possible to achieve a practical model for assessing regional human carrying capacity? This research aims to add practical application to what are currently well-intentioned but untested emerging societal aspirations concerning carrying capacity assessment. Basic questions such as, “How much land does a population require for its minimum resource requirements?” are currently not easily measurable. It is anticipated that the carrying capacity model developed through this research, can more accurately define the variables inherent in this question, and more clearly articulate possible outcomes. For example, the model might suggest that a certain region’s population may currently be within the carrying capacity of its landscape for one year of average production given existing consumption patterns, but perhaps it may be over-capacity if longer timeframes or different consumption patterns are applied. Carrying capacity assessment thus offers a dynamic tool for ascertaining population thresholds and potential future population distributions, as well as providing important guidelines for living within these physical limits. As such, it has the potential to influence urban and rural planning policy at all levels of government. It can also be useful for researchers and educators in highlighting system boundaries and physical limits to design proposals. Perhaps above all else, it can help individuals and local communities to more clearly define lifestyle changes necessary to ensure more resilient and sustainable societies in the future. A short history of the carrying capacity predicament There is evidence to suggest that the struggle to subsist at or below the earth’s biophysical carrying capacity has dictated the behaviour and size of the global population since our very earliest beginnings. In fact, carrying capacity constraints are most likely the leading driver of societal systemic change from hunter-gathering to swidden agriculture; and from cultivation and pastoralism to modern industrialised agriculture. As each phase of human development reached its natural productive limits, pressure to ever-increase the local and global population has led to successive cultural and technological revolutions. Despite a consistent expansion of human population, there have been periods of relative stability in which societies have managed to both assess the carrying capacity of their local environs, and also consciously maintain a population below its ecological limits. For example, the Australian aboriginal population of hunters and gatherers maintained a relatively stable population across the entire continent for millennia.[i] In a swidden agricultural system, the Maring people of Papua New Guinea developed an elegant and well documented[ii] system of carrying capacity assessment; and the agriculturally-orientated society of Tokugawan Japan[iii] also managed to maintain a reasonably stable population based on the carrying capacity of local regions. There are presumably many other historic precedents of populations intentionally living within carrying capacity-imposed limits but documented examples are few; and since global industrialisation has significantly expanded the resource-base, examples of self-sufficient societies living within their regional long term ecological capacity are arguably non-existent. The growth paradigm of the modern industrial era has meant that population expansion, along with its concomitant schema, economic expansion, has largely been viewed favourably, if not embraced wholeheartedly. is launched Welcome to Australia’s leading carrying capacity website, featuring the Carrying Capacity Dashboard prototype and Carrying Capacity Blog. Our aim is to raise awareness of the importance of carrying capacity assessment as a forward planning tool - to help establish a sustainable balance between people and their localised environment. Given the dependence of societal systems on biophysical health, it is vital that land-use planning initiatives have the ability to more clearly define potential future demands on the environment. Carrying capacity assessment offers a way to assess our resource needs and also determine how best to meet these needs. The Carrying Capacity Blog facilitates an ongoing public conversation around questions of population and sustainable land-use. It offers commentary on past, present and future trends in carrying capacity analysis; looking first at how carrying capacity can be assessed and then how it might be maintained. Topics include: • historical perspectives on the carrying capacity dilemma • insight into how the concept has developed • analysis of current global crises from a carrying capacity perspective and how these problems might be best faced • a survey of various existing carrying capacity models • a thorough description of the development of the Carrying Capacity Dashboard • an exploration of the wider societal implications for living within carrying capacity limits The Carrying Capacity Dashboard marks an important initial step towards the widespread adoption of carrying capacity assessment linking people to place. It is hoped that carrying capacity estimation tools like the Dashboard can be of use in a number of ways: • influencing urban and rural planning policy at all levels of government • assisting researchers and educators in highlighting system boundaries and physical limits to design proposals. Why we need to assess our carrying capacity There are clear signs that society is threatening the biophysical limits of our shared environment and that the size, distribution and behaviour of the population is to blame. The seven billion-strong global human throng is exerting such pressure on our existing societal and environmental systems as to suggest a re-evaluation of existing approaches to the way in which land and resources are managed and to the very structures that allow these problems to escalate. We need to fundamentally reshape our land-use planning practices to align with the biophysical constraints of the landscape. To this end, we need the tools to quantify these constraints, analyse them collectively, and then make predictions about their behaviour to inform planning decisions. This practice defines the process of carrying capacity assessment. The question of global overpopulation has challenged the world’s sociologists since Thomas Malthus raised the prospect over 200 years ago. Malthus [i] argued that while human population potentially grows exponentially, the resources required for human survival remain relatively finite. To date, society has largely managed to produce the resources necessary to feed, house and clothe the majority of the earth’s inhabitants, though in vastly differing degrees of comfort, and Malthusian sceptics[ii] argue that his predictions of over-population have not eventuated because advanced technology and the use of high-energy fossil fuels have allowed for a significantly expanded resource-base. However, this mode of industrialised production and consumption has proven costly, with world-wide environmental degradation, resource depletion and social inequities escalating, and an ever-increasing global population serving to magnify the problem.
WRGB Search Results Fact v Fiction: The dangers of Deet ALBANY -- Lisa Douglas is the mother of two young boys. As a new parent she has some concerns about using insect repellent on her kids. "I'd just be afraid that it would get on their hands and they'd put it in their mouth it doesn't seem natural," she says. Many repellents contain Deet. It's a chemical that can help fight off mosquitos and ticks, preventing Lime Disease, and West Nile Virus. But, the New York State Department of Health warns, that the chemical can pose a risk if it's not used correctly. For Mom's like Lisa, keeping young kids away from bug sprays with Deet, is a good idea. "Avoid kids under 2 months old. At that age their skin absorbs the drug more and you can get into some real problems," says Dr. John Janikas, Director of Emergency medicine Samaritan Hospital. When Deet gets absorbed into the skin of a child under two months, it can not only cause irritation and trouble breaking, but in some cases it can cause seizures. "Maybe around 12 I'd feel safe about using it and everything when their immune system is up and they've been around more products," says Douglas. But Doctors say parents don't need to keep it away from all kids. "2 months to twelve years old, you can be a bit more liberal. Typically try and do some skin coverage with clothing," says Janikas. A good rule of thumb when you're applying insect repellent to your skin is never spray your clothing, only exposed skin areas. Also if you want to spray your face, instead spray your hand first then dab it on. This way it doesn't get in your eyes. Applying more insect repellent will not offer better protection. "You don't have to do multiple layers once it covers your skin it's going to really take effect," says Janikas. Also, using an insect repellant with more Deet in it, will not give you better protection. "Higher percentage doesn't necessarily mean that it's a better stronger product. What it means is that it will protect you against bites for a longer period of time," says Bryon Backenson, Research Scientist New York State Dept. of Health. If you choose to steer clear of products containing Deet, there are other products on the market. "There are products with an ingredient called picaridin, an ingredient called IR-45-45, most people know that as 'Avon Skin so soft,'" says Backenson. While Deet is the best option at protection from ticks, bottom line, use sparingly. Because when it's used in excess it can be toxic.
History and Research: St John's Abbey Gate This elaborate 15th century gatehouse is all that remains standing of the Benedictine abbey of St John the Baptist that stood outside the walled town of Colchester. The extent of the abbey is still defined by the much-repaired precinct wall, and the gatehouse stands at the centre of the northern boundary. An outside vies of St john's Abbey Gate Flintwork panels adorn the elaborate north front of the gate The abbey was founded in 1095 by Eudo Dapifer, William the Conqueror’s High Steward and Constable of Colchester Castle. From its inception the abbey made a major contribution to the development of medieval Colchester and became a wealthy and privileged house, despite losing part of its buildings to fire in 1133. In the late 14th and early 15th centuries, perhaps as a result of the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381, the abbey strengthened its defences and the gatehouse was added as part of this revamping around 1400. St John’s was one of a handful of abbeys that refused to surrender to Henry VIII’s Commissioners during the Dissolution, succumbing only after the execution of the abbot for treason. The property was eventually acquired by the Lucas family who converted some of the abbey buildings into a house. It remained their family seat until the mid-17th century, but it suffered considerable damage as a Royalist stronghold during the siege of Colchester in 1648. The gatehouse itself was stormed by Parliamentary troops and their artillery damaged the vaulted roof and destroyed part of the upper storey. The site was used to house Dutch prisoners in the 1660s, after which the remaining abbey buildings appear to have been demolished; there are no references to occupation after the mid-18th century. The two-storey gatehouse with its battlemented roof would have made a powerful statement about the strength of the abbey. It has turrets at each corner – higher on the north front – with large pinnacles. The north front is the most richly decorated, with flintwork panels and ornamented niches for statues. The gatehouse is principally built of flint and brick with limestone dressings, though Roman and medieval brick has been used at the back of the building. It consists of a gate hall and a porter’s lodge. There is a pedestrian gate alongside the main carriage entrance. Both carriageway and pedestrian access have ribbed stone vaulting springing from moulded corbels carved with human heads and lions. A doorway in the east wall gives access to the porter’s lodge, which is now roofless. A doorway in the west wall once led into a now-destroyed adjacent building; a blocked door in the south-west turret once connected this building with the upper room of the gatehouse. The lower part of the structure is mostly original, including the elaborate vaulting. The upper chamber, northern facade and turrets were heavily restored in the mid-19th century, but are believed to be faithful copies of the original work. Round, J H 1901. 'The Early Charters of St John's Abbey, Colchester', English Historical Review, 16 (45), 721–30 Portico: Researching English Heritage Sites
Kids Games And Toys How to Build a self Propelled Toy Car Sam E. Jones's image for: "How to Build a self Propelled Toy Car" Image by: Building a self-propelled toy car is actually a very easy thing to do and is also a project a father and son can do together when the son is still pretty young. Also, it’s a project that has a virtually unlimited number of ways in which it can be done, though means of propelling the car remain the same. In essence what you do is build or obtain a very light box that is anywhere from a couple of inches to about a foot in length, add wheels and a hook on the front inside part of the box, and rubber band for providing the power and an axle for connecting the wheels and for wrapping the rubber band around. The box doesn’t have to actually be a whole box, you can use just a piece of corrugated cardboard if you choose, just so long as it is strong enough to withstand the pressure of the rubber band when you’ve got it pulled taut. Also, it’s best if you have one of those wide band rubber bands, because they work the best with little toy cars. At any rate, you connect the pieces and parts together in such a way as to have a box with wheels on it, and a rubber band running from the front inside of the box or piece of cardboard, to the back axle. This way, when you press down on the car and push it backwards, the rubber band is forced to wrap around the back axle. By holding the back wheels firm with your hand while holding the car and repeatedly pushing it backwards on the floor or table, you build up more and more tension in the rubber band. Then, when you stop, set the car on the table or floor and let go, the car lurches ahead as the rubber band unwinds itself on the back axle. To make such a car, you can use an old cigar or tissue box for the main body, wood wheels from a tinker toy set, and or an old broken toy car and the very round and smooth kind of chop-sticks for the axles, though you will likely want to cut them so be sure you won’t need them anymore. For the hook you can use a picture hanger type or if you don’t have a hook you can always just staple one end of the rubber band to the inside front end of the box. As for the rubber band on the other end, where it attaches you’ll need to glue it with something strong so it doesn’t slip when the tension first starts, rubber glue works okay, but super glue is best. Also, so that your car doesn’t spin out when you first let go, you might try putting smaller rubber bands on them so that you’ll be able to get some traction on slippery surfaces. More about this author: Sam E. Jones From Around the Web
2547 words • 12~20 min read Eleven Marine Organisms that would make Amazing Aquaman Villains Physalia physalis. Public domain. The Posse of Pelagic Mollusks. More often than not, super-villains are their own rivals, with factions arising faster than DC heroes can return from the dead. Often these factions form around shared goals, mutual foes, limited resources. The Posse of Pelagic Mollusks is united by a common prey. They all hunt and consume Man-o-Wars, though each for different reasons. The Blanket Octopus (genus Tremoctopus) is a beautiful creature. She soars through warm pelagic seas on wings formed by a massive membrane that stretches between her tentacles. This cloak makes here appear even larger than her already impressive 2 meter length, casting an intimidating shadow across the sea floor. The female blanket octopus is truly one of the monarchs of the molluscan phylum. Blanket Octopus - photo by Steve Hamedl Blanket Octopus – photo by Steve Hamedl The male, is, however, a much less impressive creature. Weighing in at 10,000 times less massive than his mate (no, ten thousand is not a typo), this diminutive suitor is barely 2.5 centimeters long and almost entirely defenseless. Life is short for these tiny males. The male possesses a hectocotylus, a specialized tentacle that stockpiles sperm. During intercourse, the hectocotylus detaches, crawls up into the female’s mantle, and inseminates her eggs. The now hectocotylus-less male promptly dies. The male blanket octopus may be tiny, but he makes up for his size with cunning. Like the shepherd fish, blanket octopuses are immune to the painful sting of the Man-o-War. Rather than using the siphonophore for protection, the crafty male blanket octopus (and, to a lesser extant, juvenile females) yanks the poisonous tentacles from the cnidarian and carries them around like a whip. Blue Angel. Photo by Taro Taylor - http://www.flickr.com/people/tjt195/ Blue Angel. Photo by Taro Taylor – http://www.flickr.com/people/tjt195/ The Blue Angel (Glaucus atlanticus) shares the blanket octopus’s love of co-opted Man-o-War stings, but takes a rather different approach. The overriding theme of the Posse of Pelagic Mollusks (other that that they all prey on Man-o-War in one way or another) is that these are among some on the most beautiful creatures in the ocean. The blue angel is no exception. This luminous blue nudibranch glides across the sea’s surface using an air sac. Curiously, the air sac is located on its ventral surface, so the blue angel swims upside down. Blue angels prey on pelagic jelly-like organisms, including our old friend the man-o-war. Like many nudibranchs, blue angels can incorporate cnidarian stinging cells into their mantle. Once they feast, they gain the primary defense of their favored prey. But man-o-war isn’t their only prey. Blue angels also attack by-the-wind sailors, blue buttons, and even the final member of this pelagic posse: Janthia janthia, the purple snail. Janthia janthia. Public Domain. Janthia janthia. Public Domain. Purple snails are a pelagic gastropod that floats by producing rafts made of chitinous bubbles. Like the others, they feed on man-o-wars but don’t have any exceptional skills to exploit the man-o-wars stinging cells, rather J. janthia (oh, hey, we’ve already got a classic Marvel alter-ego alliteration) just eats. Which makes the purple snail the third, slightly goofy member of the posse. Of course, Janthia has to watch out for the devious blue angel, who just might eat the purple snail if given the chance. Iceworm seeks brutal revenge on the offshore industry. In the deep Gulf of Mexico, when the water temperature is barely above freezing and the pressure could crush a man like a styrofoam cup, there exists crystalline solids composed of water and natural gas. Primarily composed of methane, these gas hydrates will burn when brought to the surface and lit, creating delightful balls of flame that, thanks to their crystalline structure, can be held in the hand (you see where I’m going with here, right?). Methane hydrates tend to co occur with natural gas deposits and may become an exploitable energy source in the near future. There’s just one problem: gas hydrates are home to the bizarre iceworm (Hesiocaeca methanicola), a polychaete that burrows through these frozen mounds of energy and may graze upon the chemosynthetic bacteria found there. So when offshore industries begin exploiting Iceworm’s home, he has no choice but to lash out against the human race. Now Aquaman must find a way to protect the ice worm’s home while simultaneously protecting the human race from these rampaging, though morally justified, villains. And, just for fun, let’s say Iceworm (the villain, not the organism) can hurl flaming balls of gas hydrate. Because science. Also, this is what an iceworm looks like: Iceworm. Photo by Dr. Charles Fisher. Greenland Shark might give Squirrel Girl a run for most inexplicably effective. The Greenland shark is one of the world’s largest sharks, equaled only by the harmless whale shark and the over-hyped great white. As the most northerly shark, it is capable of surviving in extreme cold. Of course, the creature that the Inuit named Eqalussuaq is so slow that its entire family is collectively called “sleeper sharks”. It is short, thick, and round with tiny eyes, tiny fins, and tiny gill slits — none of which are attributes commonly associated with particularly effective hunters. They are, quite possibly, the world’s slowest swimming shark. So how can this lethargic interloper possibly pose a threat to Aquaman, let alone the human race? Two words: Polar Bear. According to notable shark biologist David Shiffman, Greenland sharks have been caught with entire polar bears in their gut. Not only does this mean that molasses lightning can take out one of the fiercest land mammals but it is immune to Aquaman’s most dangerous attack: The Polar Punt. Also, the Greenland shark has recently be spotted roaming as far south as the Gulf of Mexico, a curious development which hints at a climate change derived motivation to give this comically unshark-like shark villain a compelling origin story. There are times when you need comic relief from your villains. For those times, the Sarcastic Fringehead. This fish is aggressive, territorial, and pretty darn lethal (if you’re a smaller fish). Fringy can hold his own if he needs to, but he really shines during the inevitable bad-guy-versus-bad-guy comic moment. The fish is called a Sarcastic Fringehead. Watch! Well, what did you think it would look like? The Brotherhood of Benthic Mollusks. It is simply not sufficient to have one terrible trio of murderous mollusks for Aquaman to square off against, we clearly need two. Mollusks are among the most diverse phyla in the ocean, dwarfed only by arthropods and polycheates (and maybe nematodes) so it’s no surprise they make up a significant portion of this list and hey, on the bright side, this is the first of the “” that feature not one, but two whole vertebrates. Just for you, chordate lovers. But before we get to them, you’re going to have to confront three more malicious molluscan mobsters. Blue Ringed Octopus: Like many octopodes, the Blue Ring Octopus is packed with chromatophores. These special pigment-bearing cells allow the octopus to camouflage itself, disappear into the background, and avoid detection. But when they are discovered, the blue ringed octopus rapidly changes from a demure coral pattern to a bright yellow and blue polka dotted affair. Why become so visible when threatened? The deadly leader of the brotherhood of benthic mollusks is filled to the proverbial gills with potent neurotoxin. Its venom can kill a human. Fortunately, the blue ringed octopus is a dignified villain, happy to go about its villainy unmolested. It is happy to go about the reef, preying on hapless crabs and other arthropods, whose shells are powerless against the octopus’s powerful beak and paralyzing venom. Those bright blue rings are a warning to all marine predators and super heroes to stay away. Cone Snail: If the blue ringed octopus is bright and flashy to warning enemies away, the cone snail is deceptively attractive. It may look harmless, even lovely, and many an unwary beach comber has plucked this delicately pattern shell from the sea floor, only to encounter the viscous creature within. This globally distributed genus uses a needle-like radula to inject its victims with a powerful paralytic agent. Its prey is usually polychaetes and other mollusks, but the most poisonous can be fatal to humans and Atlanteans alike. Geoduck: No, it’s not a rock-shaped duck (or for that matter a duck-shaped rock). The geoduck (pronounced GOOEY-duck) is a clam. A delicious clam. It has no special powers, but don’t tell that to the students of Evergreen State College or you’ll have to face off against the fightin’ Geoducks. Is this the greatest mascot in the US? Evergreen States Geoduck. Is this the greatest mascot in the US? Evergreen State’s Geoduck. http://www.evergreen.edu/athletics/geoduck.htm Faster than lightening? Ever so frightening! You knew this was coming. After nearly a year of making list of ridiculous marine organisms, after covering everything from spoonworms to radioactive fungi, this was inevitable. It is time to talk about dolphins. Of all the lists I’ve made so far, this is clearly the most appropriate one to feature Tursiops truncatus, the common bottlenose. Let’s review: 1. Dolphins are pretty smart. Don’t believe the hype, they’ve got a solid brain behind that melon and they know how to use it. 2. Dolphins have distinct names for each other. This makes it easier for evil dolphins to maintain an alter ego. 3. Dolphins are brutal. There’s no two ways about it, they can be as violent as they want to be. 4. Dolphins can see the future. That’s why they’ re always screaming. 5. They are already embedded in our society. We brought them on land, fell in love with them, and did that whole trapped them in tiny tanks and forced them to perform for us. Yeesh, is there any wonder why they occasionally just drag swimmers out to sea? Dolphins have the cunning, the social structure, and the motivation to become the ocean’s most terrifying super villain. Don’t let their smiles fool you, they are plotting our destruction. Hey, if Gorilla Grodd can rise up against us, why not Tursiops Trodd? You have no idea how hard I fought not to call it a kingdom. Taxonomic correctness trumps a good pun, every time. Connect with SFS • Recent Popular Articles Shark of Darkness: Wrath of Submarine is a fake documentary The Trouble with Teacup Pigs My research and I were the victims of a conservative media attack About Southern Fried Science Mermaids: The New Evidence is a Fake Documentary Wailing about whaling - the 2014 International Whaling Commission meeting
HB Collection Awards - Super Duper Digital Books - SAVE eGIFT Certificate FREE Stuff Occupational Therapy Super Duper Jobs Win $50 What is the population sample size? The WABC® standardization sample includes a total of 1,200 children between the ages 2;6 and 7;11. The sample closely approximates the U.S. Census 2000 data. What are the age levels for children that the WABC® tests? The WABC® contains two age-level tests. Level 1 assesses knowledge and use of basic concepts for ages 2;6 to 5;11. Level 2 assesses knowledge and use of basic concepts for ages 5;0 to 7;11. Children from the ages of 5;0 to 5;11 may take both levels. How long does it take to administer the WABC®? Each level of the WABC® takes about 10-15 minutes to administer. For children ages 5;0 to 5;11 taking both levels allow approximately 20-30 minutes. How did you choose the basic concept words tested in the WABC®? Licensed and practicing preschool teachers(285) across different regions of the United States were asked to rate a list of concepts in terms of their importance and relevance to academic success. A total of 238 questionnaires were returned. The results of this questionnaire, words obtained from the major basic concept assessments available today, and a pilot study were instrumental in determining the basic concept words chosen for the WABC®. Did you compare the WABC® to another basic concepts test? Yes. A concurrent validity study was conducted in which the results of the WABC® were compared to the results of the Boehm Test of Basic Concepts-3 Preschool (Boehm-3 Preschool) and Boehm Test of Basic Concepts-3 (Boehm-3). The results indicated significant correlations between the Boehm-3 tests and the WABC®. Why is it important to assess basic concepts in children? Basic concepts are the building blocks that children need to follow directions, engage in classroom routines, and provide descriptions of the world around them. They are fundamental for performing everyday tasks such as reading, writing, speaking, and math. Knowledge of these concepts is directly related to academic achievement. How is the WABC® different from other tests of basic concepts? The WABC® differs from other basic concept tests in many ways. First, the WABC® evaluates the receptive and expressive use of basic concepts. WABC® presents the concepts in opposite (big/small) and/or related pairs (half/whole), rather than single, unrelated concepts. Second, the test is in an interactive storybook format giving the examiner the opportunity to test the child in a more natural setting. There is test no easel. Instead, the WABC® embeds concept pairs or related words in colorfully illustrated scenes of a storybook. Third, the WABC® kit contains two age-level tests for evaluating the understanding and use of basic concepts. Level 1 - A Day at the Zoo is for the preschool child from 2;6 to 5;11 years. Level 2 - A Day at the Park is for children in kindergarten and the early elementary grades from 5;0 to 7;11. How can I use the results of the WABC® to identify areas of weakness and write IEP goals? The results of testing for both Level 1 and Level 2 can be summarized on the WABC® inventory form. This form categorizes the basic concepts into seven semantic categories: Color/Shape, Weight/Volume, Distance/Speed/Time, Quantity/Completeness, Location/Direction/Condition/Quality, Sensation/Emotion/Evaluation. You may transfer the testing results to this form in order to assist you in writing IEP goals and explaining the results of the test to parents. Can I preview the WABC® test prior to purchasing it? Yes. Have the supervisor of your district, school, or speech department fax your request on company/school letterhead (1-800-978-7379), and we will send you a review copy. You may also email the request to Customer Help at customerhelp@superduperinc.com, or contact Customer Help at 1-800-277-8737. Where can I go to see forms for the test? Click below to view forms online. Do you offer training for the WABC® test? Yes. Click here for more information. Can I purchase the components of the WABC® kit separately? Yes. What is a WABC® Response Analyzer? The WABC® Qualitative Response Analyzer lets you enter the data from a child’s record form(s) and will automatically generate a summary of concepts that the child identifies correctly.The Response Analyzer will not calculate normative data (standard scores, etc.). They produce qualitative reports to help you establish intervention goals. Click here to go to the WABC® Response Analyzer.
Section Menu Active Shooter and Hostage Situationsalertphone The U.T.C. Police Department trains consistently for Critical Incidents and other Emergency Situations. We feel that equipping you with this information is vital, should an incident ever occur. This document provides guidance to faculty, staff, students and visitor who may be caught in an active shooting or a hostage situation—the police response to these situations is different. An “active shooter” is a person or persons who appear to be actively killing or attempting to kill people in a single location. These situations have happened in schools, shopping malls, businesses, streets and other public venues. These situations are dynamic in nature and require immediate action by law enforcement personnel to stop the shooter. A hostage situation is one in which a person(s) takes control over another person(s), is demanding some type of action and not allowing the person(s) being held to leave. The hostage taker is not actively killing or injuring people. The hostage taker is holding people against their will. Police will respond and attempt to communicate with the hostage taker(s). Some Guidelines for Responding to Active Shooter How one responds at an active shooter situation will be determined by the specific circumstances of the encounter. If you find yourself involved in an active shooter situation, try to remain calm and use the following guidelines as a strategy for survival. If an active shooter is outside your building: • Proceed to a room that can be locked or barricaded • Lock all doors and windows, turn out the lights and stay away from and lower than the windows. Barricade the door if you can not lock it. • Dial 9-1-1 and advise the dispatcher of what is taking place and your location. Remain on the line to give the dispatcher any further information that may be needed • Remain in the room until the police or a campus administrator gives the “all clear.” Be sure it is the police or a campus administrator who is giving the “all clear” and not the shooter attempting to gain entry into the room If an active shooter is inside the building with you: • If the room can be locked, lock it and stay away from the door • If the room cannot be locked, determine if there is a nearby room that you could safely get to that can be locked. Consider barricading the door if you can not lock it. • Follow the procedures listed above under “If an active shooter is outside your building” If an active shooter enters your office or classroom: • Dial 9-1-1 on your office phone or cell phone if possible • If it is possible to talk, give shooter’s location and description • If it is not safe to speak, just leave the line open so the dispatcher can hear what is taking place • If possible, attempt to negotiate with the shooter • Attempting to overpower the shooter with force should be considered as the last resort after all other options have been exhausted • If the shooter leaves the area, attempt to lock the door or barricade the door or proceed to a safe location If you are able to and decide to flee an active shooting situation: • Have a route of escape in mind • Leave everything behind except your cell phone (do not worry about purses or book bags – those will only slow you down. • Keep your hands visible and follow the instructions of the police. You must remember, the police may not have an accurate description of the shooter(s), so for everyone’s safety, you may be detained by the police • Do not stop to assist wounded victims or attempt to move them. Do tell the police where these victims are located What you should expect from responding law enforcement to an active shooter: • Police are trained to proceed as quickly as possible to the sound of the gunfire • Their purpose is to stop the shooter(s) • Officers may be in plainclothes, patrol uniforms or SWAT Uniforms armed with long rifles, shotguns and handguns • Also be aware that the first responding police officers will not stop to assist injured people. Others will follow to treat the injured. First responding officers are trained to proceed as quickly as possible to the gunfire and to stop the shooter(s). Keep in mind that once you are in a safe location, the entire scene is a crime scene. The police usually will not let anyone leave until the situation is completely under control. Police may ask for your statement of what you heard and observed. Please cooperate with the police. Here is a link to a video that summarizes these points. This video is produced by Ready Houston with support from U.S. Department of Homeland Security. HSlogoreadyhouston Some Guidelines for Responding to a Hostage Situation How one responds in a hostage situation will be determined by the specific circumstances of the encounter. If you find yourself involved in such a situation, try to remain calm. It is generally recommended that you follow directions of the hostage taker The police response to this situation is different than an active shooter. The police will not proceed immediately into the situation but will surround the area and attempt to set up negotiations with the hostage taker. A hostage situation could last for hours or days. The ultimate goal is for the hostage taker to release all hostages and peacefully surrender to the police. If the hostage taker begins to kill or injure people or if the negotiators believe the hostage taker is about to start killing or injuring people, police will respond as they do to an active shooter situation. The police will likely respond immediately to stop the shooter.

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